Ash Wednesday (February 17th) marks the beginning of a Lenten journey when we remember Jesus’ ministry, his ability to heal and care for humanity, and at the same time, his passion, death and his glorious resurrection. In a “typical” year it might seem too soon to even talk about Easter on Ash Wednesday. However, I don’t know if that’s the case for 2021.
We have been in a sort of Ash Wednesday and Lenten journey for so long already. We have been on a journey in which we have witnessed pain, suffering and even death. More and more people dying due to COVID-19, political upheaval in the nation, racism, discrimination, violence, injustice, poverty and many other issues seem endless. We yearn for that Easter moment.
Before Easter happened two millennia ago there was suffering, pain, anguish, uncertainty, fear and death. Although pain and suffering are not God’s desire for us, they are an inevitable reality in this human life both then and now.
We say or hear on Ash Wednesday the remarkable phrase: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” This year it can be an invitation for us to talk and grieve with our community about how awfully painful these days are. We are invited to do so, however, while keeping the other real fact in mind: Those words are said and heard on a day in which we also know that, even in the midst of suffering and death, Easter is also our reality.
May our Ash Wednesday proclamation and celebration this year be a glimpse of realistic hope that will help us to face together these excruciating and painful times. We know that Easter will come. Though tomorrow is uncertain, we do know that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
...our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
— Amanda Gorman, in “The Hill We Climb”
I was riven by Amanda Gorman's fiercely resolute poem for the inauguration, drawn not only by the images of light, but the way she lays out what the light demands of us. Where can we find light, she asks, among all the shade of events recent and distant? Look around, look inside. Strive, not for the perfect union, but "forge a union with purpose." Look not at "what stands between us/but what stands before us".
She demands we see ourselves, see each other, as aflame, always alight, always light. If you wish, she whispers, you can be all flame.
Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us, and within us.
Shine the light of hope into our despondency;
Shine the light of truth into our world, and into our minds;
Shine the light of peace into places of division and conflict;
Shine the light of new possibilities into our stuckness;
Shine the light of joy and laughter into our boredom;
Shine the light of faith and trust into our fears and anxiety;
Shine the light of your presence into our loneliness;
Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us, and within us.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Among the hard things that have fallen out of this pandemical sheltering-in-place is the loss of ability to confidently and definitively plan into the future. So many spaces in our calendars are now neither full nor empty, just scratched with cancellations, and there are no future appointments down the weeks to replace them. A trip to see family? A dentist appointment? Annual check-up? Weekly coffee with a friend? Even a “safe” trip to Costco? We feel stuck. Since we are used to planning for events, appointments, and possibilities, we feel stuck many days!
It might help to get some perspective by reflecting on how many people over the course of history and even in the present day are proscribed in their planning. Who could plan if they are incarcerated or under house arrest or in hiding? Who could plan when they set out, not knowing where they were going or who was taking them? Who can plan if their city is being bombed and occupied by hostile forces days after day? We have enjoyed lives that have afforded us so much latitude, so many choices. And we still have many of them- it’s just that the circumference of our choices has narrowed, and some days we chafe under the restrictions.
Perspective can help us be grateful for the relative backdrop of safety and freedom we live with, even as we daily navigate the unpredictability of the pandemic.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Any new year is a natural time for reflection and resolutions, and in 2021 there is a collective longing for an end to divisiveness, disorder and disease. We deeply desire to live faithfully and fruitfully, to love God more dearly and follow our king Jesus more nearly day by day.
Perhaps, like me, you have found your life rhythms largely interrupted by the pandemic, protests, fires, friends who are ill or dying, lockdowns, elections and other existential distresses. It has been a challenge to continually recalibrate, all while trying to live a with-God life. Do you really want a with-God life, and how badly do you want it? How are you arranging your days so that the natural outcome of how you spend your time and energy results in your becoming the person that God intends you to be? Dallas Willard says, “If you want to live a life in conversation with God you will have to arrange for it.” Jean Nevill asks, “Will my life be a testament of devotion, like Thomas Kelly’s life and work, or a testament of distraction?”
Our spiritual lives are not about perfection—but about the orientation of our hearts and minds, the posture we take before the God of love. We have an opportunity every day to wake up and practice again to view all of life through the filter of the Gospels, the Beatitudes and through a commitment to peace and justice for all. Practice the presence of God—be silent and listen as you begin your day. Develop a rule of life, a road map for how you will live your with-God life each day. Prepare for interruptions. They will always be with us. And trust the Spirit to work in you what is good and pleasing to God.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Below is the prayer one of my pastor colleagues shared with our Covenant anti-racist clergy cohort group this morning as part of the devotional. It is by Nadia Bolz-Weber, an author and Lutheran pastor. She expresses her longing for God to intervene in the agony and corruption of our world (and our hearts and minds). Can you pray this along with the rest of us who are clinging to the Spirit with hope for full restoration in Christ alone?
God,
You once tore open the heavens and descended as a dove upon Jesus and a dirty river full of repentant people.
I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but now would be a good time to tear open the heavens and send down that dove again.
Send your Holy Spirit to stir up repentance in your people:
Who would rather double down than admit we were wrong
Who fill with pride at being one of the few who “know the real truth”
Who only manage to point to others and never ourselves, (and are maybe a tiny bit grateful for the obvious, overt racism, violence and xenophobia of others since it conveniently takes the spotlight off of our own)
I pray that you send your Holy Spirit comfort your people:
Who are grieving our dead.
Whose rightful rage might be corroding the edges of our hearts – (because those hearts are still needed elsewhere)
Who have had to break up with abusers or draw boundaries with unstable people in the past and know in our bodies how ugly this all gets
Who have joyous news they feel they cannot share
Who are trying (and failing) to still love those who voted differently than themselves
Who literally or figuratively find themselves (yet again) sweeping up the detritus of others’ racism, violence, and ignorance
Send down that dove, Lord, but help us look to the needs of our neighbor and not to the escape hatch of heaven to find her.
Amen.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Epiphany
We know the word: a moment of piercing awareness, the sudden jolt of understanding. Imagine, then, that moment stretched out over a period of time. This is the season of Epiphany, a season celebrating the revelation of the Savior, the light of the world.
Epiphany begins on January 6 and is marked by several events and themes in the life of Jesus: the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the wedding feast at Cana. He is the worshiped King of kings, the dearly loved Son of God and the miracle-working Lord of the feast. As we journey through Epiphany, which leads up to Lent, we catch sight of the uniqueness of Christ. This is no mere prophet or teacher—this is the Son of God, the Messiah!
There is an unmistakable missional bent to Epiphany. Jesus, the light of the world, calls us to let our light shine before others (Mt 5:14-16). Drawn by the light of his star, the Magi came and signaled the universal scope of Jesus' mission, where the nations of the world come to worship the King of kings. Epiphany calls us to live God's mission, announcing the good news of Christ's arrival to every culture, and to those who live across the street, bearing the light of Jesus to the nations and to those who share a home with us.
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people... the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Titus 2:11-13
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
A liturgy for the end of one year and beginning of another:
O God of the night,
We come to you holding every loss, fear and anxiety of the season. The night has felt too long. Help us to remember how it held our grief. Help us to honor every tear, every wail of the night, knowing what we've lost is worthy of grieving. Thank you for not rushing into the light, but growing and arriving with a sacred slowness. That we would be able to bring our full selves into the light as we have been known by the dark.
... these final hours of darkness can feel like the longest wait. Sustain us, God. Allow us to look toward the morning while being fully present in the fatigue of now, giving our souled bodies what they need in order to set and heal. And when we wake, let us be patient with our joy—that we would not empty it of all grieving, but find it only magnified as we hold the tension of a story formed in the dark and the light.
(@blackliturgies)
As we sit in this first day of 2021, as faithful people of God in stories that are mixed with joys and sorrows, praises and protests and pleas, please deepen our hope.
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering "it will be happier."
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Image: "The Flight Into Egypt" by Henry Ossawa Tanner.
"Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home."
— G.K. Chesterton
First Coming
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
-- Madeleine L'Engle
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
“No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied he sends away empty. Before Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught; they have no right, no hope; they are judged. …
“Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness. …
“And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly … God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”
“I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose, he needs men [and women] who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all times of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.”
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Martha then said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." John 11:21
"Jesus, if you had been here..."
This has undoubtedly been a year filled with grief that has left us crying out to Jesus, "If you had been here." Like Martha, we have had far to much pain to be polite with God so instead we must be honest with God.
Jesus, if you had been in a Louisville apartment just minutes past midnight on March 13th, a young woman named Breonna would never have been murdered in her sleep. Jesus, if you had run with Ahmaud on February 23rd the way so many did in the wake of his lynching, he would still be alive. Jesus, if you had been in the decision rooms of our government as a deadly pandemic was beginning then perhaps 281,000 of our loved ones would still be here. Jesus, if you had been there for those eight minutes and forty six seconds. Selah.
Now imagine Jesus weeping with us, and weeping with you as you lament your own personal losses. Jesus is personally affected by our grief, and still powerfully anointed over the grave. This Advent, we weep with Jesus and await his resurrection and life in this earth.
(@adventseason)
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation