Ash Wednesday Reflection

By Susan Bates

“Nanna, what is Ash Wednesday?” queries a small voice from the back seat.   I am blessed with opportunities to share Christianity by composing 1-minute elevator speeches for grandchildren.  Our Wesleyan quadrilateral suggests four ways to reflect on our faith:  scripture, experience, reason and tradition.  A good structure for quick lesson plans!  Inquisitive young ones have laser-like focus, but move on to the next thing quickly so we might leave more than a single aspect of answers to later sessions. 

Lent, a season of reflection, repentance and sacrifice, begins with a full stop tradition. We give up something that symbolically or substantively keeps us from God.  We remember Genesis 3:19 “for dust you are and to dust you shall return” and observe an ancient mourning ritual, marking ourselves out to others as Christians.   One year two wiggly Cub Scouts and I were left to tidy up the sanctuary while the congregation exited to a sparse Ash Wednesday supper.  After clearing pews and aisles, we came to the large leftover bowl of ashes and oil. We practiced donning ancient mourning while talking about times when we are sad, and how it can help to share with others.  Happily, their mothers and most of the adults were supportive when we soberly arrived in the kitchen with an empty bowl and dirty faces.

The sadness of smeared ashes might not yet resonate with little ones still playing cheerfully by decorating themselves with food, stickers and Band-aids.  However, they do experience loss no matter how hard we try to protect them from sadness and fill their days only with joy.  We do all have to give up beloved people and possessions, habits and beliefs as we move on in life.  Faith, reason and our Methodist traditions can help us through tough times now and as we age. 

 So, with 36 seconds left for questions and hopefully follow-up lessons through more years: “Ash Wednesday is the day we think about, and say goodbye to, things and thoughts and feelings we need to leave behind.  We need more space for the good days ahead.  You will need time for new friends, new games, new sports.  For example, we were all so excited about your baby teeth; they were so cute and you learned how to eat with them!  But now you will have to sadly say goodbye, to make room for the new bigger teeth growing into their places.  Both won’t fit.”

Psalm 51: 1-3, 10

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgression.  Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

St. John member Susan Bates is a Certified Lay Servant..

Lenten Reflection: With God’s help, Act

By Betty Hertz

As I approached Lent in 2021, I searched for ways to understand the season better and become more intentional in observing it. Of course, God had a plan. First, Pastor Andy asked me to lead the Ash Wednesday service, so on Feb. 17, 2021, at 23 degrees, I joined Pastors Andy and Autumn as we did the outdoor service with St. John members in their warm cars. In preparing for the service, I learned that Lent is more than "giving up" something. Saint Francis of Assisi's words came to mind: “It is in the giving that we receive.” I adapted this to read, “It is in the giving up that we receive space to let more in.” So, in 2021 I gave up being silent about my faith and started sharing reflections with you.

 Lent is a time for inward holiness through self-examination and reflection. While the word repentance may seem too intense or scary, viewing Lent as a time for course correction is helpful. It is a time to take an inventory of my spiritual life, recognize the need to change, and with God's help, act. The three questions I asked last year are good reflections for me this year.

• What are the things I am doing that put a wedge between God and myself?

• What are the things I'm engaging in that bring my soul and heart closer to God?

• And who is God calling me to be?

 Need some ideas of how to observe Lent this year? Your Stephen Ministry Team suggests:

• Publicly wear a cross

• Participate in activities like the 20 Day Reconciliation Challenge or Miles with Missionaries

• Take an online course through BeADisciple.Com

• Join one of St. John’s study groups

• Have daily intentional conversations with God         

• Be more intentional in your Bible study or join a Bible study

• Read an inspirational book

• Use a devotional book like Upper Room or Jesus Calling or online devotionals

• Attend a church of a different denomination

This Lent, I am taking an online course, "The 'I Am' Statements of Jesus," found in the Book of John and participating in the 20 Day Reconciliation Challenge.

Observing the Lenten season opens us to new life-giving practices as we walk with Jesus, and  the new ways become part of our lives beyond Easter.

God of Silence,

As you invite us into this season of Lent,

Help us hear your call to pause.

Give us rest. Give us newness. Give us paths to simplicity.

You know how we try and try

                        And still fall short of our expectations.

Replace our shortcomings with faith to follow your way.

Create in us clean hearts, O God.

And put a new and right spirit within us. Amen.

(Adapted from Alaska Conference Weekly Prayer)

 Betty Hertz is a longtime member of St John UMC, a Stephen Minister and a member of SPRC. When not doing volunteer work, she is playing with her three goofy dogs.

Advent Blog Part 4: Incarnate

If you missed the first writings of this series, please start with part 1 , part 2 and part 3.

By Pastor Emily Carroll

Matthew 1:24-25

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

 Luke 1:28-29

And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

 I took a religion seminar my senior year of college. I remember sitting in the class next to my friend Grace (the one other practicing Christian in the class) as my professor talked about the possibility that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had been married. The idea was completely foreign to me. Completely. It was never something I had even considered as a possibility. Why question it? Why ask? Our scriptures don’t indicate such an arrangement. What’s the point?

 Perhaps you’ve had some of those questions as we’ve explored alternative circumstances of Mary’s pregnancy over the last three weeks. Why question the virgin birth? Our scriptures are clear, so what’s the point? It is ironic, I think, that so much of our theology has been, is, and will be hotly debated by Christians across time and space. The nature of faith as assent to rational truths vs. conviction of the heart, salvation, the roles of faith and works, discourse over the exact nature of the trinity, and more has filled book after book with ponderings on what exactly it means that Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Christ, took human form in Jesus. Why not the virgin birth too?

 And honestly, that space of the unknown – the debatable, yes – but ultimately the unknown, the mystery, is where my soul has come to rest in this season of Advent. A virgin birth, after all, would epitomize the mystery, highlight the gift of the Christ in a way that no human experience of procreation could approach.

 So, what if the miracle of Christmas is in the virginity of Mary after all? That God would come and choose her to carry a baby both fully divine and fully human? That God would consent to be a parent, with all the love and fear and sleepless nights that it entails? Sometimes it seems like we skip over this small detail, name it as part of the telling of the Christmas story, but not stop to ponder what deep good news it too imparts, not just for Mary – but for us.

 Friends, we live in an incarnational world. Humanity is joined with divinity. As my friend Evan Hill described it, “all of humanity, even at its most mundane, even in its suffering, is shot-through with divine life.” The scandal of Christmas is that God would take on flesh, real live human flesh and all the messiness that goes with that. That God would walk among us, bring the divine to earth, permeate our world and our lives with the sacred; Emmanuel, God-with-us. And as Evan finishes, “Our work is to embrace it.”

 Praise be to God who incarnates our world. Praise be to God who walks among us. Amen.

Advent Blog Part 3: Gossip Deserved

If you missed the first blogs in this series, please start with part 1 and part 2.

By Pastor Emily Carroll

Matthew 1:22-23

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.”

Luke 1:38

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”

 I don’t want to write this one. Putting the words on the page for some reason seems like a transgression in line with the one I’m about to propose happened. Is that because by talking about it we realize our own susceptibility to it? Like if I pretend these things don’t happen, then maybe it’ll never happen to me? But of course, the fastest way to sinning is pretending you are above it. The fact that this blog seems harder to write than my last one tells you something about our expectations of men and women. It doesn’t surprise us to hear that a man raped a woman (even though it should). But what if Mary chose adultery?

That’s right. What if our pure, innocent, small, virgin Mary was not so virgin at all, but rather more experienced than we care to admit? What if Mary chose sexual engagement with a man (other than Joseph), and her growing belly is indeed proof of her imprudence? What if her claim to virginity is a cover for her more nefarious actions of the night?

Though this thought might make your head whirl, it’s one that says something powerful about our God. Mary’s Magnificant all the sudden seems more personal, what with God “looking with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” What if she deserved that lowliness, and still, “The Mighty One did great things for [her]?” God’s mercy takes on new meaning when it’s clear that she really, really, REALLY didn’t deserve to carry the Christ-child; the totality of God’s forgiveness more evident when Jesus is born, not without sin, but despite it.

Because that’s the beauty of Christmas, isn’t it? That God would know us, that God would embrace that which makes us human and in doing so give us access to the sacred. That God would take on human flesh, not so we can be perfect, but so we can be us. That the heartbeat of God would thump-thump, thump-thump inside a woman who cheated on her fiancé, so she would know that even her biggest sins are not too big for God’s redeeming love. The beating of the heart and the kicks of Jesus’ feet reminders that sin cannot stop love ... that still love grows, more powerful and more beautiful than you ever thought possible.

Maybe the scandal of Christmas is that God can redeem even the gossip that is deserved. By naming our susceptibility to sin, we also name our capacity to be redeemed. That all of us can find ourselves within Mary’s story, not a story that’s perfect, but a story that’s real. That all of us carry sin so great we don’t think it can be uttered, and that God comes defiantly and confidently proclaiming The Christ in us regardless.

Praise be to God who doesn’t give up on us. Praise be to God who knows our sin and still declares love wins. Amen.

Advent Blog Part 2: Standing By

If you missed part 1 of this series, please start here

By Pastor Emily Carroll

TW: Sexual violence

Matthew 1:20-21

But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you (genealogy reference) are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Luke 1:34-35

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

I visited Rome during a comparative religions class in my undergraduate studies. We walked through church after church and witnessed the decades of history and theology literally built on top of one another. One thing I noticed repeatedly was the veneration of Mary and her depiction in artwork as angelic almost: pure, white, beautiful skin, young, with a halo of light around her. It seemed like with each passing century, Mary became more removed from the rawness of childbirth in a stable, more removed from the messiness of humanity, more removed from us. As conversation of her virginity predominated, her humanity diminished.

But what if Mary’s humanity is actually paramount to understanding the good news of Jesus.

I’m going to go too far in my midrash here, but I can’t help but wonder, what if Mary and Joseph didn’t have sex prior to marriage. What if Mary became pregnant, not by divine conception, not by Joseph, but by someone else. Should the thought astound you, just for a minute consider the prevalence of sexual violence in our society today. One out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.[1] One out of every six. That statistic should make you cry. And there is no reason to believe women weren’t taken advantage of in Biblical times either. Read Judges 19 for a story of a woman who lived over 3000 years ago that will break your heart still today.

So, what if Mary, a young woman who lived in Nazareth, didn’t have consensual sex prior to marriage, but instead was raped? What if she became pregnant, not by her own agency, but in a violent transgression of her humanity? What if Jesus’ conception wasn’t divine, but instead a product of horrifying sin?

What would it mean for Emmanuel, God-with-us, to be firmly planted within those who find themselves victims of such abuse? What would it mean for Love to Come Down and lift up those who find themselves not only physically hurt, but also socially shunned for the presumptions laid upon their growing bellies and un-wed bodies? What would it mean that “just when Joseph had resolved [to dismiss her quietly], an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She will bear a son, and you will adopt him and name him Jesus.” What would it mean if Mary’s plea to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” was her cry for help, to which the angel responded mercifully, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

 Maybe the scandal of Christmas is that even at our most broken, God’s love reigns. Maybe the miracle of love is that Joseph believed Mary and his faithfulness brought her some healing. Maybe the gift of Jesus is that God intimately knows the incapacitating hurt we carry, so much so that God came to a woman in her raw vulnerability and proclaimed in that moment that she would carry Emmanuel, God-with-us, to bring redemption for her and for all of creation.  

 Praise be to God who knows our brokenness and brings healing. Praise be to God whose compassion knows no boundaries. Amen.

[1] Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. (2021, December 7). Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.