Lenten Reflection

Photos by Susan Bates

 By Susan Bates

Cool wind swept through the hushed gathering as edges of the encircling dark desert began to glow with new light at our Easter sunrise service at an Army camp in the Middle East. Hosanna! I thought about how the women approaching Jesus’ tomb must have felt – surprisingly cold. Were they prepared for that morning, with heavy cloaks? Were they at all ready for what was to come? Are we prepared to exit what seems like a 2-year pandemic Lent with political polarization and sharpened demands to end climate destruction, health inequities, and social injustices? As Pastor Emily reminded us on Palm Sunday, remembering God in our past can guide us towards our future.

 Jewish writer Abraham Riesman suggests looking to Job for a way to rebuild from disaster. The “Great Deceiver” Satan used a bet with God to cause Job to be tempted to renounce his faith. Job lost everything in his personal life-pandemic. His health, livelihood, reputation and all his possessions were ruined. His children all died. Well-meaning friends urged Job through many chapters to go along with their opinions of events. They encouraged him (Job 11: 13-15) to confess to an unknown, supposed sin: “If you make your mind resolute and spread your palms to Him, if you throw out the sin in your hands and don’t let injustice dwell in your tents, then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be secure and not fear.” Spin doctors with fake facts, they worked hard to socially influence Job (for his own good) towards lying to God.

 But Job stood firm. He repeatedly asserted his innocence. Agreeing with God’s assertations of His omnipotent nature, Job acknowledged he was only “dust” with which God could do whatever he wished. Opinions of who is most deserving of what and other judgments of men count relatively less when we realize it is really all up to God. Job exhibited complete faith. God won his bet. Riesman posits Job’s restoration to even better than his former status was due to his honesty, and that honesty is our best path out of our current world pandemic with its exposure of so many societal inequities.

 All powerful God, grant us just a bit of the patience of Job. Thank you for the space of Lent to reflect on what we must sacrifice to be honest about our past, and to move forward with just rebuilding in our future. Prepare us for what comes next with the strength to believe in your miraculous love and forgiveness. May we open hearts, open minds and open doors to others with the gentle kindness of honesty.

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

Lenten Reflection

By Susan Bates

Hebrews 12: 1-2. “So then let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne.”

These favorite verses have shone with different lights of meaning to me over the years. As a marathon-running young adult they told me to run straight, fast and true. I was so impatient to get on with life! Further into adulthood I searched for guidance about endurance, how to juggle work, family, community obligations and my personal well-being. Now as a senior, contemplating a return to Zumba and yoga at the YMCA (anything to get back into better shape), I seek inspiration to just lift one foot after the other.

Are not all Bible stories important in a similar way? They present situations essential to individual, family and societal life. They point to universal instances of “the human condition.” Across millenia of time, on a planet brimming with different languages and diverse cultures, we grapple repeatedly with these same subjects and seek divine guidance. Different characters represent various sides to the stories. I chuckle (silently since kindness counts) at arguments over which English language translation of the Bible is the one most “correct” because this is such gross misdirection. Unless God really did create humans just to make Her laugh? I believe She relishes diversity and the rainbow of different viewpoints. She built a house with many rooms and a body with many parts.

We loved Pastor Andy’s sermon about Judges 13-16 and the Israelites’ unjust leader, Samson. His rages and excesses were unsustainable “excess baggage” to his people, and the Philistines served the Lord by removing him. At our house we have our own Delilah, an 8-year-old granddaughter, so we explore this Bible story. I tell her a meaning of her name can be “Freedom Fighter,” as in the eponymous Israeli cruise missile. Like other strong women (Deborah, Jael) in the Book of Judges, Delilah was not a victim. She answered God’s call to stand up and use her own gifts to make a better life for all people.

When our Delilah admired JBER pool facilities at open swim time this weekend, I queried: “and wouldn’t you like to join the military when you grow up, like Nanna?” “No. I’m going to be an artist” came her reply. Perhaps this is a more effective path to peace? As a community we are blessed when children have opportunities to explore their own gifts, hone listening skills to hear their own callings and consider all racecourses to be open for them. We are doubly blessed when people of all ages are granted the resilience and support to adapt and improve as our world changes.

All powerful God, you have the plan. Help us love you as much for your complexities as for your simple comfort. May we find the courage to stand up and serve when called, especially in non-traditional ways. Loan us strength for our drooping hands and weak knees so we can make sure that no one misses out on your grace.

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

Lenten Reflection

By Susan Bates

“When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ Out came another horse, fiery red. Its rider was allowed to take peace from the earth so that people would kill each other. He was given a large sword.” Revelation 6:3.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are always lurking, striking somewhere in our personal and larger worlds. The pale horse of plague, the black horse of famine, the red horse of war and the white horse of false prophecy (modernized as misinformation spread on social media?) seem closer to us this Lenten season. Active war in Europe, with violence exploding from a country only 2.4 miles from Alaska’s Little Diomede Island, illuminates that red horse galloping into our own foreground. We perceive tragedy and horror streaming in front of us from satellite feed. We are urged to acknowledge our involvement and react.

“Kill Putin!” plead Ukrainian refugees. Instead, “Pray for Putin, to change his heart,” our pastors advise us. We cheer Jael in Judges 4:17-24 as she dispatches Sisera with a tent peg to the head, but her actions do not end war in the Middle East. Her bravery did alleviate her people’s Canaanite oppression at the time. Elimination of the commanding general perhaps saved lives of those he may have led into or killed in battle. Would this be enough, now? I can afford one answer here in Anchorage; my response if I lived in Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv or Lviv might be different. How do we stop the horsemen?

Sometimes we pretend mistreating another human is OK by giving them a label. Called a thing or an animal, they are dehumanized. Saint, sinner, hero, scapegoat – these labels or roles may be assigned to political and religious leaders. We know what’s coming up for Jesus on Good Friday. We also know how His story continues. Killing one mortal human won’t stop humanity’s tide as it surges towards good or evil. Might we do more by praying for a change of heart for all? Is that the powerful possibility and promise laid before us?

God, you have written peace, justice and love onto our hearts. During these Lenten weeks help me remove that which clouds my vision, so that I can better see the way to move forward as your servant.

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

Colleen Runty God Story

By Colleen Runty

St. John UMC’s Children’s Ministry Director Colleen Runty with husband Matt and their kids Maggie, Connor and Aaron.

Prematurely entering the world at 3 lbs. 14 oz., the waters of baptism instantaneously marked me out of fear that I wouldn't survive. This mark of fear around sin and hell would continue to trickle through my life as I grew up in the Roman Catholic faith of my parents and grandparents. And yet, I had such a strong attraction to Jesus and the saints. Religion and theology classes were a ping, like that of sonar whales, constantly pulling and calling me throughout grade school, high school, and college. God's fingerprints left marks on my life through those classes, mass, and the sacraments. But along the way, my child brain struggled with the messages of God's goodness and what I experienced through the practice of repentance and what I heard through the conversations about hell that circled in my life. I wanted to be good for God and, at the same time, received so many messages of my unworthiness both religiously and socially. There were no models or spaces for me to share my stories about God or ask questions about the confusing messages about God, faith, or how I experienced the world.

The retreats that I participated in high school and college were that same ping of God calling, like my attraction to religion classes. Through retreats, God brought me to story and community. I listened to God's story in others' lives. I got to learn more of the breadth and depth of God through community. Most importantly, I felt the power of God's love through the connection and belonging that developed through those communities. I was highly active in campus ministry, retreats, and community service in college. I participated in a community called Micah house (named for Micah 6:8 "What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God") where we took theology and philosophy classes together, lived in community together, and served together in a poor community in St. Louis. Through all these experiences, the models of women in ministry were limited to being a sister, a campus minister, or a spiritual director. There were no other conversations about being a woman in ministry outside of sisters asking me to pursue religious life (which wasn't going to happen because I knew I wanted to have kids). So I pursued my speech-language pathology degree and continued my active participation in the church.

In the United Methodist Tradition, we often talk about God's prevenient grace - this grace that comes before our ability to know and see God's presence. God's prevenient grace swirled around my relationship and marriage to Matt. You see, Matt grew up United Methodist with his parents singing in the choir, his mom playing the organ, and his grandmother playing the piano. When we married, we decided to find the church that fit us. After a year of searching, we found a United Methodist Church in Katy, TX. This was where my understanding of God began to expand in a new way. I remember being in an "Intro to Methodism" class held by my pastor, trying to hold understanding for all these new words: "grace," "conferencing," and "Wesley quadrilateral," to name a few. I was ignorant of the Protestant Reformation but was eager to learn more. Excitement consumed me when I discovered that the United Methodist Church had a process to give lay members a voice and vote in what happened in their church. I was giddy about charge conference (yes, you read that right!). I remember thinking that the grass was greener on the Protestant side and unconsciously began throwing away my Roman Catholic heritage.

When we moved from Houston to Chicago, career and life ambitions took over, not to mention trying to parent two small children. We joined a United Methodist Church and struggled to find connection within this community. However, God continued expanding and stretching how we understood God and God's people. Matt and I led Financial Peace University classes which changed how we understood God and money. We also participated in discussions around human sexuality as our church community sought to become a reconciling church. Again prevenient grace showed up, God trying to plant a seed in my not-so-fertile soil. A few women from my church started to attend seminary; one told me that she could see me going to seminary. I completely dismissed it. Within a few short months from that conversation, we moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with our now three kids in tow.

Due to burnout and family life, I decided to throw the towel in (to my speech therapy career). It was then that I must have cleared enough space to listen deep within myself and pray the prayer that God had been waiting patiently for many years to hear, "God, you can have my life. I don't know what to do with it." I went on a chaotic, messy journey from that prayer where God continued to stretch and grow my understanding of myself, God, and God's people. On that journey, I met some of my best friends, sat at the feet of some fantastic mentors, and went to seminary to continue expanding my learning. God dismantled myths that I created about myself. God destroyed the myth that I need to remain hidden and have nothing to say. I found myself excited to craft and preach sermons, lead classes, and, most importantly, use my voice to share prayer. God also taught me that there was value in my Roman Catholic faith which allowed me to rediscover the gems I threw away.

I graduated from Saint Paul School of Theology in 2020 and was incredibly grateful for my time of learning about God and church ministry. Although I had a lot of learning about God and some experiences with God in seminary, there was still something that felt incomplete. Spiritual direction had always been something that I wanted to do, but I couldn't figure out the timing. When my participation in the Academy of Spiritual Formation fell through due to the pandemic, I applied to HeartPaths Spirituality Centre (Oklahoma City) for spiritual direction training. It took God's gentle leading and a forty-year journey, but I found my home. My gifts and experience made sense through the language that came through spiritual direction. I graduate from my program on May 3rd this year. (Spiritual direction is better known in the Catholic tradition than the Protestant tradition. It is an opportunity for individuals to sit with another person (the director), listen to their life stories, and discover where God is present. Through spiritual direction, individuals learn more about how to discern how God is leading in their lives. Usually, an individual meets with a spiritual director once a month for an hour.)

I thought that was it. To offer people spaces where they can discern more about how God is working in their lives. It comes naturally and feels effortless. Box checked. Then the ping of God reverberated once again, this time through the voice of Emily Carroll. After sharing some messages from God that I couldn't make sense of, Emily said, "You know, we are hiring for a Children's Ministry position." With a look, I defiantly conveyed to her, "That's not for me." Again, I was dismissing God's planting of a seed; in the same way, I dismissed seed planting about seminary.

After wrestling with my fears, wrestling with God in prayer and wrestling in conversations with my people, I was convinced that I would regret not applying. Through all my wrestling, I could hear this whisper of God a bit better. God whispered to me (and I'm sure this is to you as well), "Don’t limit me in how I created you.” Don’t limit me in how I created you. So often, I have told God who I am and who I am not, and EVERY TIME God reframes it and tells me who I am. I am LOVE, just as you are LOVE. My journey with God is breaking all the boundaries and borders and walls I have created that prevent me from embracing who I am… LOVE.

I’m excited to be on the journey with you. I’m eager for the children of our church to expand our understanding of who God is and who we are as God’s people. So often, we miss that our God is creative and playful. I hope that our children (and God) will teach us to draw out that side of ourselves again. I desire our children to lead more in worship, learn about imaginative prayer and how to experience God, and create intergenerational relationships within our church community. I can’t wait to hear your God story and feel the vibrations of the Holy Spirit’s movement in, around, and through our community.

Colleen Runty is St. John UMC’s newly hired Children’s Ministry Director.

Lenten Reflection

By Kimber Olson

I’m relatively new to this religion thing. I’ve always been close to the bone, close to a deep sense of shared responsibility for one another, of knowing and, well, sometimes living, a spiritual life. But organized religion as a whole, and the Bible in particular, were not part of my formal training growing up. As a result, I’m new to Lent. I’ve thought about it a lot for the past few years and I just haven’t quite figured out a good way of honoring the season until this year. I mean, I could give up chocolate, or coffee, or wine, but those don’t seem to bring me closer to God. Just giving something up arbitrarily seems more like a punishment or a chore to me. And that doesn’t feel like a God Message. Pastor Emily’s recent sermon on the season of Lent encouraged me to think about what I need to give up, or what I should do more of, in order to break down the barriers between God and me. Now this makes sense. I had a bit of an ‘ah-ha’ moment listening to her. I have to admit that I often don't understand the complicated stories in the Bible. I need the children’s remedial version of The Story, or to listen to our pastors connect current events, past history and Jesus’ intent to an idea before I can get it in a real way that impacts my life. Thank God for our pastors.

Forgiving. That is my practice for this Lent period. Now, don’t stop reading here, because I don’t think I’m going to give you the traditional version of how and why and when we are supposed to forgive. Mostly because I just don’t buy it, but also because, for a variety of reasons, forgiving others comes unusually easy to me. So that can’t be what I focus on for Lent.

I tend to see all people as equally worthy. I have always believed that every one of us has things we do well and things we need to atone for. I have had people hurt me, and, even when it takes years, I have forgiven them. My friend Shelley explained it like this: there are ten commandments, and each of them is a rule to live by because it protects us from ourselves; it helps us to be better people, and it keeps us from hurting others. Shelley also shared that the ten commandments are separated into two categories: one group that shows us how to love and be connected to God and another that shows us how to love others. It seems to me that these were God’s intention; not to make us rule-followers, but to point us in the direction of love. When I asked Shelley how she sees sin, she said that she couldn’t find anywhere in the Bible that listed out which sin was worse than another. The ten commandments don’t specify that one is more important than another, or that breaking one is any more serious than another. That is a human concept, she said. Each of the commandments was meant to help us be safe, protected, cared for. Which is what God wants for us. To feel loved and supported. It is why Jesus asks, not just of the men in the Bible story, but of each of us today, to be the first to throw the stones at another if we are ourselves without sin. None of us are. So, we should love one another, care for and support one another, and forgive the sins of one another. Seven times seventy times. Over and over and over ad nauseum.

Jesus speaks about forgiving in the Bible in so many different ways, and so many different times, and I suppose he does that because it isn’t an easy concept, and it’s an even more difficult task to accomplish. But for some reason, forgiving others isn’t my problem. Forgiving myself, on the other hand, well, that has always been hard to come by. I know I'm not alone in this. Maybe it's difficult for you or someone you love as well.

There is a Native American teaching and it goes something like this, “The Creator designed earth to be self-supporting – everything is interconnected and all things were created to be of service to each other. The Indian way is to pray about all things. Religion is not separate from any part of our lives. Everything is spiritual and we are to view all matters in this way. Family is spiritual, work is spiritual, helping others is spiritual, our bodies are spiritual, our talk is spiritual, our thoughts are spiritual. We need to practice seeing things as spiritual” – from Meditations with Native American Elders: The Four Seasons by author Don Coyhis.

Well, if that is true, and I believe it is, then I have failed miserably. Still, I don’t think Jesus would want me to lay down and cover myself in the misery of my failure. I think he would want me to get up off my butt, brush that stuff off, and start new every moment of every day. Thus, the importance of being present to the moment. Without that awareness, I cannot recognize that I have wrapped myself in a blanket of shame and that I am holding onto, even coveting my mistakes as if I was the appropriate one to judge them. I’m actually pretty sure that’s God’s job. Somehow, I keep finding myself in positions in which I try to take over for Him.

For Lent this year, I am not forgiving myself. That would just be too big of a step for me. I know that I am already forgiven by God, I was even baptized and born again without sin. I know this intellectually, and I recognize what many people have told me; that I am second-guessing God when I don’t forgive myself. That I am putting myself above Him, as if I have more information, or believe I am more ‘right’ to condemn myself than He is to forgive me. But I’m just not there yet. So, I’m not forgiving myself, but I am trying every single moment to catch myself thinking violent thoughts towards myself. To stop speaking so negatively to myself. To stop calling myself names. To stop berating myself for my mistakes or to cover myself in shame. For Lent, I’m not giving these things up because that would be ridiculous. I would fail. Instead, for Lent, I am trying to make a change. I am trying harder to see myself through God’s eyes. To accept His mercy and His grace, to believe that, while I don’t deserve it, I also don’t deserve it any more or less than anyone else. To try to remember that God knows best, not me.

It is so important to validate who people are and who they are becoming, not who they were yesterday or what they have done in the past. Funny when you are the person who needs to hear the words you have said to so many others for so long – but I believe those words, and, while it took me a number of years to get here, I am willing to (try to) apply them to myself today. For Lent, I will practice being more aligned with God’s message every day – not by trying to be a better person, but by seeing myself as more of who I already am in God’s eyes. 

Whatever we put our attention toward is what we will get more of. That is true of our broken world today and it is true of my broken self as well. We all have a choice to see the worst in others and in ourselves or to find ways to ignite that last glowing ember in an otherwise dead fire. I choose glow.

St. John member Kimber Olson is a Certified Lay Servant.