Deliberate Practice

• Corned Beef Supper on March 14th at 5pm (please RSVP by 3/6)
• Neighbors Waffle Breakfast on March 21st
• We continue our collections for Fuel Assistance for local families in need
• Death Cafe February 28th at 4pm (please RSVP)                                                                    
• Discussion Circle is today after Church; this month we will look at passages from Matthew to inspire, teach, guide, and challenge us–all are welcome to join us (this is an exploration of sacred passages, poetry, words, and quiet to inspire us toward freshness, surprise, and wonder)

Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times

Our Sunday Reflection is recorded and can be found HERE (posts each Sunday late morning or early afternoon).

All are Welcome. If you are uncomfortable with the word God, please feel welcome to insert your own word for the divine or Mystery in your life (Universe/Grace/Spirit/Divine).

It’s winter Olympics season. We watch the leaps, the speed, the endurance, the tests, the human possibility. We watch what happens when people fall or when something unexpected crosses their path (the snowboard and the squirrel incident comes to mind). We watch them get up and keep going, despite the falls and disappointments.  We cheer and we cringe.  

We watch the teams coming together and “opponents” coming together. The smiles, the freshness, the knowing that we never do it alone…even when we’re out on the ice and in the snow…alone.  We relish in the support and the wonderful team spirit.  

Lent is like this.  The time in the desert is like this.  What is possible?  How far can we challenge ourselves before we fall or break?  What matters mosts?  What do we do when we fall?  What do we do when we’re confronted with the unexpected?  Who surrounds us and keeps us safe…even when we’re not feeling safe?

This is our time of preparation.  Preparing for Easter and resurrection.  What seeds are we planting?  What growth and possibility are we looking toward?  For ourselves and for the world?  

We can think of this time as a time of deliberate practice.  What does it mean to walk this Way of faith, and hope, and love and…to practice it in our every day.  This is the Lenten Journey.  

It is a time to remember what we can be as individuals and as community.  As individuals we fast and practice and test—we pray in secret.  Then we come together for comfort and feasting—we sing and celebrate together.  We remember that we are never alone and we never actually “do it” alone.  

This is a time of growing and healing as individuals and as people.  Imagine a world if we stopped dividing ourselves into this group and that group?  These people and those people?  Me and then you?  Imagine?  Imagine if we saw the face of God/Jesus/the Divine in every person?  Imagine if we sought to care for each and every person on this Earth?  Imagine if we tended and cared for creation itself.  

One of my favorite stories is that when Christianity was new, it flourished because of epidemics.  PAUSE.  It flourished within the challenge.  When people ran away to safer ground, these new Christians stayed to tend to the sick and dying.  PAUSE.  Interestingly, it became a miracle.  Those sick people were healed and lived.  PAUSE.  People flocked to this new faith of miracles.  

Perhaps, the miracle was simple.  That those people who could not take care of themselves, lived because someones stayed to give them water and give them food. It’s one of our core calls: that no one may go hungry, no one may go thirsty.  Perhaps, the miracle was resisting the temptation to run and “save ourselves”; to step into the challenge and tend to what matters most.  

We are not meant to have “easy” lives just because we are people of faith.  We aren’t “more blessed” because we’ve been “good”.  We don’t have any more or less challenges or struggles because we’ve somehow earned more love.  We aren’t here to escape temptation and struggles.  

Those challenges and struggles are instructive.  Through challenge we are strengthened.  

And Jesus shows us a way through.  Before we are asked to take up the challenge and temptation, Jesus walks into the wilderness to be tested himself.  He knows it will be instructive and strengthening for the journey of life.  It will fortify him for the tests to come.  Those tests leading up to the cross where it will be tempting to run away and save himself.  

Jesus walks this way of temptation to show us that it is possible. He is showing us that we can survive challenge and struggle.  That we find courage not just when it’s easy, but when it is not easy.  That we must have the strength to not run away, but to stay and resist.  

His challenges and struggles will echo the challenges and struggles we will face in our lives.  He knows this path is hard…in a few passages, Jesus will teach us to pray the familiar words: “lead me not into temptation”.  Perhaps he is remembering his own struggles in the desert.  There is nothing easy about temptation and struggle.  But it will help us to grow and prepare.  It will help us to live lives with our eyes open to all that is around us. To look to others and not run away.  

To know, deeply, what it means to truly walk the Way.  When the path is easy and when the path is riddled with pitfalls.

Jesus’s first temptation is to feed his hunger.  PAUSE. To feed one’s body at the expense of self, others, and faith.  This first temptation tempts us toward personal security and comfort.  It tempts us to avoid what is uncomfortable and uneasy. To resist is to live for more than the taste-y things in this life.  To resist leads us to feed what matters most.  

The second temptation is to test God.  It attempts to trick God.  The tempter uses words of scripture  PAUSE.  The tempter twists the words and encourages Jesus to use them for personal gain.  “But, see here, it says….”  

We know in our hearts, hearts filled with God’s Love, if we truly listen…that is not what God meant.  Yes, we can twist the words to our gain, that is the temptation…

We’ve all had those moments where we took someone’s words and ran with them. When we had the triumph of throwing someone’s words right back at them.  We proved our point.  We “won”.  Maybe at the expense of our hearts, because we knew that’s not what they meant nor did we try to understand.  

If it does not lead us toward love and connection, tending, we have gone astray.  Perhaps this one could remind us to listen more deeply.  One of the teachers I follow says that the Lenten Journey is simply learning to listen more deeply.

The last temptation is to worship what is fleeting.  PAUSE.  Money.  Power.  Winning at all costs.  Even the temptation of what good we could do with that money and power if we had it.  All this I will give you…you can have the whole world…oh how tempting this temptation is!

We can almost hear the desperation in Jesus’s voice: Get Away!!!

Jesus will not misuse his power.  Perhaps this is most powerful lesson of the Desert.  

We will be tested.  Each and every one of us.  

In our own ways, we are drawn into these same temptations.  Our hungers grow and we feed them.  We know better, but we do it anyway—just “little” cheats.  We twist words to our win.  We misuse our gifts and power.  We are tempted by personal luxuries and gains.  

We forget to tend.  We run away and save ourselves.  Then, when it’s easy, we step in and tell ourselves “it is enough”.  

We rush around and ignore the needs around us.  We get grumpy and unkind.  We hoard our money…just in case.  We blame others to excuse ourselves.  We look away when it becomes overwhelming and uncomfortable.  

Every day, we are offered opportunities to be of service.  Every day we are given temptations.  We are led toward selfishness…when Grace asks of us to be selfless.  Everyday there is something we might do.  

Something small.  Something precious.  

We don’t have to be perfect, but we must be honest and true.  We must…point our compass toward selflessness and compassion.  And when we fall short, we turn toward Grace that is there, just waiting for us like the Rainbow after the storm.  We are held, forgiven, and then nudged to begin anew.  

Jesus knows how hard it is.  Temptation comes in many forms.  

Our human potential is that we are stronger than we think we are.  There are gifts within us that we never imagined unfolding.  Our challenges are not obstacles to overcome to get to ease and blessings, but are fertilizers that helps us grow.  They are here to teach us and strengthen us and lead us toward our gifts to share for and with this world.  

As the Winter Olympics open our Lenten Journey and remind us of perseverance, determination, and teamwork, may we focus our discipline practice with perseverance, determination, and teamwork toward faith, hope, and love in our every days.