On Saturday the Mustard Seed House community was out in the garden planting the first seeds of spring. But as we planted we did not imagine a field of hidden seeds, we dreamt of beds full of lettuce, spinach, Chinese greens and arugula. I found myself imagining far more than the small beds we were planting transformed. I looked over the whole of my garden and dreamt of what it could look like in a couple of months – a diversity of healthy flourishing plants alive with splashes of red and yellow and purple flowers. I imagined the bees flitting from flower to flower laden with pollen. And in the vegetable garden not just greens but broccoli and cabbages, tomatoes and zucchini, potatoes and onions and an abundance of berries and fruit forming on the fruit trees.
If I don’t dream about what the garden could become I will never work towards that goal and the mess of weeds and unkempt plants will never be transformed.
The garden of God’s world is the same. Lent is a season (at least in the northern hemisphere) to plant seeds but dream of gardens. If we don’t dream of what a world made new could look like we will never see it transformed. And God has an amazing vision for the future: a vision of Shalom and Wholeness.
- Dream big and infuse others with the dream. I love to share my garden dreams, recruit helpers to work alongside me and then share generously of the abundant harvest. Working alone in the garden or in God’s broken world is backbreaking and often discouraging. We need a clear vision of what God is wanting to accomplish – a vision of flourishing and justice and freedom; a vision where all God’s creatures are provided for and live together in unity and harmony. Then I need to share that vision and work towards it. We are created for community not just for fun and fellowship but also for work. We need friends and colleagues to share our part of God’s vision and help us fulfill it.
- Plan well. There are two stages to planning a flourishing garden. In the dead of winter, when the earth is still too cold and hard to till I get out my seed catalogues and think about what I want to grow. I remind myself of what flourished last year and what didn’t. I try to work out why and do some reorganizing based on my results. When I can finally get out into the garden there is still more planning to do. I figure out what has died and why, what needs pruning or moving and what needs to be fertilized to thrive. If I want to harvest abundant fruit in God’s garden I must do the same type of preparation. How do I plan for justice and generosity and freedom? What hindered my efforts in the past and how do I need to change my plans to be more successful in the future?
- Plant lots of seeds. I always plant far more seeds than can possibly fit in my garden space. Some of them I give away, some of them get eaten by slugs, others get thinned out later in the season so that the remaining plants can flourish. Sometimes our efforts in God’s garden don’t produce a harvest because we have sown too sparsely, or the wrong kinds of seeds, or in the wrong places. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 9:6 that: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Sometimes we don’t spread our seed that can produce justice and freedom far enough. Or perhaps we limit our sowing to one kind of seed, a type that is not thrive in the soil. At other times we have not prepared the soil adequately and weeds outstrip our seedlings, choking them and limiting the harvest.
- Fertilize well, water appropriately. The number one rule of organic gardening, as I shared in this post is “build up the soil”. All seed has the potential for a good harvest if we build up the soil properly. And what is the best fertilizer – compost – garbage that can be transformed to gold. Sometimes I wonder if we don’t see the harvests of freedom, compassion and abundance God intends, because we fail to build up the soil or because we build it up with the wrong fertilizer. What is the garbage in our lives that God wants to use as fertilizer for a rich harvest of justice and righteousness?
- When the garden doesn’t produce a harvest know how to give it a second chance. Our God is a God of second chances. I was made very aware of that at church on Sunday as our preacher spoke about Jesus parable of the unproductive fig tree in Luke 13:1-9. I had never noticed before that this story is part of a sermon on repentance. Something is wrong with the tree. There is no fruit. But the solution is not to get rid of it. The gardener gives it a second chance. He works on the soil around it, tilling it, pruning it and fertilizing it. Jesus gives us second chances too every time every time we fail to act justly and lovingly. He raises our awareness of the wrongness within us and our society, calls us to repentance and fertilizes the “soil” around us so that we can be changed and learn to respond in a way that will once more produce abundant fruit. What are the places in your life that are no longer fruitful? How is Jesus working to fertilize you so that these may once more produce abundant fruit?
In Hungering for Life, this week’s prompt HOPE/EXPECTATION/PROMISE, contains the scripture:
I am planting seeds of peace and prosperity among you. The grapevines will be heavy with fruit. The earth will produce its crops, and the heavens will release the dew. Once more I will cause the remnant in Judah and Israel to inherit these blessings. (Zechariah 8:12 NLT)
This is God’s vision for the future. What seeds of peace and prosperity have you planted in the lives of others or in our broken world that you long to see bear fruit? How could you nurture these seeds so that they produce an abundant harvest?
![512px-Looking_out_from_Redeemer_Church,_JerusalemBy DiggerDina (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://godspacelight.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/512px-Looking_out_from_Redeemer_Church_Jerusalem.jpeg)
Looking out from Redeemer Church, Jerusalem By DiggerDina
Two springs ago, I fasted from church, for lent. I suppose this raises a lot of questions including, “what do you mean?”
I mean, I stopped going to buildings on Sundays during the one-hour block which is broken into thirds, of music, expository teaching and community announcements. What I do not mean is that I decreased the importance of my relationship with God or people.
You see, I had developed an allergy. Most of us have at least one. I do not mean we get the sniffles when pollen shows up or our throat itches when we have shellfish. I mean, there are things in our lives that we just cannot be around without reacting to with a strong fight or flight response. We react in a way, over and above what seems reasonable, against the stimulus. For some, it is looking at snakes. For others, it is taking a test. For others, it might be the mere suggestion of asking someone out. For people with PTSD it is more serious and reminders of a season of trauma can put them right back in the middle of it.
One trigger, for me, is a specific phrase. When I am in a church building, and someone says “the Word of the Lord”, after reading from the bible, my anxiety goes through the roof and I have trouble making small talk after the service.
In “church” settings, I had been told that there are some people going to hell and some heaven, that there are clear requirements for this life if only you will take the bible seriously, read it and find them. Having doubt or anxiety was evidence that you may be on the “hell track”. Lack of confidence was evidence of uncertain security in death.
In light of this worldview, on one occasion, as an adult, I read the entire bible in a week and a half trying desperately to find the requirements for heaven’s access. I lost sleep and developed an acute anxiety response. When someone says “The Word of the Lord” I wonder again, “Have I missed the detail that gets me in?” “Am I likely going to hell since I already feel scared of death and doubt my security?” “Which instruction about being right with God is the important one that gets me safety?” This is not a phrase that comforts me. It feels like a threat.
There are other triggers besides this one, for me. Certain music, certain verses, a pastor’s tone of voice and even the expectation to bow one’s head.
When I have little defense against these fears and since selective numbing is rarely successful, I numb completely and none of the potential joy of a church service permeates my defense. Depressed and internally shut off from feelings, I want to stand and shout “Don’t say that!” but fear the rejection of having a dissenting view. Burdened with conflict, little healing or joy comes through during time in church. Church often feels lonely.
Like allergies to proteins, there are various strategies to deal with allergies to social stimulus. For pollens, Benadryl limits allergic reactions. For anxiety, there are medications too. However, depending on the reaction severity you may need to avoid the stimulus entirely. Think of this like anaphylaxis. If you are shutting down emotionally due to your anxiety response in a situation, it may be that you would benefit from just not being around that stimulus. Give your emotional immune system a rest.
This may be disruptive to the idea that conventional faith expression is always helpful. Sometimes people, like me, have become allergic to an aspect of a faith culture. In those cases, a fast might be helpful. It does not need to be permanent. You might consider it a “cleanse” to give your body and mind a rest. Reduce the reaction intensity and perhaps try returning with small doses of the given stimulus. That is, if you want to return.
I have gone to church a handful of times since that spring: usually to see a friend or participate in a small group discussion. I do not react like I used to and my defenses are slowly relaxing.
Does your emotional immune system need a rest? Is there a thing that triggers your anxiety so much that you shut down? Is there anything you can set aside to allow healing to take place? What would that look like?
Thoughts and feedback are welcome.
Empty Bowl by Lynne Baab
By Lynne Baab
Anna is a skilled musician and music leader. A few years ago she felt called by God to fast from music for a year. She had no idea why, but the urging from God was strong. As the year went by, she found herself engaging in new forms of intercessory prayer. Now, long after the music fast ended and music is again a major part of her life, these forms of intercessory prayer have remained significant for her.
If you’re hungry for more of God, try fasting. Anna describes fasting as “tying a ribbon around my finger to remember God.” When we reach for the thing we are fasting from – food, coffee drinks, technology, music, shopping – we remember God is more important than those items or activities. We remember we are asking God to transform us and help us draw near.
Are you hungry for a deeper prayer life? Another person I interviewed for my book, Fasting, told me that whenever her prayer life seems stale, she fasts from news media for three days. Every time she reaches for the radio or newspaper, she prays instead. In the times when she would normally read the news online, she sits down with her Bible and prayer journal. She says that after three days of this pattern, she feels reconnected to God and recommitted to making prayer a central activity in her life.
Are you hungry for justice? Early Christians fasted from food in order to give that food to the poor. They drew on Isaiah 58: 6-7 which defines a true fast as “to share your bread with the hungry.” Mother Teresa recommended fasting from shopping and from favorite activities in order to save money to give to people in need.
Do you hunger for a clearer sense of God’s priorities in your life? Consider fasting for a week from a favorite activity, such as Facebook, TV shows, movies, sitting in coffee shops or shopping. In the times that you would normally engage in those activities, do something different. Read your Bible, write in your journal, go for a walk in nature, or listen to music, and as you do that different thing, do some reflection on the pattern of your life and try to listen to God’s voice in your reflections.
Fasting is for a season, not forever. The benefit of fasting is that it changes the patterns of our daily lives, which jars us into attentiveness. We become more perceptive of what God is saying to us and how God is leading us. Because the pattern of our life is disrupted temporarily, we notice unexpected things and we see ordinary things differently. We draw near to God in new ways.
Throughout much of Christian history, fasting involved abstaining from all food or certain food items. With the rise of eating disorders, many people need to avoid fasting from food. And with the rise of many aspects of life that give pleasure or fill large blocks of time, people today fast from a wide variety of activities in addition to food.
The purpose of fasting is not to prove anything to God or ourselves. Instead, its purpose is to clear away some clutter so we can better see God, hear God and serve God. Fasting helps us act on our hunger for more of God.
Questions for reflection:
1. Have you ever fasted? What kind of hunger in your life did it address?
2. How would you finish this statement? More than anything else, in my life I hunger for . . .
3. Is there something you could give up for a day, a weekend, a week or the rest of Lent that would make space for that thing you hunger for?
4. Write a prayer about something you hunger for.
Sozo by Melissa Phillips
Developing Images of Restoration for Lent
Lent is often seen as a time of discipline. Whether we are adding or subtracting from our habits, there is a sense that purposeful/habit forming choice, in our lives, makes a difference. How we play this out can be wide, expansive and creative. No coffee for lent is great, but the options go on ad infinitum. To give purpose and direction to my habits, I find it useful to develop a picture of where I am headed. A target if you will.
Here is an excerpt from a short essay I wrote. It is the bones of my worldview and helps target my habit forming. My target is “restoration” and my habits flow from the image of restoration I have imagined. The prompt for the essay was “create a new philosophy or religion” however, I think I have articulated nothing new. I think you will find Jesus’ image of God’s kingdom here.
“This is Sozo: the Practice of Restoration Imagine a family, with plenty to eat, free of disease, with shelter and opportunities for creativity. Imagine a community caring for one another through mutual affection, seeking humble relationship with the divine and balancing their needs with the health of the environment and of other communities. This is a picture of Sozo. Sozo is the ancient Greek word for “restoration.” It is a root theme shared by Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. Sozo is a picture of moving towards thriving wholeness.”
From this image, my Lenten discipline gains form. I can develop concrete practice that moves towards my image of restoration.
What is your picture of restoration? Where are you headed? Where is your community headed? What habits can you practice to build capacity to head in that direction?
Thanks to Melissa Phillips for the beautiful original painting.
Image by Nils von Kalm
By Nils von Kalm
Lent is a solemn time of year for me. In a way, it’s possibly my favourite time in the Christian calendar, alongside Christmas. They are my favourite times for vastly different reasons though.
The season of Lent is traditionally seen as a time of sacrifice in preparation for the remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ. For people like me, who tend to a more melancholic temperament, Lent is something I can relate to quite intimately.
As well as being on the melancholic side, it is my life experiences that make Lent relatable for me. Without making too much of a point of it, I have known a fair amount of suffering in my life, even though I live in one of the most affluent countries in the world and have everything I want materially.
It is the times in my life that I have suffered the most that have been the times when I have also grown the most. It has been said by a few people that life is about how you deal with loss, ultimately to the loss of your life. It is through my losses, much more than through my successes, that I have learned my greatest lessons in life.
Our culture doesn’t deal well with loss though. Sadly, much of the Western church is no different. We turn the volume louder in our praise and worship sessions and sing endlessly of God’s favour and blessing.
This is not to undermine the fact of God’s blessing, but the way it is often played out in our churches does not reflect what I read in the pages of Scripture. Every leader in both the Old and New Testaments went through a wilderness experience. And the author of most of the New Testament, St Paul, experienced lashings, shipwrecks, beatings and rejection as part of his journey of faith. Paul above anyone knew what it was to suffer.
And as for Jesus himself, he was known as a man of sorrows, familiar with grief (Isaiah 53:3). When he told his followers that he was going to die, they simply could not comprehend that this could happen to the messiah. But it was this fact of a crucified messiah, humiliating and shameful as that concept was in Roman times, that slowly turned the Empire on its head.
Those first Christians knew that the way to life in Christ was through death. They even rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer for their faith (Acts 5:41).
As we approach Easter, Lent reminds us that there is no resurrection without death. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr talks about the great paradox of Christian faith being that, to live we must “die before we die”. It is easy to forget that being Christian is not about self-fulfillment, it is about self-emptying. Philippians 2:6-8 reminds us that Jesus emptied himself to die a shameful and humiliating death on a Roman cross. It was only after this that he was raised to new life.
The wonderful paradox of Christian faith is that we die to live, we suffer to gain glory, and we surrender to gain the victory we have always longed for.
This is what Lent reminds me of. Lent is not a time of morbidity; it is instead a time of reality. Life is hard, and our self-sufficient attempts to make it easy ultimately fail. It is in acknowledgment of the crucified One, in submission to him, that I find the life and meaning that my life has been seeking from the day I came into this world. As I look forward to Resurrection Sunday, I continue to trudge the road of life, joyful in hope, and hopeful in perseverance that my trudging is not in vain.
The great Christian hope is that the suffering the world experiences now will not compare to the glory that awaits us (Romans 8:18). Jesus is making all things new. This solemn time of Lent will pass, but it must be walked through, not walked around. It is in walking through it though that we realise the hope that we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).
Far from being morbid, Lent is about this hope. It is even about joy. That is why Paul could boast in his weaknesses and glory in his sufferings. He knew that strength lay in weakness, that victory lay in defeat.
Lent runs counter to the culture of success and winning that characterizes our world. Lent is a witness that the road to life is narrow and uphill, but the point is that it is the road to life. In these days of violence and fear, a broken world needs Lent like never before.
By Rowan Wyatt
At this time of Lent one is thinking of the preparation of the return of the living Christ, the Messiah, the Holy Son of God. We think about our own preparations at this time with prayer and searching thought, looking to that Easter day at the end of the Lenten period.
On the journey of life as a Christian one of the preparations we make is following the sacrament of Baptism, dying to ourselves, being ‘buried’ and then passing up through the cleansing waters to be a new creation in Christ. So with that thought of dying and being ‘born-again’ (John 3:3), we see that preparation for baptism and preparation for Lent are very similar indeed.
Before I moved to Tunbridge Wells I lived in a small village and every Easter Sunday we would head out of the church building at sunrise to pray and worship as the sun rose. We would stand by the shores of the vast lake and wait for the sun to peep over the tree tops on the horizon. As it did the waters of the lake would burn with a vibrant orange gold colour and we would all cheer and pray aloud creating a wonderfully blessed atmosphere and a very poignant moment. We all used to look at the water and think of Jesus passing through the waters on his Baptism and how we had followed him.
My own tale of baptismal preparation is an example of how NOT to do it. I wasn’t ready. I really wasn’t ready! I had only been a Christian for a few weeks and knew nothing of faith, knew nothing at all of what Baptism meant. My church had no classes and were so keen for this rare event, in their church, of baptizing a new believer that I was fast tracked through it, having little idea what was going on. Whilst I don’t doubt God was present during my baptism I don’t feel I was truly baptized, that lack of preparation and ignorance of what I was doing I feel robbed me of the kind of baptismal experience others would later relate to me. I still feel that my ill prepared baptism requires a conclusion so I am going to seek to renew my Baptismal vows at my church, then I will feel I have truly died with Christ and rose again, a new creation.
I feel Lent is just the right time to begin considering Baptism if you so far have not passed through the waters. The preparation runs parallel to the Lenten period leading up to that Easter day where we celebrate the risen Christ. The two run in tandem and I hope to have the chance to renew my Baptismal vows around Easter time.
Buried in Water By R.R. Wyatt
From the Jordan banks you stepped
Through the growing crowd gathered
And the flowing clear water glistened joyfully
As your foot first entered in.
There standing open mouthed, waist deep
The Baptist cousin waits and watches
You wade confidently in to the swirling coolness
Of the bubbling blessing waters.
There in the sky a white speck descends
Outlined against the sun soars a dove
Majestically angelic as from where it came
A spirit holy proffers benediction.
Plunged deep under into the depths
Fulfilling all righteousness, you rose
Dripping diamonds into the rivers riches
And settling softly on you, the dove.
And to the sound of applause my eyes open
Dripping water, hair plastered to skin
My clothes a tightened sodden shroud
I died along with you in that blessed water.
© Rowan Robert Wyatt 2015
photo by Joy Lenton
post by Christine Sine
This last weekend we celebrate my husband, Tom’s 80th birthday. Some of our friends came from Texas, California, Oregon and British Columbia to join a crowd from here in Seattle. We partied heartily and so as you can imagine I am finding the idea of fasting, which is our theme as we enter the third week since Lent began, a little challenging to think about.
photo by Tom Balke
Yet in many ways there was some serious fasting going on this weekend too. Many of our guests had sacrificed quite a lot to be with us. Some had given up a day’s wages, others had spent a lot on air tickets, and still others gave up days of their time to help cook an amazing meal for 70 people or get creative with our decorations and creative offerings for Tom.
In an address during Lent in 2015, Pope Francis said:
if we’re going to fast from anything this Lent, Francis suggests that even more than candy or alcohol, we fast from indifference towards others.
I feel that our celebrations this last weekend were an amazing example of this type of fasting. People gave up so much to rejoice with us. Yet together we gained a rich feast.
Tom with our cook Gil George and friend Kim Balke
Feasting and fasting are often intertwined. We give up our personal comforts to help those who lack provision. We give up our indulgences so that everyone can have enough. We give up our freedoms so that others can be liberated.
As God reminds us in Isaiah 58:
What I want in a fast is this: to liberate those tied down and held back by injustice, to lighten the load of those heavily burdened, to free the oppressed and shatter every type of oppression. A fast for Me involves sharing your food with people who have none, giving those who are homeless a space in your home, giving clothes to those who need them, and not neglecting your own family. (Isaiah 58:6-7, The Voice)
True fasting, this kind of fasting is, I think, a feast in disguise, as the quote above, from Joy Lenton’s blog, suggests. The fasting of our personal wants is a real fasting of indifference and it should be shared not just with friends but all around us. The riches we gain are far more nourishing and satisfying than what we “give up”. Our doing without opens our eyes and ears to appreciate in new ways the abundance of God around us. And the sharing of that abundance brings a wave of delight and joy that is rarely experienced on our own.
What is Your Response?
Sit quietly, close your eyes and do some reminiscing. Think back over the last couple of years. What situations come to mind that at the time seemed like fasts but were in fact feast in disguise? What occasions can you remember where initially you felt you were giving up something of importance that turned out to be a reaping of abundance instead?
What does this teach you about yourself, about others and about God? Is there a change in your behaviour that God might be asking of you this week in response?
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!