Open letter to USAToday re: Building a Mosque in DeKalb

Last Friday I was honored to be included in a story being written by USAToday about the Islamic Society at Northern Illinois University and their efforts to build a new mosque in DeKalb. However, if you read the story in the link below, you may notice they didn't have much positive to say about the project, or the new interfaith friendships being formed in our community.  So I wrote this open letter, specifically addressed to the reporter for this article.  Wouldn't it be great if USAToday ran a follow-up article with the rest of the story?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-28/DeKalb-mosque-projects-controversy/55250722/1

 

Dear Ms. Keen,

My name is Stacy Walker-Frontjes, and I am pictured in some of the photos that accompanied your story in the May 29th, 2012 issue of USAToday: "Mosque Projects Face Resistance in some U.S. Communities."  I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to speak with you last Thursday while you were preparing this story.  My friends at the Islamic Society at Northern Illinois University (ISNIU) and I greatly appreciate the interest that USAToday had in telling the story of a new mosque being built in our neighborhood in the city of DeKalb, Illinois. 

However, I think an important angle of this story was missed in this article.  I have just returned from the city council meeting at which many neighbors of many faiths and beliefs (including myself) spoke in favor of granting a special use permit for our long time neighbors at ISNIU (our neighbors for 27 years) to build a suitable mosque at their current location.  Currently they meet in a converted single family home that no longer meets the needs of their congregation.  Tonight the members of the city council unanimously and enthusiastically approved the request for this special use permit to build a new mosque. 

This is not only a win for the members of ISNIU, but also for the city of DeKalb and for the residents and other religious organizations in our neighborhood. My congregation of St. Paul's Episcopal Church and my family are two of these residents.  Rather than opposing the building of this mosque in DeKalb the citizens of our city are welcoming its construction.  We are celebrating that our Muslim neighbors have a thriving congregation and ministry in our city.  The people of ISNIU and St. Paul's agree that we are on the verge of something new in DeKalb--an active and genuine interfaith friendship between Muslims, Christians, and any others who wish to join us in making our neighborhood a better place to live for everyone. 

I would encourage USAToday to consider writing a follow up story to this initial article.  Such an article might report on the success that diverse communities such as DeKalb are having in working together to build mosques so that all Americans may practice their religious freedom to assemble and pray for not only the good of the members of their congregation, but additionally to create spaces for cross cultural dialogue for the purpose of peacemaking and working together for the common good of neighborhoods across our country.   

I would welcome a conversation with you or any other representative from USAToday at your convenience.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Stacy A. Walker-Frontjes

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

DeKalb, Illinois

Walking with the Suffering in the Shadow of the Cross

This sermon was preached on the fifth Sunday of Lent, March 25, 2012 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, DeKalb, Illinois.  The text for the day was John 12:20-33.

In this past week I have become increasingly aware of the great amount of suffering a violence in this world that is borne by children.  It started with a listen to an episode of the Diane Rehm show on NPR about the new documentary film “Bully.”   Bully takes a deeper look at the issue of bullying in the United States through the eyes of victims, parents, teachers, and school administrators.  It is estimated that thirteen million children will be bullied this year in our country.   The callousness of some of the adults in power in this film—particularly the school administrators in their conversations with victims and their families was just heartbreaking.  It is no wonder that thirteen million children will be bullied this year when adults with the power to change the system don’t. 

The next disturbing story of violence against children came to my attention this past week in the reports of the murder of Trayvon Martin.  Trayvon was seventeen years old, on a visit at his father’s house in Sanford, Florida when he was shot and killed by a self-proclaimed neighborhood watch volunteer.  An important detail not to be forgotten is that Trayvon is black, and his killer—Mr. Zimmerman—is not.  Mr. Zimmerman has claimed self-defense as his motive for shooting an innocent boy he told 911 operators “looked suspicious.”  Trayvon was not armed, but Mr. Zimmerman was.  Trayvon died with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea in his pocket, and then was sent as a John Doe to the morgue.  It was 24 hours before his parents knew what had happened.  As I was preparing to write this sermon I realized I didn’t know exactly when Trayvon was murdered. February 26^th.  It took over three weeks for the news of this tragedy to reach my consciousness.  It took a while to travel around that great big elephant in the middle of America’s living room—what’s it named again?  Oh, that’s right: Racism. 

Yesterday we hosted a training session of Keeping God’s People Safe, which focuses primarily on the protection of the vulnerable in our churches from sexual abuse and other abuses.  Children are of course among the most vulnerable in our culture.  They look to us—adults to protect them. They look to us to take a stand against the evils of this world: violence, racism, heterosexism, classism, etc.  And in the Christian community our children are looking to us to show them Jesus.  Not just the safe, placid, fluffy, Good Shepherd Jesus.  No.  These children want to see and know the real Jesus.  Just like the Greeks who approached Phillip and Andrew, the children in our midst are looking to us and saying, “Please sir, we want to see Jesus.”

Please sir, we want to see Jesus.  The request is taken to Jesus and the response is a parable about suffering, specifically his suffering.  Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain.  But if it dies, it will yield a great harvest.  A grain of wheat contains within it all of the dna that is needed to grow into a plant that will yield a hundred grains of wheat.  But the potential is locked inside until the grain falls to the ground and in a sense dies.  It is no longer a grain, but a seed, that must be transformed if we are to know it’s heart and true purpose.  Jesus was that grain of wheat.  Jesus in that moment had the potential deep inside to show himself and the good news of God to the whole world on the cross, and not just individually to the Greeks who came seeking an audience.  But before the transformation of Christ and the salvation of the world, he had to suffer and die.  Suffering cannot be avoided in this life, and in his solidarity with us in the incarnation Jesus also could not avoid suffering and death.  Theologian Michael Battle writes “The authenticity of God on the cross removes our righteous indignation because God does not bypass the death we too must endure.  God is now capable of being abused and thereby removes inseparable barriers between God and the world” (Battle).    

God standing in solidarity with us in our suffering does not mean that suffering is right or meant to be glorified.  No.  What Jesus is saying as he makes his way to the cross is—your suffering and my suffering will not be in vain.  I will transform these dying grains of wheat into a great harvest for the salvation of the world.  Michael Battle writes that suffering has its place in the economy of salvation, and points to the work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa:  “Tutu preached to his people that apartheid would fall because righteous suffering could not be denied its goal of salvation” (Battle).  Suffering cannot be avoided, but it can be transformed when the strong stand in solidarity with the weak for the goal of salvation of the whole system: a family, a friendship, a church, a nation, or in the case of Christ crucified—the salvation of the world. 

To stand in solidarity with the weak in our world we have to come to terms with our own participation in institutional sins that result in the death of a young black boy because he looked “suspicious” or the degradation in the mental health of three million children who will miss significant amounts of school this year because they are terrified of their bullies.  We have to look in the face the sins of racism, heterosexism, classism, and other ways in which we classify and discriminate those on the margins, sometimes called “The Other”, otherwise known as our fellow children of God.  In this journey to solidarity we are going to learn some things about ourselves that we will not like. To make a change of heart is difficult when we have become comfortable inside our protective outer shells.  From inside the safe walls of our shell we can become blind to how we live in the world, and not even realize the things we have left undone, much less the things we have done.

This year as I struggle to emerge from the wilderness of Lent on my journey to the foot of the cross I am convinced now more than ever that I need to do something to show I stand in solidarity with victims of violence, particularly children.  This year our diocese is sponsoring a living breathing prayer of solidarity called CROSSwalk.  On April 2^nd the Monday of Holy Week, people from around the diocese of Chicago—of a multitude of faiths—will gather at St. James Cathedral to walk to Stroger Hospital.  We will walk to stand in solidarity with the childhood victims of gun violence in the city of Chicago, many of whose lives end at Stroger Hospital.  I’m going even though I don’t live in Chicago.  There’s an excuse we use a lot out here in the hinter lands of the Diocese of Chicago.  It’s too far.  It isn’t convenient.  What happens there doesn’t impact what happens here.    But I look into the eyes of the crucified Christ and I know that those excuses aren’t right.  Those lies we tell ourselves about the safety of our children because we live in the far of land of DeKalb are just that—lies.  Not even six months ago a young man named Steven was murdered by another young man with a gun in the apartments across the street.  It’s time to leave my protective husk of a seed and admit to myself and those around me that my heart is broken by the violence and suffering of this world and my community.  And when I let my heart be exposed, then my own sons will catch another glimpse of Jesus.  My children always want to know more about Jesus—so we are going to walk together a week from tomorrow along the way of the cross in our world.  We are going to look for Jesus, and I know we will find him in the midst of the multitude joined together in solidarity with the suffering.   

You may remember that Jesus said, “Let the children come unto me and do not hinder them.”  The children in our lives are looking to us to show them Jesus!  And not just the children in our families, but the children in our neighborhood, the children in our church, and the children in our schools, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and public housing.  Are you showing them Jesus?  Are you growing into something new?  Or are you determined in your own fear of the unknown reaches of your heart to remain a single grain?  As we prepare to enter into Jerusalem with Jesus next week on Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week, remember that he suffered and died for you.  He embraced the cross to be one with all of humanity in our suffering.  Honor that suffering by standing in solidarity with the suffering wherever you are.  Walk in CROSSwalk and other demonstrations of protest and prayer.  Write to your lawmakers when legislation is unjust.  Say something when someone is being mistreated, don’t look the other way!  Talk to the children in your life.  Don’t be dismissive, and don’t assume that someone else is looking out for their well-being.  Call on your friends who are suffering and grieving.  The cross reminds us that there is no lack of suffering, and paradoxically there is no lack in God’s love.  God’s abundant love is good news!  People want to see this Jesus! So don’t be afraid to proclaim him and name him all the way to the cross and beyond.  

An invitation from Bishop Jeff Lee of Chicago to CROSSwalk, April 2, 2012

Works Cited

Battle, Michael. Commentary on Year B, Lent 5 readings: John 12:20-33. Feasting on the Word. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville:  2008.

The Foolishness and Wisdom of the Cross: A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent

This sermon was preached at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, DeKalb, Illinois on Sunday, March 11, 2012.  The text for the day was 1 Corinthians 1: 18-25.

Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas

Who do you believe Jesus is?  This is a question that we explored in our study of the Gospel of Mark last week.  The options we were given to choose from are: 1. Jesus was a good man, better than most, who was willing to die for his people. 2. Jesus was a prophet, a great teacher. 3. Jesus was (and is) the Son of God. Second person of the Trinity, equal to and coeternal with God. 4. Jesus was (and is) the Son of God, chosen by God in obedience to God’s will, especially in his death. 

Whatever your answer might be, there is no denying the cross.  We proclaim Christ crucified.  We proclaim that at his most vulnerable moment God was actually the most powerful.  The paradoxical message of the cross was difficult for people to comprehend during the time of Paul, and it is difficult for us to comprehend today.  God’s wisdom is revealed in the foolishness of the world.  If the world will put God to death on the cross, then the cross will become the seat of God’s power and wisdom in the world.

On Wednesday morning this past week I was writing in the register for the 9:30 A.M. Holy Eucharist I was preparing to lead and I took pause as I wrote in the notes the saints we were to remember: Perpetua and Felicitas, and their companions—martyrs at Carthage, 202 A.D.  Martyrs are those Christians who have been murdered for refusing to deny their faith.  Their deaths are powerful because in them we see the reflection of Christ crucified.   Perpetua was a young widow with an infant son and owner of several slaves including Felicitas.  Along with two other friends they were catechumens (unbaptized adults) preparing for baptism.  During this time the Emperor Septimus Severus decreed that all persons should sacrifice to the divinity of the emperor.  There was no way that a Christian could do this, and so it was not long before Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions were arrested.  At their trial they refused to renounce their faith in Christ.  Perpetua’s father is reported to have pleaded with her and with the court to give up such foolishness and save her life.  But while she was imprisoned Perpetua had several visions: a vision of a ladder leading to heaven which she climbed to reach a large garden; one was of her brother who had died of a painful disease when he was young but was now completely healed and drinking of the water of life; and in a third vision Perpetua saw herself battling the Devil and defeating him to gain entrance to the gate of life.  She understood then that the she would not be facing beasts in the arena, but the Devil himself, and he would not prevail against her.  They all went to their deaths in the arena at Carthage that day facing a leopard, a bear, a boar, and a savage cow before finally being put to death by the sword.  They did not resist, but encouraged one another to stay strong in their faith.  What sheer foolishness is this that more than 1800 years after their deaths for refusing to worship the Emperor of Rome, we are offering prayers of thanksgiving for their examples of great faith?  None other than the wisdom of God. 

What Perpetua and her friends knew is that what appears to be the end, is not.  Death is not the end, death no longer has its victory since the day the foolishness of the world tried to kill the wisdom of God when they nailed our Lord Jesus to the cross.  The witness of God on the cross has been mirrored by the martyrs through the centuries and given the church hope in trying times.  As the second century Church Father Tertullian famously wrote, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  From their witness even unto death we catch a glimpse of just how serious our spiritual ancestors were about following Christ.  They had tasted Living Water and were strengthened in the blood of the Cross.  There was no “spiritual life” and then “rest of their life”, there was only one life and it belonged entirely to following Jesus wherever they were.  We will not be put to death because of our faith, barring some unforeseen apocalyptic era, I feel fairly safe in saying that to us gathered here in the comfort of the United States of America today.  But we may die spiritually before our physical death in spite of our faith.  We may decide that the paradox of the cross is too ridiculous for us to bother with.  We may decide we are too wise for God, and dismiss the martyrs as unenlightened fools.  We may decide this if we neglect to see the cruciform shape of life of the community of Christ gathered even here in this humble sanctuary.

I remember when I was fresh out of college looking for a church to call home, and I was keen on finding a church with other young people like me.  I wanted answers.  I wanted a deeper relationship with God.  I had been neglected by the church (who hasn’t?), and was in sore need of spiritual healing.  My first impression of the church I later joined was that it wasn’t what I needed.  It didn’t look enough like me, and I didn’t think I was going to fit in.  But in the midst of what I perceived to be a tired gathering of sleepy old Episcopalians, I caught a glimpse of the wisdom of God.  The paradox of the message of the cross—God most powerful when God is most powerless—was reflected in this community gathered at the base of the cross and at the garden tomb.  The members of that congregation were different from one another: old, young, married, single, gay, straight, employed and unemployed, cradle Episcopalians, former Jim Baker’s PTL members, former nuns, skeptics and unwavering believers, wealthy and unbelievably poor.  I finally realized, where else was I going to find a community like that?  A community who wanted me to be a part of their reflection of the paradoxical gospel life despite my own obvious short comings?  Where else was I going to find the elusive God I so desperately wanted to know but in the foolishness of the world gathered faithfully, for better or worse, at the foot of the cross? 

Church is not a group of people that makes sense on the world’s terms.  We are not successful in the ways that the world deems successful.  We are not “wise” in our continued attempts to reflect the exorbitant love of our crucified savior.  We often look like fools.  And that’s ok.  We know that God’s strength is in our foolishness.  We know that we are being saved today.  And not only for a heavenly home, but for the sake of saving this world and making it a better place today for the foolish and the wise alike. 

So whatever you believe or don’t believe about Jesus, come to the cross.  Bring your whole self to the cross—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Come into the open arms of our Savior and let us stretch out our own imperfect arms in the image of love and forgiveness we find in our God who loved us so much he let us crucify him and make him the fool of the world.  And let us rejoice, for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1:25).

   

Called by a New Name: Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent

This sermon was preached on the Second Sunday of Lent, March 4, 2012 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in DeKalb, Illinois.  The texts for the day were Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 and Mark 8:31-38.  

Last week we heard the story of the promise—the covenant—that God made with all of Creation through Noah that he would not destroy the world again.  This week God makes another promise a few generations later to Abram and his wife Sarai.  Abram and Sarai had already been following God after an earlier covenant when God called Abram to leave his homeland and travel to a new land that God was giving them.  Now, in their late nineties God tells this childless couple that they will be ancestors of a multitude of nations and kings.  God will bless them with their own son.  To mark this promise forever in their lives God gives them each a new name.  Abram will be called Abraham.  Sarai will be called Sarah.  Even God will go by a new name which we lose in the English translation.  God will be called El Shaddai—God Almighty—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Abraham and Sarah receive names that are not so much different than their old names, but the relationship with God has changed.  The way that they look at themselves and their place in the world has changed as well.  They are going to need each other to live into the promise that God has promised to them and to their ancestors forever.

On the subject of new names I am reminded of another truth telling text from our popular culture: the story of Harry Potter.  Harry’s story begins with the telling of his current identity: the poor orphan boy sent to live with his mother’s horrible sister and her equally horrible husband and child.  Harry is the boy-nobody-loves forced to live under the stairs and wear the overly large and worn out hand-me-downs from his obnoxious cousin, Dudley.  Harry himself believes this story about who he is until the day of his eleventh birthday, when the whole dysfunctional family learns without a doubt that Harry Potter is a wizard!  Harry initially embraces his new identity with the exuberance of a boy who was forgotten and now is remembered by the people who knew and loved his parents.  He enjoys the benefits of his new life at Hogwarts with all the fancy trappings of a young wizard: new clothes, new school supplies, sweets, and finally for the first time ever his very own friends. 

But soon Harry realizes that he isn’t just any other wizard.  With his new name, Harry Potter-wizard comes a great responsibility.  You see Harry isn’t just any other boy wizard, he’s Harry Potter—the boy who defeated the evil Lord Voldemort and saved the world from certain doom when he was just a baby in his mother’s loving arms.  And at this very moment in the revelry of his new life at Hogwart’s wizarding school, Lord Voldemort is staging his return.  This time Harry will need more than the love of his mother and father to defeat his archenemy.  Harry very quickly realizes he is going to need the help of his friends Hermione and Ron, and the wisdom of his teachers, chiefly that of Professor Dumbledore.

There was a moment in each of our lives when we realized we were not only the child our parents named us to be, but that we were also God’s child.  Do you remember the day you first realized you were a Christian?  Do you remember the day you realized you had been given a new name and a new identity?  Do you remember the day Jesus called you by that new name and you responded, here am I Lord.  Perhaps you are waiting for that day still.  I’m fairly certain Peter never forgot the day he heard Jesus calling him to a new identity that scared him half to death.  Don’t talk about your death, Lord!  What will people think?  Jesus turned on his heel and rebuked Peter, “Get behind me Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mk 8:33).  (Ouch!)  Then Jesus turns to his disciples and the crowd and says, “If you are going to call yourself my followers, if you are going to embrace this new name by which I have called you, you are going to have to get over yourself.  You are going to have to take up your cross to follow me, and it isn’t always going to be easy.  But what will you gain if you keep your life?  Nothing.  To save your life, you must lose it for the sake of the world.” 

It is not uncommon for people to refer to their personal troubles as their cross to bear.  And sometimes people are right about that.  But the cross has lost its edginess in our culture.  The cross is now an ornament, not an instrument of torture and death.  The cross is a promise of new hope and new life in Christ, but we are ever forgetful as to what being a bearer of that cross means.  We have forgotten what it means to be named a Christian.  Being a Christian isn’t just about a sense of personal peace and deeper relationship with God.  Don’t get me wrong, this is my hope for each and every one of you—that you would know God and find peace and comfort in his presence.  But frankly personal peace and certitude isn’t particularly Christian. 

So what does it mean to be a Christian?  What does it mean to bear our cross and follow Christ?  In our baptismal rite we pray that we will literally die to ourselves, that we will die with Christ so that we may rise with Christ in his glorious resurrection.  We all have a cross to bear.  Sarah had the grief of her barren womb.  Abraham had the grief of not being able to do anything about that.  Harry Potter had the grief of the death of his parents when he was still a baby.  Peter had the grief of the fear of losing Jesus—the truest friend and most amazing man he had ever encountered.  Jesus calls his followers to not only pick up their cross, but to bear it as they follow him.  We cannot let the grief of our crosses immobilize us.  We have to struggle to break away from our self-centered selves so that we might be reborn into a Christ-centered self. 

Some of us here today may feel very uncertain about this journey.    We may not feel faithful enough to tread along the way.  We may doubt our own strength. We may harbor a multitude of doubts in general, and wonder “How on earth did I end up here!”  We may look at our name “Christian” with some suspicion.  Still others of us may be optimistic despite the challenges, enthusiastic even.  We may not understand why we have been called, but we cheerfully drag our crosses along trusting that God will provide refreshment along the way. 

There is no denying that the weight of our crosses can be crushing. But here is our joy: God has promised to be with us every step of the way.  To paraphrase U2, as Christians we have the joy of getting to carry each other (“One” Achtung Baby).  Abraham and Sarah couldn’t be mother and father to nations on their own, they needed each other and God.  Harry Potter couldn’t defeat Lord Voldemort alone, he needed Ron and Hermione and the knowledge that Dumbledore believed Harry could do it.  Jesus needs us—his hands and heart in the world—to tell the good news that God is about loving and healing Creation one creature at a time.  Throughout the centuries a multitude of saints have carried the good news of God repairing the world and drawing all humankind into his/her loving embrace through the life, death, and resurrection of the Son: Jesus Christ our Lord.  You have been called by God, you have been given a new name.  Again, Jesus asks, “Christian, will you hear the cry of the world and pick up your cross and follow me?”    

Will we remember? A reflection on the first Sunday of Lent

This sermon was preached on Sunday, February 26, 2012 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, DeKalb, Illinois.  The texts for the day were Genesis 9:8-17, Mark 1:9-15

This morning we mark the first Sunday of Lent.  The word Lent translated from the German and Dutch literally means, spring, particularly long spring.  That seems an appropriate definition of Lent for us in the northern hemisphere in particular.  As we begin our journey with God over forty days we are also entering spring, but the change from dormancy to flourishing new growth does not happen overnight.  The quest to know God better that we embark on in Lent also takes a while.  More generally, we will spend the better part of our lives discerning the will of God—said another way figuring out who God is and what God is up to in our lives. 

This year in the season of Lent we have a series of stories from the Old Testament highlighting the promises or covenants of God with God’s people.  The first covenantal story in the Bible is the promise God makes with Noah and his descendants and the whole of Creation after the destruction of the world by flood.  As the story goes, the creatures of God had become corrupt.  What God had created out of love and joy and goodness, had become destructive, violent, and wicked.  God’s heart was broken to see what had happened, and so he makes the decision to start over.  He calls Noah and his family to build an ark, gather up a selection of the animals, and wipes the slate clean with a flood.  It’s a rash action.  It’s an exceedingly violent action.  It’s a typical action of a god of the ancient near-eastern world.  But what happens at the end of this story is not typical in the least.  When the waters recede, and Noah and his family and the animals disembark from the water logged ark, God takes a look at what he has done and decides not to do this again.  God lays down his weapons, and makes a covenant—a promise—with all of his creatures that he will not wage war on the world again.  He doesn’t ask anything from his creatures in return.  The vulnerability that God shows the world in this promise is extraordinary.  God places his undrawn bow, pointed upward to the heavens as a reminder to himself that he is not only our Creator, but also our Protector.  The rainbow reminds God that he is our loving parent.  The rainbow reminds us that God remembers us no matter how chaotic our world becomes. 

The Great Litany which we chanted to begin our service this morning is also about remembering.  It’s long.  It’s heavy.  It’s a bit overwhelming.  And although the Great Litany draws us into a space of extremely intentional penitence, the intention is not to make us feel bad about ourselves.  Nor is the attention to lavish praise on an angry, fickle God.  The Great Litany is about remembering who we are.  We are flawed.  We are broken.  We are petty.  In summation: we are sinners.  The Great Litany is about remembering who we are through the grace of God:  we are worthy of redemption.  We are God’s partners in Creation.  We are the recipients of God’s promises and grace.  The Great Litany isn’t about reminding God who God is, it’s about reminding us who God is and who we are as the creatures created in the image of God. 

We will pray the Great Litany again on the fifth and final Sunday of Lent.  This great prayer will be a liturgical bookends to our journey through Lent into the heart of God.  Think of this prayer as a big reality check that helps us get a proper perspective on our call as Christians.  First, remember that God is God, and we are not.  Second, remember that not everything is about us/you.  Strive to be Christ-centered, not self-centered.  Thirdly, remember to whom we are praying and conversing: our God whose broken heart was so moved by the brokenness of our world that he took the drastic measure of sending us the Son to bind up our brokeness, heal us, and make us whole.  In short, we are talking with someone who loves us more than we can comprehend.

One of our Lenten disciplines in our house this year is to banish the phrase, “Oh my God!” and it’s annoying little sister “OMG!”  Rich and I were both disturbed by how our family was so flippantly using the name of God, particularly our boys who brought this one home with great gusto from school this year.  By using God’s name in such a not serious way we were not really loving God with all of our heart, strength, soul, and mind.  The holiness of the name of God and our relationship with God as a family was slowly eroding as OMG gained a foothold in our everyday conversations.  So this Lent we are working on saying, “Oh my goodness!” when we need an exclamation to blurt out in excitement and/or surprise.  It takes a lot of effort to do this, and we are all slipping up on this one, can’t just blame the kids!  But every time we remember to say, “Oh my goodness!” instead of “OMG!” we are remembering who our beloved God is and remembering who we are as God’s beloved people.   Every time we remember to honor God’s name we remember the presence of God and the sacred space that God is patiently waiting for us to mark in the midst of our otherwise chaotic and scattered life. 

Lent is not only a good time to remember the covenant God has made with us, but also to remember the covenants we have made with others.  There are the formal vows of baptism, marriage, holy union, ordination, and celebrations of new ministry that we make under the auspices of the Church.  And then there are the less formal but just as powerful promises we make as parents, children, siblings, friends, and lovers.  When you make yourself accountable to someone else in love you will make all kinds of personal sacrifices that you could not have imagined possible before that person entered into your life.  When you take the time to intentionally remember the ones you love, you will find God in the midst of that love as well.  We are so accustomed to taking one another for granted.  What a blessing to have these forty days of Lent to practice remembering the promises we have made to one another in love.     

It’s no wonder that Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days after his baptism by John.  In submitting to the call of God his Father at his baptism he had taken on a long legacy of promises.  And this time living into the promise that God had made to the world through Noah thousands of years before was going to cost him quite a lot.  Jesus needed a lot of time to figure all of this out.  And so God gave Jesus forty days among the wild beasts.  Forty days is a good amount of thinking time.  Lots of praying time.  Lots of sitting on the boat with Noah time.  Lots of figuring out what to do next time.    But those forty days in the wilderness were not a “I am hopelessly abandoned time” for Jesus.  On the contrary God was with Jesus.  God remembered Jesus and sent him his angels.  And Jesus remembered God and allowed them to minister to him.

In his promise to Noah, God laid down his weapons and remembered his love for the world he had created. In the blessed fellowship of the Holy Trinity, God remembered his Son and sojourned with him through the Spirit into the wilderness.  The rainbow and the cross serves as powerful reminders that God remembers you, me, and every man, woman, and child in the chaos and calm of this life.  The question then for us to ponder as we embark on these forty days of Lent is, “Will we remember?”