Lent and Abundance

Hey Friends,

 

During this season of Lent, we’re not only encouraging the practice of engaging in a Lenten discipline, but we’re also focusing on scripture that celebrates God’s abundance.  Here are some thoughts on these topics. 

 

Lent is a season of reflection, introspection, repentance, and penitence.  During Lent we examine our lives and we note the places in which we can deepen our discipleship and devotion to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It is typical in Lent to engage in extra religious practices to help turn or focus to our spiritual lives, because too often our spiritual lives are often pushed to the margins of our lives.  Therefore, we might choose to fast from certain practices this Lent, giving up meat on Fridays, abstaining from watching television or eating chocolates.  The idea in engaging in such fasts is not to punish ourselves, but, first, to symbolically assert that nothing is more important in our lives than the Lord Jesus Christ.  Second, we fast to carve out time to dedicate and devote to prayer or spiritual contemplation when we would usually be engaging in other activities.  In addition to fasting, a valuable Lenten practice is also the adding of a spiritual discipline.  Perhaps we will choose to take Pastor Mary Louise up on her encouragement from last week, and we will join her in reading the Gospels and the stories of Jesus’ ministry, or we will choose to add a time of prayer into our daily schedules for these forty days.  Whatever Lenten discipline you choose, I pray that it will bring you closer to the presence of Christ and deepen your celebration and worship of Christ at Easter.

 

Typically, sermons during the season of Lent can be a bit dour as they invite us to reflect on our sin or lack of spiritual fervor and commitment.  Lent can be a bit heavy at times.  But when I was contemplating the Lenten sermon series, I must confess I myself felt a bit overcome by the heaviness of the world in which we are living.  Because of my own experience, and in talking to a number of you all, it is important to acknowledge that life feels a bit heavy right now, does it not?  There is a heaviness in our country’s politics as we’re deeply divided and antagonistic.  There is a heaviness in our world as we have grown numb and frankly unconcerned about wars and violence.  There is even a heaviness in many of our churches as congregations struggle to adjust and reckon with cultural changes that seem to push traditional church participation and attendance to the margins of society.  We are left asking ourselves, what exactly is going in our world these days because it feels so unfamiliar and, yes, heavy.

 

So, because the world feels so heavy right now, I wanted to try to bring some airiness and lightness.  We don’t need to add to the weight of the world right now, but to be lifted up.  And to do so, over the next forty days we’ll be focusing on the theme of God’s abundance.  In the midst of all that is heavy right now, let’s just stop, take a moment and say together – God is good!  God is good all the time.  So when I was in middle school I remember attending a youth camp in which they encouraged us to say together a very cheesy refrain.  But you know what, I think we need some cheese in our lives, so let’s try it together.  I am going to say, God is good.  And then you are going to respond, “all the time.”  Let’s try that a few times.  In the midst of the heaviness of life, please do not forget this transformational truth. God is good, all the time. 

 

And that takes us to our scripture reading for this week from the (not) often preached upon book of Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy is the fifth and final book of the Law.  It is essentially a series of five speeches that Moses gives to the Israelites, and these speeches of Moses function as his final words to the Hebrews.  Deuteronomy is set after the Hebrews years of wandering in the wilderness following their Exodus from Egypt, in which they are on the cusp of entering the promised land.  

 

In many ways, the Hebrews were experiencing a heavy time in their spiritual and political lives as well.  They were faced with the coming death of their great spiritual leader and the recognition that the practice of their faith as they knew it was going to change.  They were still bruised and wounded spiritually and emotionally from the experience of wandering through the wilderness and the ways that exposed their own unfaithfulness and sin.  In addition, that time also levied some very difficult spiritual questions upon the Hebrews as they were forced to reckon with the fact that God did not always act in ways they expected or wanted God to act.

 

But Moses words to the Israelites were words of God’s faithfulness.  He counseled the Hebrews to not forget that God was good, that God was always with them, and that in return the Hebrews were always to be a people who celebrated God’s abundant goodness.  As a result, Deut. Is Moses religious instruction to the Hebrews counseling them about how they are to live in such a way that manifests and makes evident their love and worship of God.  This was to be done by the ways they were to treat others within the Hebrew community, the nations around them, and their spiritual and religious devotional practices.  

 

Specifically, in the passage of Scripture from this morning, Moses is instructing the Hebrews in the practice that will come to be known as the harvest sacrifice, which becomes a central practice in the Hebrews’ religious life.  Moses is instructing the Hebrews on what to do when during the harvest season they are to show and offer their thanks to God – specifically, they are to offer a sacrifice of the best of their harvest to God.  

 

We will forgive the Hebrews if they were guilty of thinking of Moses instructions as absurd.  Think about.  Moses was instructing them on how to behave AFTER a harvest, which would necessitate crops, which would necessitate seeds, which would necessitate a growing season, which would necessitate land, which would necessitate a non-nomadic existence, which would necessitate a home.  None of which the Israelites had.  In essence Moses is instructing the Israelites to practice a realized imagination in which they trust and believe that that which God has said will occur, will in fact come to be – even in the face of a present situation that seems completely at odds with God’s future promises.

 

Moses reminds the Israelites that God has promised to give them an anointed and chosen land in which the Hebrews would not be oppressed and would be able to cultivate and call their own.  Moses dares the Hebrews to believe, to exercise faith.  But not just to believe, to actually prepare and shape their lives in a spiritual posture of gratitude and thanksgiving to God.  It’s as if Moses is saying to the Hebrews, when God has proven God’s self to be faithful do not forget.  Do not forget that when you are no longer suffering, that you cried out to God.  Remember and give thanks to God for God’s goodness.  

 

And that, I believe is Moses’ word to us.  Do not forget.  When we find ourselves overwhelmed by the heaviness of life, do not forget that it will not always be so.  And, more significantly, when you find yourselves enjoying the fruit of God’s blessings and faithfulness, when you are living into a good and beautiful present moment that you never thought would ever come to be, that you dared not think would ever occur – do not forget to recognize God’s abundant goodness and celebrate God.  In this very moment, we are the heirs of God’s promises.  In all our lives, in this very moment, God has proven Godself faithful by hearing our cries of desperation and authoring for us beautiful present moments.  Never forget the ways God has been good and faithful and the ways that right now is a holy moment in which God has blessed us and answered our prayers.  

 

Peace,

Kyle