Your Guide to Lent 2021 at First Parish Church - Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted ...
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Your Guide to Lent 2021
at First Parish Church
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days
and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
Matthew 4:1-2Greetings First Parish Church, Wilderness is a common theme for the season of Lent. The 40 days of Lent are intended to reflect the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, fasting, and being tempted by the devil. My desire to focus on the wilderness theme this Lent comes from the fact that we have been dealing with a global pandemic for nearly a year. If the wilderness is characterized as a place of testing, challenge, loneliness, and hardship, we have been in a wilderness for a long time. The wilderness is also a place of preparation. After the Hebrew people escaped slavery in Egypt, they spent a long time in the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land. During that time, they developed a relationship with their liberating God. They learned to trust in God. They were transformed from a band of former slaves into a mighty people. In recent years, First Parish Church has been through a lot of changes and challenges. The pandemic has been difficult to navigate as a community. However, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. People are being vaccinated. After a nearly two-year process, you just recently called a settled Senior Minister. Can we approach this season of Lent as a time of preparation? Can we enter into a few weeks of prayer and reflection together? Can we begin to discern the way forward together by opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s leading and prodding? Before Jesus began his ministry, the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness. My hope is that you will enter the wilderness by engaging in our Lent offerings in some shape or form. View the virtual Ash Wednesday service. Take in the wilderness-themed visuals in the sanctuary. Spend some time with the weekly devotionals contained here and join us for the weekly devotional conversations. If you aren’t comfortable with prayer or if you never learned how to pray, learn and practice a simple form of prayer called Lectio Divina. I’m excited to see what the future holds for First Parish Church. I’m so glad to be sharing the journey of faith with you. Let us begin that journey with some time in the wilderness. -Pastor Eric
Schedule of Events
Eric’s Zoom Office Hour February 15 10-11am
If you have questions about our Lent offerings or want to touch base with him for any
reason, please join Eric on Zoom anytime during the hour.
*Contact Betty in the office for the Zoom link
Ash Wednesday Virtual Worship Service February 17
Imposition of Ashes – For Covid protection, ashes-to-go will be available 7:30-8:30am
and noon-1pm. Please pull up to the front of the church.
The service will be posted on our website by midday.
Weekly Lenten Devotional Discussions Sundays at 10:00-11:00am
*Contact Betty in the office for the Zoom link
February 21 – Lent 1
February 28 – No Discussion. Join for the Annual Congregational Meeting at 10:30am
March 7 – Lent 3
March 14 – Lent 4
March 21 – Lent 5
Prayer Practice: Guided Lectio Divina Mondays at 6:30-6:50pm
*Contact Betty in the office for the Zoom link
February 22, March 1, March 8, March 15, March 22
Lectio Divina means “holy reading.” This prayer form involves the reading of scripture,
meditating on a word or phrase from that scripture, and offering a short prayer following
that meditation. The time commitment is only 15 minutes plus a few minutes of
instruction. This will be ideal for beginners who want to learn to pray.
Holy Week More details on Holy Week will come as we monitor the pandemic.
March 28 Palm Sunday
April 1 Maundy Thursday
April 2 Good Friday
April 4 Easter SundayFebruary 21st A Spirit-Driven Lent Read: Matthew 4:1-11 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. Matthew 4:1-2 Welcome to this Lenten Wilderness journey! Before beginning his ministry, Jesus spent time in the wilderness. According to the gospel of Matthew, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. Mark’s gospel adds a sense of urgency to the story. Following the baptism of Jesus, Mark adds, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” Mark’s version provides an indication that Jesus might not have gone willingly. In his book A Season for the Spirit, Martin Smith writes, “This is the place where we are all invited to stand at the beginning of Lent to take in the meaning of this movement from river to desert, and to be caught up in it ourselves. Lent is the season for the Spirit of truth, who drove Jesus into the wilderness to initiate him into the truth that sets us free…But this word “drove” is very special to me. I know that inertia, illusion, and fear hold me back from answering God’s invitation to enter into the truth and gain freedom.” Why do you think it was important for Jesus to spend time in the wilderness? Ronald J. Allen, professor at Christian Theological Seminary, once said the Spirit drove Jesus to pick a fight with the devil. Imagine if, as Christians, we are called to pick fights with the demonic! Martin Smith suggests that in his baptism Jesus learned he was special. In his time in the wilderness, he learned to identify with the suffering of humanity. Perhaps we all need to hear the voice of God saying, “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter.” And we also need to experience the hunger and vulnerability of the wilderness in order to claim our humanity. 1) Where is the Spirit leading or driving you today? 2) What is the value of wild places? 3) What will you do to mark Lent this year? Prayer? Fasting? Other? God, prepare me so I hear your word, and am led by your Spirit. Show me how to meet each test, trusting your victory in Christ. Amen
March 7
Fasting: Making Space for God
Read: Matthew 6:16-18
And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to
show others that they are fasting. Matthew 6:16a
Read: Acts 14:21-23
And after they appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted
them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe. Acts 14:23
We are all probably familiar with the tradition of giving up something for Lent. In recent years
I’ve noticed a backlash to fasting during Lent. Many prefer to “take on” something rather than
“give up” something. It’s hard to go without. It’s difficult to break habits, but notice Jesus didn’t
provide instructions for fasting if his followers fasted. He used the word when. It seems the
discipline of fasting was expected.
In her book Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites, Lynne M. Baab writes, “Christian
fasting is the voluntary denial of something for a specific time, for a spiritual purpose, by an
individual, family, community or nation.” She believes fasting is about freedom: the freedom to
make time for the things that are most important, the freedom to draw closer to God. When we
fast, we demonstrate that we are not slaves to our habits. We can change things. We can try new
things.
These days fasting is not just about abstaining from food or denying ourselves chocolate. It can
also be about refraining from news, social media, shopping, Internet, email, and any number of
other habits. Baab writes, “Fasting, at its core, is not a discipline of withholding. Fasting is a
discipline of making space for God.” Could that be why Jesus fasted during his time in the
wilderness?
1) When you think of the word fasting what thoughts and feelings come to you, both
positive and negative?
2) Are you willing to embrace discomfort in order to create space in your life?
3) Some people have good reasons not to fast from food. What would you consider
limiting?
God, prepare me so I hear your word, and am led by your Spirit. Show me how to meet each test,
trusting your victory in Christ. AmenMarch 14th
Wilderness as Metaphor
Read: Ruth 1:1-18
Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought
there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then
wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has
been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.”
Ruth 1:12-13
In her book Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown writes, “Theologians, writers, poets, and
musicians, have always used the wilderness as a metaphor, to represent everything from a vast
and dangerous environment where we are forced to navigate difficult trials to a refuge of nature
and beauty where we seek space for contemplation. What all wilderness metaphors have in
common are the notions of solitude, vulnerability, and an emotional, spiritual or physical quest.”
One of the reasons we chose wilderness as a theme for Lent this year is the difficulty of the
pandemic. We are not literally in a wilderness, but it can feel that way. Many of us are
experiencing the feelings Brown associates with wilderness: solitude, vulnerability, and fear. In
the book of Ruth, Naomi suffered the deaths of all the men in her life. She believed she was too
old to remarry. We might say she experienced something of a wilderness experience. The love
and devotion of her daughter-in-law, Ruth, helped her through it.
Brene Brown speaks of standing alone as being in a wilderness. She writes, “Belonging so fully
to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness – an untamed, unpredictable place of
solitude and searching…True Belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to
yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness
in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t
require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
1) How has the pandemic been a wilderness experience for you?
2) Apart from the pandemic, is there another wilderness in which you find yourself?
3) Naomi had Ruth. Jesus was waited on by angels. Are you able to find sources of comfort
in the wilderness?
God, prepare me so I hear your word, and am led by your Spirit. Show me how to meet each test,
trusting your victory in Christ. AmenMarch 21st
Radical Amazement
Read: Psalm 8
When I look at your heavens, the work of your finger, the moon and the stars that you have
established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Psalm 8:3-4
It is well known that time in nature can be transforming. You may know someone who has
benefitted from an Outward Bound type program. In his book Backpacking With the Saints:
Wilderness Hiking As Spiritual Practice, Belden C. Lane writes, “We see the therapeutic value
of wilderness today in the increasing number of Outward Bound programs for troubled teens,
terminally ill patients, developmentally disabled children, and people with addictions. Exposure
to wild terrain takes people out of their comfort zone, providing a catalyst for transformative
experience.
One of the things I enjoy about being in Maine is that I can see more stars than I could where I
was in Connecticut. Before I go to bed, I will often step out into the backyard and look up. That’s
all it takes to fill me with awe and wonder. One can sense that same awe of the psalmist in the
words of Psalm 8. Taking in creation, whether it is just outside one’s door or deep in the forest,
can inspire and rejuvenate. It can also heal.
Lane goes on to write, “Another way of appreciating nature’s ferocious edge is to consider the
role that wilderness plays in human healing. Its power to astound is an integral part of its power
to heal. The final appeal of backcountry isn’t its panoramic grandeur or stylized beauty, but its
unnerving way of astonishing us. Wilderness teaches what Abraham Heschel calls Radical
Amazement…The transformative power of wilderness is its ability to strip us of
everything…while filling us also with wonder.”
1) It has been said, “It is awe that moves us forward.” What does that mean to you?
2) Can you think of a book or a movie in which a person is healed by time in the
wilderness?
God, prepare me so I hear your word, and am led by your Spirit. Show me how to meet each test,
trusting your victory in Christ. AmenMarch 28th
God’s Home in the Wilderness
Read: Exodus 3:1-15
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock
beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of
the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing,
yet it was not consumed. Exodus 3:1-2
In this story, Moses encountered God in a desolate place, “beyond the wilderness.” In the Bible,
the terms wilderness and desert are used interchangeably. Horeb, also called Sinai, was the
mountain of God. At the time of the Exodus, God’s home was not located within the domain of
Egypt’s Pharaoh. Nor was it a site within the land of Israel. It was in the wilderness.
In his book Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible, Jon Levenson writes, “What I do claim
is that the desert…functions in early prose as a symbol of freedom, which stands in opposition to
the massive and burdensome regime of Egypt, where state and cult are presented as colluding in
the perpetuation of slavery and degradation. The mountain of God is a beacon to the slaves of
Egypt, a symbol of a new kind of master and a radically different relationship of people to state.
Sinai is not the final goal of the Exodus, but lying between Egypt and Canaan, it does represent
God’s unchallengeable mastery over both.”
God told Moses to take his shoes off because he was on holy ground. Author Samuel Proctor
once wrote, “Moses met God in a desolate place, on a piece of unproductive real estate which
looked like anything but holy ground. And God was no stranger to such places. You and I have
found ourselves in such places when God became real to us….But the ground became holy
because God confronted Moses there, and wherever God confronts us, the ground is holy
ground.”
1) Describe the impact in your mind, body, and spirit of being in a wild place: a forest, a
desert, or an expanse of unpopulated beach.
2) Have you ever encountered the divine in a place you wouldn’t have expected, perhaps in
your travels, on a mission trip, or in an unremarkable and familiar place?
God, prepare me so I hear your word, and am led by your Spirit. Show me how to meet each test,
trusting your victory in Christ. AmenYou can also read
