Lent

Prepping for Lent: Ideas for Generosity

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This post is modified from the introduction of the Liberti Church Lent 2020 Prayerbook.

Lent is here. Historically, Christians have used three broad categories for Lenten practices: fasting, prayer, and generosity. So far, I’ve given ideas for fasting and prayer. Today, I want to talk about generosity.

If you think of these practices as external means and postures for shaping one’s soul and interior life, then fasting is a process of removing things to create a space, prayer is the way we fill those interior spaces, and then generosity is giving out of the overflow we trust is there.

To use another analogy, prayer is like the soul’s inhale, and love/generosity is its exhale; fasting or other ascetic practices are ways to increase our “lung capacity” or quicken our breath for a time from spiritual exertion in order to take in and give out more than we normally would.

Generosity

Generosity is often experienced as the result and overflow that comes from the shaping of other practices and I know it’s hard to “do generosity” in a way that doesn’t at times feel rote, forced, less than we could do, or wrongly motivated.
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Prepping for Lent: Ideas for Prayer

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This post is modified from the introduction of the Liberti Church Lent 2020 Prayerbook.

Lent begins today. Historically, Christians have used three broad categories of practices in this season: fasting, prayer, and generosity. Yesterday, I gave some ideas for fasting. Today, I want to talk about prayer. (Here’s the generosity post.)

Prayer

Prayer is most often characterized “talking with God”. However, there is a more implicit strand through the Scriptures and Christian history that invites us to see prayer as much bigger than verbal, discursive spiritual engagement.
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Prepping for Lent: Ideas for Fasting

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

This post is modified from the introduction of the Liberti Church Lent 2020 Prayerbook.

Tomorrow, Lent begins. The Lent tradition began in the 3rd-century of the early church and is a 40-day season of preparation and repentance in anticipation of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter. Whether you are only beginning to explore the claims of Jesus, or have been a Christian for some time, Lent is a perfect season to allow God to shape your life around the cross and empty tomb of Christ in fresh ways.

Historically, Christians have used three broad categories of practices in this season: fasting, prayer, and generosity. Today, I want to offer some ideas for fasting. (Here are ideas for Prayer and  Generosity). If you’re like me, you forget to think about this until Lent has already started, so hopefully this helps us all.
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Holy Saturday | Meditation for Holy Week (2019)

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From Liberti Church’s Lent & Easter Prayerbook

Easter Oratorio
excerpt, by N. T. Wright

On the seventh day God rested
in the darkness of the tomb;
Having finished on the sixth day
all his work of joy and doom.
Now the Word had fallen silent,
and the water had run dry,
The bread had all been broken,
and the light had left the sky;
The flock had lost its shepherd,
and the seed was sadly sown,
The courtiers had betrayed their king,
and nailed him to his throne.
O sabbath rest by Calvary,
O calm of tomb below,
Where the grave-clothes and the spices
cradle him we did not know!
Rest you well, beloved Jesus:
Caesar’s Lord and Israel’s King,
In the brooding of the Spirit,
in the darkness of the spring.

~give time for silence, prayer, & meditation~

Good Friday | Meditation for Holy Week (2019)

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From Liberti Church’s Lent & Easter Prayerbook

Go To Dark Gethsemane
James Montgomery

Go to dark Gethsemane,
You who feel the tempter’s pow’r;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see;
Watch with him one bitter hour;
Turn not from his grief away;
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

Follow to the judgment hall;
View the Lord of life arraigned;
O the worm-wood and the gall!
O the pangs his soul sustained!
Shun not suff-ring, shame, or loss;
Learn of him to bear the cross
Learn of him to bear the cross.

Calv’ry’s mournful mountain climb
There adoring at his feet,
Mark the miracle of time,
God’s own sacrifice complete:
“It is finished!” Hear the cry;
Learn of Jesus Christ to die
Learn of Jesus Christ to die.

~give time for silence, prayer, & meditation~

Palm Sunday or, “Oh, the Glory, the Beauty, & the Tragedy of Being Human!”

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This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the Christian holiday that ushers in Holy Week. It celebrates the “triumphal entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem (Mk 11:1-11). In hindsight, though, this is one of the oddest “triumphal entries” one could imagine. It is the triumphal kick-off for what would be the death of the Son of God for the sins of the world.

Even now, millennia removed from the events of this week, we still wonder at how this all works. How does one person’s death–however good they are–account for every sin of every human in all of history?

It only begins to make some sort of sense when we acknowledge that this great exchange is not between to equals. Jesus, the Good and Innocent human, cannot merely be “another man” dying for another.

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Of Saints & Suicidal Ideations

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Warning: this post talks about self-harm and suicidal thoughts. If you are experiencing this, you can chat online with the Suicide Prevention Lifeline or call at 1.800.273.8255.

We are in the final weeks of the Christian season of Lent: a time where we focus on the fact that we are not yet who we will be, and that we still live in much darkness, weakness, and self-obsession. On its own, this could become masochistic or over-indulgent depending on your personality. But this is why Easter comes on the other side as a call to cast off the brooding and soul-spelunking to rise into the highest heights of celebration and freedom the Resurrection offers.

But still, this time lends itself to sadder reflections. The other day, my coworkers and I were sharing stories of social work clients we’ve worked with over the years and I was brought back ten years to my first time encountering a suicidal client when I was brand new to the field.

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easter sunday // readings & meditation {2018)

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Easter Sunday: he is risen indeed, alleluia

Scripture Reading:

Matthew 28.1-4

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

-silence-

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