March 2025 Newsletter – Lenten Leadership

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Leadership requires action and example. A good leader (and remember, we are all leaders) sets a vision and then engages with others to meet the vision. Consider what bad leaders do. They say: ‘Do this and do that’ but merely sit back and watch. They are not alongside in working to accomplish the vision. They take a lais·sez-faire approach. Even worse, they sit back and criticize when they think you’re not doing it right. We can rightly say: How can we do it right without leadership?

Jesus is the good and perfect leader. He placed His entire self on the line for the vision His Father had set, the establishment of the Kingdom. He led and taught others the how and why. He set out clear goals and worked to get there – He alongside His disciples. He corrected His disciples when they went astray, but did so in a fair and evenhanded manner.

On the First Sunday in Lent our Epistle is taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome. Paul is doing two things. He is contrasting the Law of Moses with its legalistic claim against the free gift of salvific grace offered through Jesus. St. Paul tells the Church that they have the Word of God and that if they confess Jesus as Lord and believe fully in Him they have salvation. They need not offer animal and grain sacrifices or carry out other precepts of the Law to obtain forgiveness or salvation. It is already theirs in Jesus’ sacrifice.

So too for us.

From there, Paul calls on us to lead by our proclamation. This was a call to bold leadership because to confess Jesus as Lord was quite hazardous then. For a Jew it could mean being cast out of family and community including great economic sacrifice. For a Gentile the penalties could include not only separation from family and community, but also arrest and prosecution, later even martyrdom. That’s not too far from reality today. Yet, lead we must without fear. Let us engage and through our Lenten action and example draw many to Christ trusting the assurance that no one who believes in Jesus will be put to shame.

Welcome to our March 2025 Newsletter. We enter Lent on March 5th with Ash Wednesday. Lent provides us with apply opportunity to practice the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and sacrifice. Join in our Directed Giving program to provide food resources in our local community. Looking forward, we are preparing for our Seniorate Lenten Retreat on April 5th and our Basket Social on April 27th. Looking back we announce the winners of our Valentines Raffle. Congratulations to all who participated. You support the faith development of our youth. Read up about CarePortal’s Love Day 2025. What we do really matters. We announce upcoming Ordinations for three of our brothers, Tonsure, and Minor Orders for another five. God bless them! All that and a reflection on the Orthodox Hymn “Open To Me The Doors Of Repentance.”

Read up on all this and more in our March 2025 Newsletter.

Reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent 2025

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.

As we have discussed, God uses imagery so we might clearly understand His intent for us, the picture He envisions for us. We will continue this study of God’s imagery throughout the Great Lent. 

May God’s imagery help us to achieve the vision He has for us and help us to arrive at Easter no longer ash, but light.

Last week we encountered the tremendous set of images where we saw with the eyes of our heart the fasting Jesus, tired and hungry in the dessert. There He was put to the test by Satan. We saw the rocks – would they be turned to bread, the mountain top with a supernatural view of all the kingdoms of the world, and the parapet of the Temple high above Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

Today, the eyes of our heart are taken to another mountaintop, Mount Tabor, where Jesus is Transfigured, appearing in all His glory, and standing between Moses and Elijah. The Patriarchs and Prophets give testimony to God’s Son come among us.

The three Apostles overwhelmed seek to react. We might have the same thoughts they did – what can we do and how will we do it.

Wait, let’s build three dwellings right here, then we can stay here with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Indeed, it is good that we are here. I will leave everything else behind just to remain.

The linchpin in the Gospel is the statement: they spoke of his exodus. Jesus’ path is made very clear. He is going to Jerusalem where He will be arrested, tortured, and killed, and on the third day rise.

The apostles wanted none of that bad stuff. How much better to stay on this mountain then to descend into the coming chaos.

Brothers and sisters, in this place, in this church, we ascend the mountain, and we commune with Christ Jesus. We experience His glory and are safe from the chaos out there. How lovely it would be, and I often picture this, to remain here, to rest here, to be in the Lord’s presence continually. Lovely yes, but not God’s will for us.

St. Paul, as he always does, makes it real for us. We must go out into the chaos filled with the grace we have received here and be those who thus conduct themselves according to the model [we] have in Jesus and His Apostles.

Through our Lenten disciplines let us strengthen ourselves for the work we must do in the chaos, bringing light to overcome darkness.

February 2024 Newsletter – Living in His Pattern

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

The text above from the First Letter of St. Peter was aimed at new Christians. Peter is saying that Christianity is not easy. Christianity demands a lot from us. Some will not understand why we endure what we endure. Others will pile on those who have entered the kingdom of God. Suffering is part of the Christian life. Our Pre-Lent and Lenten journey are specifically designed to call us to self-sacrifice, to connect with and undertake some suffering for the sake of Christ and His Church (the Body of Christ – all of us together), and to walk the difficult road Jesus traveled to the Cross. Self-sacrifice and suffering go hand in hand.

We all know what it is like to give something up. Whether it is the fasting we do on Wednesdays and Fridays, or some deeper abstinence from certain behaviors that have become sinful in our lives. Being honest, we know it will hurt to do those things. Yet we must. What that suffering comes down to then is how we meet it. We might meet it with fear, trepidation, and a propensity to dwell on the negative or we could turn our thoughts to the joyful outcomes and experiences we will derive from what we undertake. The result is that our current suffering for Christ’s body will return to us as blessings and miracles.

Similarly, walking with Jesus, particularly through acts of devotion and prayer (Stations, Bitter Lamentations, a Lenten Retreat) keep us connected to what He suffered for us. We come to clearly see God giving His whole self for us, accepting the worst pain and punishment of all – physical and psychological – because God sees us as worth His Son’s suffering. The result is that we do not underestimate our value in God’s eyes. We see His love full on.

God calls us to live in the pattern Jesus laid out for us in sacrifice, suffering, and in walking with Him. He is alongside us as our Guide as we put our feet in His footprints. We then should follow His steps with every effort now so to do so forever.

Welcome to our February 2024 Newsletter. We have already entered into our Pre-Lenten journey and we reflect both on this time of preparation and how we will meet Lent head-on this Ash Wednesday, February 14th. We cover the various disciplines of Lent, our upcoming Lenten retreat, and offer suggestions for directed giving. Our various parish meetings are upcoming, part of our celebration of a tradition that goes back to the early Church, shared decision making. We once again support Super Bowl Sunday in giving to local food charities. There are prayers for Pre-Lent and for Valentine’s Day. Is there a parish ministry in your future? And… are you incensed? All that and more in our February 2024 Newsletter.