As We Prepare for Lent...

Before looking ahead to this evening's Ash Wednesday service and the Lenten season, I want to thank you for making our All-Alleluia Saturday and Fat Sunday services amazing affirmations of the joy and hope we live into as followers of Christ. I also want to encourage you to remember that the joy and hope flows in both directions, for our God is a "happy God" who delights in each of us as well!

Don't forget that for a moment, even as we enter into the deep solemnity and reflection of our Ash Wednesday service tonight. Ash Wednesday does mark the beginning of Lent, but it doesn't mean the end of our joy, our hope, or our celebration of God's love and forgiveness. Not for one moment should we forget that we are Easter people, assured of God's unconditional love and unending forgiveness through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Lent, here's a brief explanation: The Catholic Church began to observe Lent in the fourth century. Lent lasts 40 week days, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter. Since Sundays celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the six Sundays that occur during Lent are not counted as part of the 40 days of Lent. They are referred to as the Sundays in Lent.

Originally, Lent was the time of preparation for those who were awaiting baptism. During Lent, those who were to be baptized observed a period of study and prayer before they were baptized at the Easter Vigil, early on Easter Sunday. Since the newly baptized members were entering into the larger community of Faith, the entire community was asked to prepare with study and prayer.

Many Protestant Christians are only recently beginning to reclaim the observance of Lent. The evangelical Christians, especially, have rejected Lent because it is associated with "high church" and Catholicism. But now many Protestant churches are observing the season of Lenten reflection as a way to refocus on spirituality.

Here at MCC Austin, we are claiming Lent as a time to Renew, Reuse, Rejoice, and Resurrect our spiritual selves. We invite you to attend our Ash Wednesday service tonight and use it as a way to "set apart" the sacred season of Lent. Then, we encourage you to engage in some type of personal spiritual practice throughout the season. Prayer, reading, fasting, and serving others are some of the practices you might take on during the 40 days of Lent. Many of us will be committing to a "Carbon Fast," and we will engage in practices that will help us reduce our individual "carbon footprints." In this way we will be worshiping God by renewing our covenant relationship with all of God's creation. A description of the "Carbon Fast" and suggestions for each day of Lent will be printed in tonight's worship bulletin and in our Lenten worship bulletin. In addition, we'll send out a "Carbon Fast" daily devotional beginning today and continuing each Friday in Lent.

For those of you who regularly observe Lent and for those of you who may be observing Lent for the first time, I pray that this Lenten season is a time of wonderful renewal and refreshment for your spirit.

God Bless and Keep You Always...

Fat Sunday

Our Worship Together

This weekend, we celebrate Mardi Gras at MCC Austin with an All Alleluia Saturday service and a Fat Sunday service. Mardi Gras, French for "Fat Tuesday," is the final day of the Carnival celebrations as well as the last celebration day before the Lenten season begins on Ash Wednesday.

In faithful New Orleans fashion, we are going to celebrate Mardi Gras with a rousing feast of food and music, and in faithful Christian fashion, we are going to celebrate by reveling in God's joyous love for us and ours for God.

A main focus of our weekend worship will be letting out all of our Alleluias! because during Lent, we don't sing or say Alleluia. As Ervin Knezek, our Worship Team leader, has shared with several of our ministries, "In Lent, we do not profess Alleluia. We use this time to wait in joyful expectation for Easter. This practice enriches and shapes our prayer and our sense of discipline as we anticipate Easter. It is a kind of fasting from 'ecstasy' and ecstatic praise, letting our Alleluia lie dormant for six weeks before we again burst out in joyful and ecstatic affirmation of the resurrection."

Come and lift your Alleluias! with us this week and help us reaffirm that, as Nehemiah says, "The joy of God is our strength." Not that we're in any danger of forgetting that here at MCC Austin, but I've heard tell that some churches think that following God means only fasting and never feasting. If you're of a different mindset (or just different), we'll see you Saturday and Sunday!

Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Agape Love

I've never pretended to be a sophisticated theologian. In fact, you're as likely to hear me quote Anne Lamotte or Emerson on matters of theology as you are Karl Barth or the Apostle Paul. Today I want to share with you a theological reflection from that depository of spiritual wisdom, Garth Brooks. Back in the 80s, Brooks released one of my favorite songs, "The Dance." That song resonated with many people, and as a result we (who are old enough) heard it played over and over at memorial services and graduations and reunions of all kinds. The chorus says simply: "And now, I'm glad I didn't know/The way it all would end/The way it all would go./Our lives are better left to chance/I could have missed the pain/But I'd of had to miss the dance."

Nice, isn't it? Well, nice when you're standing on the other side, safe from or at least somewhat numbed to the pain. But what about in the beginning? What about when you're taking the very first tentative steps into a new love? What about when you're considering the risk of self-disclosure that a new friendship invites you into? What about when you're weighing the investment of time and energy that a new romance desires? What about when you're agonizing over whether to try one more time to explain to your parents or your children or your siblings who you are and whom you love? It's not often easy when we feel those first, tentative tugs or those first lose-our-balance yanks on our heartstrings to choose the dance despite the pain.

This weekend, though, that's exactly what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to live a life "wide open" to love.

I chose the sermon title "Wide Open" many weeks ago, when our Love Letters from God series was in its planning stages. I love to dance with words, and the Greek word agape held out her hand to me and dared me to let her lead, dared me to follow where she wanted to go, and to acknowledge her power as a partner. That wasn't easy for me. You see, like many people, I often think of agape as the pure love, the ideal love, the wing-wearing, haloed love that seems so unattainable.

But in half a beat agape invited me to come out and dance and offered to share with me her untamed side. Agape invited me to forget her italicized foreignness and her strangely placed accent and hear her in my native tongue: not /ah gah' pay/ but /uh gape'/, or, in other words, wide open.

Now I'm beginning to realize that "agape," the Americanized twin sister, has a lot to teach us about love if we will just let her.

Please come and worship with us this weekend, and oh, be sure to wear comfortable shoes.... We're going to turn up the music and dance!

Love,