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,

The OTHER Three Letter Word

"Sex."

There, I said it. How are y'all doing with that? You okay? Still a little uncomfortable when your pastor uses the other three letter word (meaning the three letter word that's not God)? Thankful that you have had a succession of pastors at MCC Austin that can say the word? Worried about how I am after having said it?

Don't worry; I'm fine. Truthfully, better than fine. As I told the Pastoral Search Team eight months ago, I believe that being able to talk and preach and think and pray with you about sexuality openly, honestly, and often is a sacred trust; a humbling opportunity; and a wonderful, though mysterious, blessing.

This weekend, as we continue our series on the different nuances of love, we remain with eros. This week's sermon title is "Sexual Salvation," a title I borrowed with permission from a sermon by Rev. Elder Ken Martin. The words "sexual" and "salvation" might seem oddly juxtaposed to you. After all, the word "sexual" connotes the body, things of "the flesh," and things "of this world." The word "salvation," on the other hand, most often connotes the soul, matters of the spirit, and things "celestial," or "not of this world."

I contend that those opposing connotations are the very reason that these two words need each other, need to be coupled, need to be close enough to touch.

When we force these two concepts apart, set them in different camps, make enemies of them, then we end up actually cutting Solomon's baby in half. We show no wisdom and no mercy. We destroy something beautiful and leave everyone bereft.

I'm not going to write the whole sermon here, or you might be tempted not to come to church. But I am going to ask you to prepare yourself for the sermon. I'm going to ask that you pray about, read about, and yes, even talk about these words "sex" and "salvation" before you come to worship. Invite God to ready your heart, mind, and Spirit for what you need to receive from the sermon. And please, pray for me, too. Pray that every word and thought that I share with you will be exactly what God intends it to be.

See you in worship!

Soul Mates

I've been the recipient of lots of puzzled looks the last few days, and it wasn't because of the clapping comment I made at the end of worship last week. (By the way, my comment wasn't about our inability to applaud; it was about our inability to clap in rhythm to music...we need a dose of soul!)

Which leads me back to the puzzled looks. I've been getting those from the Worship Team and this week's worship leaders as I've tried to explain what my sermon "Soul Mates" is about.

Initially, most of them thought that my sermon would be about the love between life partners, spouses. It was a reasonable guess, since they knew this week's topic was eros, one of several nuances of love, and one we most often associate with romantic or sexual love.

No, I said, it's not about that. It's about the people--yes, I said people--who touch our souls. The people who in unexplainable, profound ways stake a claim upon our hearts. The ones whose spirits commune with ours in everyday ways of words and gestures and in ways that transcend our everydayness. . .ways that are soul-full, almost sacramental. . .way beyond talk or touch.

I don't think I did a very good job of explaining myself because the blank looks remained. Oh, a couple of nice people nodded politely to help me feel better, but alas, I hadn't enlightened them at all.

Not one to give up easily, I'm going to try a different approach. I'm going to let someone else explain for me, and that someone is Richard from Texas, the para-hero of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth is trying to explain to Richard why her shattered heart will never be over David, the man with whom she has recently broken up. Elizabeth says, "I think the reason it's so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate."

"He probably was," Richard offers. "Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. . . . Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you. . ."

Hmmmmmmm. Does that help? Are you thinking about the people who have come into your life that, as Richard also said, "touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching"? Are you remembering those soul mates who from the very beginning you felt you were getting reacquainted with, not meeting for the first time?

If you still don't get it, just read this week's scripture. When you read the lines "When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul," if you still don't get it, if you can't think of a single friend or mentor or lover who has gotten to you in this way, if you've never encountered a soul mate, I encourage you to start praying for one right now. A true soul mate is someone in whom it's very easy to see all the possibilities God has created us for, and all the love, hope, and grace God is ready to offer us.

God Bless Your Heart & Soul...

Goodwill at the USPS

I wonder if the U.S. Postal Service has felt an unexplainable surge of goodwill this week? I'm wondering this because I estimate that our MCC Austin family has mailed somewhere between 400 and 500 postcards this week to people that we love. All those love letters are bound to be spilling their positive energy onto unsuspecting people everywhere!

If you weren't able to worship with us last weekend, let me describe the postcards I'm talking about. They were created in keeping with our Epiphany theme "Love Letters from God." On the front of each card is a heart resting in a swirling flame of orange and red and yellow. Upon the heart are written Mother Teresa's words: "I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." On the back, each card says simply: "I was thinking about you in church today..."

After each worship service, we invited you to take as many postcards as you wanted and send them to the people that the service moved you to reach out to, especially your parents and children, biological or chosen.

Well, you took over half of our 1,000 cards home with you, and some of you dropped by during the week to pick up more...wonderful! We asked David to order 1,000 more, and if that's still not enough, thanks be to God that we are blessed with so many people that we love and are thankful for!

This week, we will explore thelema, the "desire to do something" or "the will." We'll focus on the amazing possibilities that arise when we join our human will to the will of God, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Specifically, we'll look at two people, Harvey Milk and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I feel pretty certain that both of these men were in lockstep with the will of God insofar as their work for human rights was concerned. Dr. King once wrote that as he prepared to speak, he would always remind himself to "keep Martin Luther King in the background and God in the foreground and everything will be all right. " We do not have nearly as extensive a record of the speeches and writings of Harvey Milk, a Jewish man, nor was his faith as prominent a part of his platform, but I have no difficulty in accepting that the hope and dignity he offered to gay people everywhere generated within the will of a good and gracious God. Whenever we help to raise people up, not above God but toward God, I believe we, too, are resting in the will of God.

Come worship with us this weekend! Be inspired by the love of God and the lives of two remarkable people. When you leave, send a postcard or a dozen to people who have inspired you.

Next week, I'll check in with the Postmaster General and see if my theory about goodwill at the post office has any merit. Anybody know the number?

Unbelivable #2

I've tried to come up with another word to use, but there's just not one. So here again, for the second time in less than a month, is my signature exclamation: Unbelievable!

Unbelievable that we've said goodbye to Advent, my favorite season of the church year, and I'm not a bit sad about it. I don't have time or energy or need to be sad because I'm too excited about Epiphany and our theme "Love Letters from God."

Mother Teresa once described herself as a pencil in the hand of a God who is writing love letters to the world. During Epiphany, we're going to continue our year's theme of "Sacred Desire~Spiritual Yearnings" as we explore different types of love and the risks and rewards of giving and receiving those types of love. Here are the types of love we will explore:

January 10 & 11 Storge- love of parents and children"Before I Am and Yet a Child of Me"
January 17 & 18 Thelema- desire to do things; will"MiLK"
January 24 & 25 Eros- soulful love"Soul Mates"
January 31 & February 1 Eros-erotic love"Sexual Salvation"
February 7 & 8 Philia- love of siblings"Poet, Prophet, and Priest"
February 14 & 15 Agape- love"Wide Open"

Each time we gather together you will have an opportunity to send your own love letters to the world. It will be amazing!

I hope you will commit yourself to worshiping with us every weekend of the series. I think you will be moved to laughter, moved to tears, and moved to new depths of loving God and others.
One last thing. As your Worship Team has planned these services, we've been mindful of the emotional impact of this series. If you find yourself with questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to one of your pastors or deacons. You can find staff email addresses on our website at www.mccaustin.com or reach us through the office at (512) 291-8601, and you can call the Deacon Care Line at (512) 291-8819.

Please never think that your questions or concerns are too trivial or that your needs are inconsequential. Reach out. Trust God. Trust others.

May we all be pencils in God's hand.