“UNFINISHED: Out of the Depths”
Between trust and doubt, courage and fear, anger and empathy, rebellion and obedience; we find ourselves in the story of Jonah, God, and the hated Ninevites.
Each Wednesday in Lent we will reflect on a different theme from the story of Jonah. The story of Jonah is full of irony and humor that serves as a mirror into our own resistance to God’s Calling in our lives to trust and obey God, and, to love our neighbors with the same compassion God shows us.
Ash Wednesday, February 22 at 7:00pm – “God Calls and Persists” As we are marked with ashes, faced with our mortality and our need for God’s eternal grace and love, we focus on how God Calls each of us to follow Christ Jesus, to love God, and to love our neighbors, even those we despise.
Lent 1, February 26 at 7:30pm – “Intercepted and Redirected” Encounters with God can often come in the form of disruptions to our everyday life, and to our plans to control our own purpose and direction. Yet these disruptions have the potential to bring us into a sacred encounter with God and our neighbors in ways we didn’t expect, in ways that God intends to change us.
Lent 2, March 5 – “God in the Depths of Chaos” The Cross of Christ teaches us to look for God in the midst of suffering. For it is in the places of suffering that we learn one of the most basic, but crucial lessons of faith: to cry out for help to a God who loves us and promises to be with us, even in our darkest times.
Lent 3, March 12 – “Obedience and Preservation” With deep irony, the story of Jonah reveals that it is those on the outside of the faith community who are more open to repentance and to obedience to God. What are the dire consequences of ignoring God’s commands to love God and love our neighbors?
Lent 4 – March 19 – “Faithful and Unfinished” We are all “unfinished,” with each day and interaction offering us an opportunity to grow in love, faithfulness, and compassion.
Lent 5, March 26 – “Jesus, a new Jonah” The disruptions that God brings into our lives has a way of exposing things that were buried and hidden beneath the surface, even things we didn’t know or want to know about ourselves. For Jonah the Prophet of the Lord, it was his unfaithfulness and lack of compassion. For Jesus, asleep during a violent storm, it revealed the lack of trust of the disciples, and reveals Jesus for who he truly is, the Lord of all Creation, the very Son of God.