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“We give up things during Lent to remind ourselves of the suffering and pain Jesus will experience at the end of the season. We also give up things to be reminded of our dependence on God. Caffeine shouldn’t be the thing that compels us to live. God’s love and grace are what should compel us to live and love. Giving up coffee is not trivial at all. When that dull headache starts rolling in, we reflect on our mortality, our weakness, and our dependence on coffee (it’s only 9 am — how am I getting a caffeine headache already?), which should remind us of God’s mercy and grace and presence.“
—Rev. Joseph Yoo, United Methodist Church

Every denomination that observes Lent recognizes it as a time to get close(r) to God, and so far as I can tell, every denomination follows the formula spelled out above by Rev. Yoo. What reminds us of God during Lent? Pain. Inconvenience. Disappointment. We are creatures of conditioning and habit, and when we associate God with suffering, then that’s all God becomes to us. How do we get close to God? Suffer! How many people in the midst of a caffeine headache stop and say, “Well, hey, this headache reminds me of God’s mercy, grace, and presence in my life?” I might thank God for the person who invented Ibuprofen, but that’s not my preferred method of getting closer to God.

I understand that there are no atheists in foxholes, and some of the most fervent prayers I’ve made have been in the dentist’s chair – suffering can indeed draw us closer to God. But there are better ways to God. Someone could jump through the stained glass at church to get inside, but it’s much easier to come through the door.

Jesus spent an agonizing three hours on the cross, and before that, he was whipped, mocked, and beaten. His last hours were brutal. They were a fraction of his time on earth – yet that’s what we focus on during Lent – his suffering. What is so wrong with us that we look past the rest of his life and only look at the worst part? Are we so selfish that we only care about the part of his life that paid for our salvation? Are we so devious that we mask our selfishness in acts of self-abasement? Jesus is so much more than a dying man on the cross; he is the man who turned water into wine and kept the party going. He is the man who brought joy to others through healing, driving out demons, and feeding the multitudes. He brought joy to countless people during his ministry on earth, and countless more since his death and resurrection.

We have made God a God not of life and love, but of death and suffering. Think about the most common questions people ask of God: Why is there suffering in the world? Why is there cancer? Why are children harmed? Why are there hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes? I’ve never heard anyone ask why there is love, why do birds sing, and why do toddling children bring us so much joy? We take all of those things for granted. God has been portrayed for millennia as scary, domineering, and vengeful. Jesus was none of those things, and yet those of us who claim him as savior behave as if he’s out to get us if we don’t look uncomfortable.

We are made to love and to be loved. We are made for joy. It’s not too late to switch up your Lenten discipline. Instead of depriving yourself and suffering, what if, instead, you bring joy to someone else? You could engage in random acts of kindness for the remainder of Lent, or anonymously give money to local charities, or even better, you could give time to local charities. We could send care packages to teachers in underserved schools, go to the laundromat and put money in all the machines, or buy socks and underpants for the patrons of St. Luke’s feeding ministry. There are multiple ways to bring joy into the world, a world rife with suffering. The world doesn’t need more people with caffeine headaches or bad moods; it needs more hope, joy, and love.

The Rev. Jason Shelby
Rector
jason.shelby@stfrancispalosverdes.org

Lent has arrived. When you come to church on Sunday, you will notice that the crosses are veiled in purple cloth. In the church, the twinkling lights behind the altar will be gone, as will the blue banners with stars. I was recently asked why we veil the crosses, and the first answer that came to mind was, “Because we have always veiled the crosses.” But it started somewhere and some time, long before now.

The origins of veiling crosses, statues, and icons are hazy; there are some who say that it dates to the ninth century in what is now modern Germany. Churches covered the whole altar with cloth, signaling to the largely illiterate population that something had drastically changed. During the Good Friday service, when they read the part in the Passion where the curtain of the temple was torn in two, they tore the cloth covering the altar in two.

Other sources say it was done to deprive people of their usual surroundings, in order to shake them up and help them realize something different was happening. Lent is certainly a season where things are shaken up. For most of its history, the church has treated it as a time to suffer and make sacrifices, so that we might better understand the suffering of Christ. But how could we ever understand the suffering of Christ?

Not eating chocolate or staying off social media does not give me a window into the mind of Christ. Jesus never taught us to suffer for the sake of suffering; what he said was that when we fully love God and our neighbor, we will suffer, because people around us will object to it. For example, if you saw your closest friend on the side of the road with a flat tire, odds are good you wouldn’t hesitate to stop and help him or her.

But how many strangers have we left by the side of the road? How many excuses do we make as to why we aren’t stopping? I’ve used the following excuses on several occasions: what if they are mentally unwell, what if it’s a trap, and they are luring me in to rob me, I don’t have time to stop; I have to make my appointment, I’m not that good at changing tires…If helping a stranger change a tire causes me to miss a service or picking up my children from school, there will be many people who will be upset with me, and if it continually happens, there will be trouble.

This is why we have such a lengthy confession on Ash Wednesday; we have the ability to do good, and time and again we choose to do otherwise. While we acknowledge our failings, we aren’t meant to dwell on them. Lent is a time to shake things up, to see the world differently, to come closer to Christ. What if this Lent we sacrifice those things that take us away from Christ? What if we fast from self-criticism, criticizing others, anger, bitterness, impatience, gossip, envy, haughtiness, and greed? Rather than praying for penance as punishment, what if we instead pray to reveal God’s glory in the world? What if we make prayers of thanks, grace, and love? The church should never be used as a cudgel; it is meant to be a comfort, an oasis, a blessing. If we love as we are called to love, as we were made to love, we will shake things up. And we will be hurt. But it will be good, and it will be of God.

The Rev. Jason Shelby
Rector
jason.shelby@stfrancispalosverdes.org

Jesus is not ambiguous in his instructions to us: love God and love your neighbor. He makes it clear that everyone is our neighbor. But he also instructed his disciples not to spend time with people who wouldn’t listen to them. “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your word, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet,” (Matthew 10:14, NIV). Loving our neighbor means knowing when to step in, and when to step away. We aren’t going to argue anyone into faith; if a person can be argued into faith, that same person can be argued out of it. We need to be able to point to what is wrong in our world and work to change it, not convince others of its wrongness.

Isaiah 58 has appeared twice in our worship this week, at both the Sunday and Wednesday services. It is the appointed lectionary reading, which makes its appearance all the more noticeable (it would not be a big deal if I were choosing the readings). We will hear it again next week at the Ash Wednesday service. “Is this not the fast that I choose? To loosen the bonds of injustice, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and provide shelter to the homeless, to clothe the naked and not turn away from your fellow humans?” Further in the chapter, Isaiah says, “If you remove the yoke of oppression, the pointing of fingers and evil speech, if you spend your time feeding the hungry and taking care of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night become like noon day.” Sometimes God works in mysterious ways, and sometimes God blares a trumpet and puts the Word right in front of us.

People are scared. People are angry. People are tired. The easy thing to do is to block out the world and attend to our own lives and ignore the rest. Jesus never told us to take the easy way, nor did he model living a life that ignores the world around us. Jesus lived in our messy and divided world, among us and with us.

How would Jesus respond to the world we live in today? What would he say about our arguments, divisions, and anger? Are we looking and listening for Jesus in our lives? We are meant to live in the world, not ignore it. We are taught to care for and love the least of those among us. Jesus is clear in all of this. How are we responding? Are we feeding the poor, sheltering the unsheltered, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and tending to people in need? Not all of us are called to work with the indigent, and the indigent are not the only people in need; all of us are in need of something.

God calls us to serve one another, and in serving one another, we become the truest form of who we are meant to be; Jesus came into this world not to be served, but to serve. And when we serve, the light of God will drive away the darkness in our lives; our fear, anger, and dread will be replaced with love, grace, and hope.

The Rev. Jason Shelby
Rector
jason.shelby@stfrancispalosverdes.org

“Your church is very busy!” I heard someone say this as we finished up the discussion portion of our Liturgy Lab on Sunday evening. I ended the discussion at 7:00 pm because I knew that AA would be there soon to set up for their meeting at 7:30, and sure enough, just as we were pushing back our chairs, someone came in to begin setting up.

Our church is busy. Both AA and Al-Anon have weekly meetings in the Parish Hall, as do quilters and beaders. In addition, there are yoga classes that meet twice a week and our grief group that meets once a week.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Lunar New Year with a delicious dinner and a wonderfully fun auction, and on Saturday we will have a celebration of music put on by David Knight, Alex Sams, Kathy Capellino, and multiple other people. Saturday’s musical celebration will be raising money for Harbor Connects and our music program.

The Lunar New Year’s party raises money for St. Teresa’s, one of our many guilds at St. Francis. The money raised by St. Teresa’s is used to fund various charitable projects in and out of the church.

On Monday, February 9, the Friars will be hosting a dinner that begins at 6:00 pm.

On our last Sunday service before Lent, we will have an instructed Eucharist, a chance during worship for people to learn why we do what we do.

There is a lot happening at St. Francis – we ARE a busy church! Come and see!

The Rev. Jason Shelby
Rector
jason.shelby@stfrancispalosverdes.org