It’s hard to imagine that we are only a few weeks from another Lenten season. This year during our season of Lent we will be guided by the theme Seeking: Honest Questions for a Deeper Faith. The lectionary for Year A offers us many stories of Jesus encountering people who are seeking: Nicodemus comes to him in the veil of night, he approaches a Samaritan woman at a well, he heals a man born without sight. In these stories, each person is seeking a new beginning, a different life, a deeper faith. What unfolds is an exchange filled with questions and exploration. Often, an unveiling occurs—assumptions are disrupted, a new perspective is revealed, mystery grows.
I chose this theme because I know that this congregation is in the midst of a time of seeking, a time of discernment regarding what God may be faithfully calling us to next and who we are to become as a community of faith going forward. Anderson CoB doesn’t look like it once did, and we are unsure of what comes next for us. It is a difficult liminal space for communities of faith to find themselves in. Such seeking requires hard questions and conversations, a willingness to sincerely reflect on and consider initially uncomfortable answers, and the courage to be honest with ourselves about what faithful risks we are (or are not) willing to take. All of this must be engaged in with a spirit of love, care, and compassion, both for ourselves as individuals and for one another.
To that end, I would encourage each of us to think a bit differently as we approach Lent. It is a common practice to give something up for 40 days of Lent as a form of fasting and preparing our hearts for the resurrection of Christ. Alternatively, I suggest we consider what it would look like to commit to a new spiritual discipline for Lent, focused on Seeking. Such disciplines could include Openness, Generosity, Radical Visioning, Prayerful Reflection, Honest Assessment, Deep Listening, and Risk Taking. As we pursue these practices to engage more fully with the Holy Spirit and how it is moving in our congregation, we are faithfully moving toward the threshold of God’s vision for us.