2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 1 : Into the Wilderness

By Rev Jon Humphries, Transforming Worship Advocate and Ravenswood School Chaplain

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY

I have grown up in Guringgai Country. I work in the country of the Darramuragal People and live in Guringgai Country. I acknowledge the lands, waters, skies and all living beings as being a part of what is sacred for Guringgai people. I pay my respects to Guringgai elders and honour those who have come before.

Bible passage:  Mark 1: 9-13 – Jesus is baptised and then sent into the wilderness

REFLECTION

The wilderness is a metaphor for a place or time where things are challenging or testing. Of course, natural wilderness, for those of us who live in urban environments, are such place, but for those who live on country our cities and urban areas are places of wilderness for them. In wilderness we are faced with the unfamiliar and situations which often require more of than we might initially have the capacity for. It is in the wilderness that we often have to practise faith, for it is trust in God and reliance on God for hope and the spiritual resources to carry us through these harder times that is required.

Wilderness times are often testing times because they present us with struggles and discomfort. The temptation is to give up or take the easy way out or leave it to others. Jesus faced such a time after he was baptised, but we can see that throughout his ministry he was almost always in a wilderness, as how could he not be as God incarnate, having to deal for the first time with all the challenges of being human?

Wilderness times are times when we not only grow in faith, but also better understand our identity as people of faith. We often, in having to creatively meet the needs of others as we lay down our lives in loving service, better come to know what it is to be created in the image of God. We are also drawn closer to God, if we don’t succumb to temptation, and we can see this in how we draw upon and grow the fruit of the Spirit.

Lent is a reminder of the need for wilderness as disciples of Jesus. There may be specific times we are led into specific wilderness times for intense formation, but in Lent we remember the call to be apostolic (sent out)  into the wilderness of life to join God in God’s mission.

Where is God calling you into the wilderness in your life?

PRAYER

Take us out of our comfort, God, in the wilderness of your way where we might meet those in need and share our gifts with each other in mutual compassion and love, and thus, meet you on this holiest of ground.

Amen

2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 2 : Preparing to hear anew

By Bethany Broadstock

It may be strange to find the theme of ‘preparation’ in a series of Lenten reflections. We are so familiar with that cry going up from John the Baptist – ‘Prepare the way of the Lord!’ – signalling the beginning of Advent.

But I don’t see that Advent has any monopoly on preparation, because in these central seasons of the church, in Lent as much as Advent, what are we doing but preparing to meet the Jesus of our faith anew?

Not, in this season, the holy newborn in a backyard shed, but rather the crucified and risen One who is coming to us once again, bearing the marks of a new world in his body. The Jesus of Easter. Are we prepared for what he will have to say to us this year?

This is essential preparation because Easter holds our best-loved but also most well-worn story. We have heard it year after year, generation after generation. It becomes familiar, and the overly-familiar can lose its power to compel.

Like Nicodemus, whose confusion with Jesus is on the Lectionary this week, we must prepare to always be born again into Easter – into its promise, into its challenge, into its power to speak with familiar words something never heard before. To let this ancient story call us by name with its fresh message for our moment in time. And in this, we meet the Easter Jesus of our faith along the way.

‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ is a call upon our lives in many seasons. It is a call for our attention. At those critical moments in the story of God’s people it has gone before, a signal that God is near and about to do God’s new thing.

In Isaiah, it is a siren of hope to people in exile. Prepare for a new chapter in your story!

At Advent, it alerts us the Messiah is on our doorstep. Prepare for God's unexpected arrival!

In this season, perhaps it may be ‘Prepare for the crucified and risen One!’ Prepare to see again the presence of God in this suffering man, in whose death the worst we can do to each other is absorbed by self-giving love. He is coming again to redeem, and to embrace all we are with grace beyond our wildest imagining. Prepare to be changed.

How will you prepare to meet the Easter Jesus this year?

Jesus of the Cross, prepare us to join you in the Easter journey, dying to the old and rising ourselves, bearing the marks of your new world. Amen.

2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 3 : Grief Hurts

By Rev Alex Sangster, Advocate for the Assembly's Working for Justice Circle

Bible Passage Luke 22:39-46

Grief hurts. 

And things that hurt …can be scary. 

As C.S Lewis put it in his classic book ‘A Grief Observed’   

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting.  

And because it hurts it is often seen as a ‘problem’ that needs to be fixed  

or got through  

or ignored  

or made to go away."   

But grief is not a problem.  

Writer Catherine Burns puts it like this 

"grief is just love squaring up to its oldest enemy"

and ‘Grief Walker’ Steven Jenkinson says: 

"Grief is not a feeling...if grief was a feeling it would be transitory, feelings are like weather: they are not the architecture, they come and go, even the deepest feelings are transient. But grief stays…grief is architecture, it carves you out from the inside."

And the awesome Megan Devine writes about how deeply important it is to share our stories of grief. 

"If you can’t tell your story to another human, find another way: journal, paint, make your grief into a graphic novel with a very dark storyline. Or go out to the woods and tell the trees. It is an immense relief to be able to tell your story without someone trying to fix it. The trees will not ask, “How are you really?” and the wind doesn’t care if you cry."

Jesus tells his grief to the olive groves and to the earth that he falls upon as he weeps in the garden. Who do you tell your grief to? And to whose grief do you listen? 

After my father died, a few months later, a member of my congregation asked to meet up for coffee I prepared myself for the pastoral chat.  

I prepared myself to listen to her deeply  

but when we had sat down, she said to me: 

"I wanted to see you today because I wanted you to tell me, to tell me about your dad’"

And it was such a simple and loving thing to do…that I was undone...and deeply grateful. 

Who do you tell your grief to?  

And to whose grief do you listen? 

2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 4 : Redemption

By Rev David MacGregor, Transforming Worship Circle

Redemption.
Big word. Big dimensions. I think of the sportsperson or entertainer who’s come back from obscurity or addiction; renewed in body, mind, purpose and spirit. Elton John, for years riddled with the scourges of drugs, alcohol and carefree sexual activity and in terrible shape, has been sober for over 30 years now. His life has been turned around – as he looked beyond his own resources. His Elton John Aids Foundation has raised over $530 Million dollars. A great redemption story. So is the story of Oskar Schindler who lost everything as a onetime-Nazi supporter to rescue thousands of Polish Jews during the second world war, so that those destined for near-certain death could know life. A great redemption story.

Redemption, say our dictionaries, is an act of  atoning for a fault or mistake, signifying deliverance and rescue.

Read John 4:5-42

Jesus’ encounter with the woman at well of Sychar at “high noon” is a great redemption story.  The woman, who has had multiple, scorned-upon relationships over the years encounters Jesus.  

Jesus chooses to engage with this woman, breaking wide the taboos of the day. But Jesus does. The woman already has faith in God. Instead of putting her down, Jesus chooses to build her up, helping her see things differently, dreaming with her about a better future.  Jesus values her as a person, perhaps in a way that no one else ever had.

Jesus offers her “living water” and as she looked beyond herself to the resources of God’s Spirit, so her life is transformed, renewed, redeemed.  Her spiritual thirst is met – through Christ. Her dignity and purpose is reclaimed.  It’s the same water of life Jesus offers all humankind, you and me.  We too, in embracing the life of Christ have the promise of renewal and redemption.

I wonder; how, where, with whom today, will you experience and share the redeeming “living water” that is Jesus Christ?

PRAYER 
God of grace, you are life. In you, we live, move and have our being. God; deluge us afresh with living water – the water of life – the life of your Spirit – your saving grace in Jesus.  And may we be bearers and sharers of your water of life in our world. Amen.

2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 5 : Diverse Community

By Levon Kardashian,
read by Rev Dr Matagi Vilitama, from the Being a Multicultural Church Circle. 

A diverse community is a community where each person is valued; each person brings the skills and gifts to their community; each person is open to listen to others speak out their voice. It is a space where people are courageous enough to say what is on their mind and what they are feeling.

A diverse community is a place where learning happens; where everyone learns from others, but nobody teaches others.

A diverse community is where we share our way of life with each other; where we can share our worldview without being judged.

A diverse community is not a safe place but a courageous place.

Bible Reading: John 11:1-45

In this story, when Mary, followed by the people come to where Jesus is, Jesus joins them in crying for Lazarus (v. 32-36). Jesus knew that Lazarus would live again. He knew that there was no reason to cry. He probably didn’t even feel like crying. That is, until he saw Mary and the people crying.

I think what I have missed in my definition of community above is that a community is place where people share each other’s feelings; it is a place where you laugh because others are laughing, you cry because others are crying. I guess Paul puts it in better words: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. (Romans 12:15,16 NIV).

In this Lenten season, we are called not just to reflect and discern alone but also make time, space, and courage to add your unique being and gifts to our diverse communities. Consider being part of Christ’s wonder-full body.

Let us learn about being a community from Jesus, who is, for us the reflection of the trinitarian nature of God.

The image below is a depiction of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev.

Spend some time reflecting on how this image reflects what a community is.

Prayer:

Help us move from the comfort of self to encounter being part of a complex and diverse community.

May we meet you in the ‘cross’cultural messy space to share and grow in mutual love and compassion. Amen.

2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 6 : New Life

By Rev Erik Lennestal

This is a shortened version of a fuller reflection which you can find in a link below.

As we contemplate new life, and as we approach Holy Week and Easter, I want to share with you one of my icons. It’s a unique icon only produced in one copy that I conceived of and had commissioned with the help of an extremely talented iconographer friend. I like to call it 'Christ the Risen Gardener'. You can see it in the picture below. In your Bible, you can turn to read more about the Scriptures that inspired it in John chapter 20. 

This is an icon which comes infused with ambivalence - imbued both with memories of a world that once was, while yearning for what can be. This is what Jewish faith calls 'tikkun olam', 'the repair of the world' - not just what happens one day when, but one which speaks of the struggle for justice, healing, reconciliation, and new life. For making things right also in the here and now. 

The icon also speaks of the dark night of the soul, when Mary Magdalene, crippled by unspeakable grief, had gone to the tomb to cry. Finding the tomb empty and the stone rolled away, she didn’t quite know what to make of it all. In the bewilderment and disorientation that ensued, she manages a startled: “They have taken my Lord away... and I don’t know where they have put him!” Of course, she was, understandably, suspecting grave robbery and desecration over resurrection, but the exchange that follows is beautiful in more ways than one. Meeting the Risen Christ, she mistakes him for the gardener!

I cannot help but wonder what it was like on that dark, starry and confusing night. Was he crouching in the dirt? Was he who had conquered death able also to make the earth spring to life again? Could he soften what was hardened? Could he make even the driest, most lifeless and stoniest of deserts bloom? Did he cradle a seedling, gently helping it reach for the light? Did this earthy Messiah have dirt under his nails? God himself, on bended knee, writing in the dust, as he had before while stones picked up in judgment and anger had fallen to the ground all around him. Was there something in his appearance, upon closer inspection, that made eternity shine through?

Or did it all make sense when he turned to her, called her by name and her heart sprung to new life at the sound of his voice? And she, grabbed a hold of him, and called out “Rabbouni”! This surely was no ordinary gardener!

Question

What new life is Christ tending in your place?

Prayer

Jesus Christ, risen gardener of all creation, 
dirty-handed Messiah, 
meet us today, 
speak our names,
bring healing and wholeness, 
and kindle a resurrection fire in our hearts,
reach out your hands and heal our world, 
gently turn the soil, 
make the desert of our lives bloom,
and bring forth new life from the dust.
Amen.

Download the full reflection

2023 Assembly Lenten Reflections

Week 7 : Promise

By Rev Michelle Cook, Alison Overeem & Rev Deacon Denise Savage, Walking Together as First and Second Peoples Circle

Promise in the light

Recognise the gloom
Call it by its name
Do not turn away

Walk through the mire
Holding each other close
Hearing each others’ cries

Feel the hope
See the promise in the light
The dove flies in front
The stone is beneath
The breath is around

Rev Michelle Cook

The promise of truth-telling

The promise of truth-telling
Sits at the takila (heart) of this nation’s healing
For it is only when we lean into truth, we are called to the promise
To rise again
To be at the forefront
Embedded in
Embedded with
A promise woven in the renewal of truth-telling for First Peoples, to heal the lands and all that are the stories of creation
A new beginning
A rebirth
A calling
Promising hope and healing

Alison Overeem

Community Is

Where does community happen?

It happens in our homes, on the streets our feet tread, it happens as we wait in line, and we welcome the stranger, the tourist, the long-known friend. 

It happens as we gather round in spaces held together. It happens as we disagree and see difference. It happens as passion for justice burns and work for peace endures, day after day after day in the face of conflict and violence.  It happens as stories meet. It happens here.  Now, in this moment. It happens because Christ is.  Christ is.  Whether we see eye to eye or not, it is not ours and yet given to us because Christ is. Whether we hold deep abiding faith or curiosity or disbelief and doubt, it happens because Christ is.

This is an excerpt from a Liturgy used for the Presbytery of Tasmania March 2023 gathering written by Rev Denise Savage, made available for use by others. Read the full version here.

What does God's promise mean to you?

Prayer

Creator, you are the promise for the crying lands, for First Peoples' healing, for restorative justice.
May we embody your promise and hope in our walking together.

Amen

ARTWORK above by Grace Williams