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View this email in your browser A daily Lenten e-mail with lessons of hope and courage, inspired by a variety of resources to encourage us in these confusing and turbulent times from St. Luke’s Church, Lebanon. Saturday - Fifth Week in Lent Many who seek to understand the way human systems work think that all institutions are at risk, by their very nature, of eventually discounting their original mission. Self-preservation becomes the priority — no matter how earnest and selfless the mission of the institution may have been at its outset.  This is known as mission-drift. Mission-drift like this is so representative of “the old order.” But what will help us move into such a “new order”? What empowers us to be like the earliest Christians who, with God’s grace, took on the enormous and dangerous task of transformation? In To Love as God Loves, Roberta Bondi asks us to consider that humility can make all the difference. Joyful humility, which is not the same as seeing ourselves in an inferior position, may actually empower us to live the conviction that all human beings are beloved of God. The evidence is clear: we are all limited in our frailties, our physical conditions, our emotional needs, and our tendency to sin. And yet, each of us has unique struggles that only God is able legitimately to judge, since only God is perfect. Joyful humility recognizes that even in the midst of our weakness and imperfection, God’s love for us never dies. It means that we are accepted and encouraged, not judged, by God. What a relief that can be for most of us. It becomes evident that humility is essential to our ability to live by Jesus’ two great commandments. It is joyful humility that makes love of God, self and neighbor even possible. Only when we are honest about and with ourselves, can we understand God’s love for us and so respond in love. When we come to understand ourselves honestly, we develop a genuine love of self that empowers us to “be there” for others – to love our neighbor as ourselves. Scripture Lessons appointed for the day (Click on the lesson for the text) Ezekiel 37:21–28 John 11:45–53 Psalm 85:1–7   “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” ― C.G. Jung How do I love, thee . . . What do I need to acknowledge to be at peace with myself? What do I need to forgive myself for? What do I value most about myself? Nobody Loves Me Like You Chris Tomlin Licensed to YouTube by UMG  Capitol CMG Publishing  BMI - Broadcast Music Inc. “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ― Brené Brown Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

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View this email in your browser A daily Lenten e-mail with lessons of hope and courage, inspired by a variety of resources to encourage us in these confusing and turbulent times from St. Luke’s Church, Lebanon. Friday - Fifth Week in Lent The language of discord and conflict pervades our current social landscape, and the Scripture readings appointed  for today seem to echo these themes. All of the principal actors — the Psalmist, the prophet Jeremiah, and Jesus — are set in circumstances fraught with danger and opposition. The dangerous opposition is from within their own societies, from their own compatriots. Their brothers and sisters act wrong-headedly and they are seemingly incapable of understanding the error of their thinking. And what’s more, they become increasingly angry in their ignorance about the truth of the matter – even to the point of violence. The parallels are eerily all too familiar. What should we make of these ominous narratives for our own time? Like the Psalmist, on most days most of us would rather escape our current reality for a remoted hiding place – the psalmist uses the word crag, an outcropping of rocks in the mountains that makes it possible to cover ourselves from view. Of course, escape is seldom a real option for us. Most of us have responsibilities to bear – family, work, school, commitments to others – that preclude any such easy out. Even so, perhaps we need to remind ourselves of our own high calling: to be agents of transformation wherever we find ourselves, through the love of God in Jesus Christ. Again and again, we must hear God’s call and respond to it, whether the circumstances seem easy or hard. God expects of us that we would be the strength to pick someone up that we see falling. We must be a haven for those in need of rest. We must be a stronghold for those in need of protection. All of this because we are the presence of Christ – the presence of God – in our world.   Scripture Lessons appointed for the day (Click on the lesson for the text) Jeremiah 20:7–13 John 10:31–42 Psalm 18:1–7   “Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man (sic) who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” ― Albert Einstein Contending  . . . Do I try understand those who oppose me? Do I strive to transform negative situations into positive ones? Is a disagreement a matter of truth-telling? Hide Me in Your Holiness Steve Ragsdale Peace: Songs of Hope in the Storms of Life ℗ 2020 Steve Ragsdale “Resistance is a sign that shows you're going the right way” - Constance Friday Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.