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A Lent Reflection
Mar. 3rd, 2022 11:18 pm“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor …”
Thus begins what could be seen as an early Jewish “creed”. Not statements of abstract belief but a story. I do this thing now because of the story of God interacting with my people. In Deuteronomy 26, that thing is bring the first fruits of the harvest to God. We do this thing now – share bread and wine – because “on the night when he was betrayed, Jesus took bread…”
The stories we tell are important because they shape the way we see the world. I love watching NCIS but I’m deeply unsure about one of the underlying stories it tells – which is that it’s ok for the goodies to shoot the baddies, although there’s an underlying backstory for Gibbs which sometimes emerges to ask questions about that assumption.
We see the importance of stories in the invasion of Ukraine – Володимир Зеленський (Volodymyr Zelenskyy), the Ukrainian president said in a speech to the people of Russian “The Ukraine in your news and Ukraine in reality are two completely different countries. The most important difference is ours is real. You are being told that we are Nazis”. He continues with stories about the fight against Nazism, both national and personal, in the past.
Our stories tend to portray us as the goodies and the other side as the baddies. But the problem is the other side have stories too and they see themselves as the goodies and us as the baddies – see how the West and NATO are portrayed as the aggressors by the Russians. I saw a tweet a couple of days ago pointing to a C4 interview with a support of Putin who justified the deaths in Ukraine by reference to the killing of civilians by the US and UK in Iraq in 2003, in Belgrade, in Afghanistan. And sadly the Patriarch of Moscow is justifying the invasion as against evil forces. And throughout history the Christian church has justified wars.
Lent is a chance for us to go back to our stories and ask questions. Jesus after his baptism goes out into the desert and is tempted by stories – “If you are the Son of God….” And Jesus answers with stories “it is written…”.
What will we do to deepen our engagement with the stories this Lent? I have bought a Lent book which engages actions of the Easter story and hope to be disciplined about reading it.
Prayer for Ukraine
The Fellowship of Reconciliation which founded by a handshake between a German Lutheran and an English Quaker on the eve of the first world war and continues as an international movement of people who commit themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of personal, social, economic and political transformation and of which I am a trustee is holding Friday evening vigils for which you can register via this link
(Written for the St Nick's Leicester weekly update - it's not the piece I was planning on when I agreed to write it a couple of weeks ago when I was thinking about revisiting my Pianos and prayer analogy formed in arguing about spiritual disciplines with I think a Sydney Anglican (though I thought it was about Lent so I might be wrong about who the shipmate was too), but world events changed my mind)
Thus begins what could be seen as an early Jewish “creed”. Not statements of abstract belief but a story. I do this thing now because of the story of God interacting with my people. In Deuteronomy 26, that thing is bring the first fruits of the harvest to God. We do this thing now – share bread and wine – because “on the night when he was betrayed, Jesus took bread…”
The stories we tell are important because they shape the way we see the world. I love watching NCIS but I’m deeply unsure about one of the underlying stories it tells – which is that it’s ok for the goodies to shoot the baddies, although there’s an underlying backstory for Gibbs which sometimes emerges to ask questions about that assumption.
We see the importance of stories in the invasion of Ukraine – Володимир Зеленський (Volodymyr Zelenskyy), the Ukrainian president said in a speech to the people of Russian “The Ukraine in your news and Ukraine in reality are two completely different countries. The most important difference is ours is real. You are being told that we are Nazis”. He continues with stories about the fight against Nazism, both national and personal, in the past.
Our stories tend to portray us as the goodies and the other side as the baddies. But the problem is the other side have stories too and they see themselves as the goodies and us as the baddies – see how the West and NATO are portrayed as the aggressors by the Russians. I saw a tweet a couple of days ago pointing to a C4 interview with a support of Putin who justified the deaths in Ukraine by reference to the killing of civilians by the US and UK in Iraq in 2003, in Belgrade, in Afghanistan. And sadly the Patriarch of Moscow is justifying the invasion as against evil forces. And throughout history the Christian church has justified wars.
Lent is a chance for us to go back to our stories and ask questions. Jesus after his baptism goes out into the desert and is tempted by stories – “If you are the Son of God….” And Jesus answers with stories “it is written…”.
What will we do to deepen our engagement with the stories this Lent? I have bought a Lent book which engages actions of the Easter story and hope to be disciplined about reading it.
Prayer for Ukraine
The Fellowship of Reconciliation which founded by a handshake between a German Lutheran and an English Quaker on the eve of the first world war and continues as an international movement of people who commit themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of personal, social, economic and political transformation and of which I am a trustee is holding Friday evening vigils for which you can register via this link
(Written for the St Nick's Leicester weekly update - it's not the piece I was planning on when I agreed to write it a couple of weeks ago when I was thinking about revisiting my Pianos and prayer analogy formed in arguing about spiritual disciplines with I think a Sydney Anglican (though I thought it was about Lent so I might be wrong about who the shipmate was too), but world events changed my mind)
