Help for carving out time during Lent
As I write this article, Epiphany is ending. As you read this reflection, March is here and we have journeyed one third of the way through Lent. My hope is that, at this point in time, we have been able to throw off some of the busyness of our schedules and set aside some time to narrow our focus on our Lenten journey in some way.
If anyone has been too busy to set aside some time, it’s never too late to do so! Is there an evening Lenten study in your congregation? Maybe your schedule is just way too busy to make it. Your children have ball practice or games that very night every week. Or you have a regular class or meeting that same night. Or maybe you’re just zonked at the end of a long day at work or at school. So, much as you’d like, you just can’t make it to the church for the Lenten Study.
There are ways around that. If the group at church is reading a book, you can still read it yourself. There’s nothing to stop you from chatting about it with someone in the class at another time.
Maybe a “class” isn’t your preferred approach to Lent. What about CDs or DVDs? Are there any with a topic that suits you? Maybe you prefer to surf the internet. www.explorefaith.org has all kinds of offerings to explore. There are daily devotions, music settings for meditations, reflections, book reviews, answers to all kinds of seeker questions, and lots of links to other sites and possibilities. I can’t begin to list all the possibilities on this excellent web page. It began about six years ago as a ministry of an Episcopal church in Tennessee. For those of you with a care for solitude and an eye on the internet, ‘explorefaith’ is the page for you.
If your desire is to explore the Bible, we Episcopalians are blessed with guided reading in our Prayer Book lectionaries. There are two in the back of our prayer book. One is for our eucharistic services and the other is for our daily office readings. If you are unsure of how to translate that strange chart of readings beginning on page 936, there are directions on how to navigate the Daily Office Lectionary on page 934. (Hint: we are now in Year One.)
Once you’ve read the lesson or lessons, take some time to ponder what word or phrase stood out to you or surprised you. That “oh my” moment is the Holy Spirit at work in you, asking you to take a deep breath and stay with that passage. Settle into that passage a bit and ponder what God might be saying to you and calling you to do through the Word. This is a fairly simple and accessible way to go about Bible Study.
There are other ways, of course. One communal model of Bible study was used in Le Chambon, France, before World War II. The Bible Study in that Protestant community near the Swiss border produced some pretty amazing results! The people all worshipped together on Sundays and, during the week, they met in smaller groups in homes. Once a week, the leaders of each house meeting would meet with the pastor and study the Bible together. Those leaders would then lead the Bible study in the homes. So the community worshipped together and then studied the same scriptures week after week. This ongoing study shaped their way of life and their openness to “the other.”
Once the German occupation of France began and the Jews began to be deported, Jewish children were sent south and towards Switzerland. To make a long story short, through their Bible study, this community discerned God’s call to them as the war progressed. They hid Jewish children in plain sight in a community boarding school. The Germans knew it, but they were so impressed with the faithfulness of the lives of the community that, by and large, they left the people of Le Chambon alone. Eventually the children were able to escape to Switzerland. You can read this story in Lest Innocent Blood be Shed: the Story of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There by Philip Hallie.
The lives of an entire community were shaped by the time they set aside to ponder God’s word and to ponder who and how God was calling them to be. The people of Le Chambon were called to an amazing ministry of hospitality in spite of the obstacles they faced. Jesus called them to hospitality. So one woman said, “I can only be who I am.”
We are called to be who we are meant to be. Who is God calling us to be this Lent? How are we listening to God’s call? How are we carving out some time to hear and listen? My Lenten prayer for us all is that we are able to take the time we need to be with God in this reflective time of our church year.
