Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-17
Ash Wednesday, February 17th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
Ash Wednesday kicks off the Season of Lent. The purpose of Lent, said the early church, was to prepare us for Easter. Resurrection, not to mention the grace and horror of “Holy” Week, requires preparation.
I’ve shared two poems with you to get you thinking about Lent, the Old English word for “Spring.” These poems were entries in the writing contest sponsored by Presbyterian Writer’s Guild. The theme was, simply, “ashes.” Ruth Whitney is the grand prize winner with her poem “Ash Season.” Her bio follows the poem. Louie Andrews submitted “Ash Wednesday Redux.” Louie is the son of my beloved childhood minister. There’s never a time in my life that I didn’t know Louie. There’s something comforting about our association. His mom died last year and they, like so many others, have yet to have a memorial service because of pandemic; he wrote this poem with those delayed services (and delayed grief) in mind.
Lent begins with wilderness, temptation, fasting, mortality, and ashes. From the earth we have come to the earth we shall return. Ashes to ashes, we say. Dust to dust.
This somber season seldom brings me down. If I feel guilt, it is often for enjoying this season so much. Spring, after all, will begin showing herself. Day light is lasting longer. Penitence marks this season for me, but so does joy. Lent reminds me I belong to God. Lent reminds me who (and whose) I am. Lent reminds me of the life after death, of the death I need not fear, which is something younger men can get away with saying since they think they’ll live forever. Lent reminds me life is hard and then we die, but life is worth living for. Life is worth dying for. Lent is an honest season. It pulls no punches. This is not fairy tale, and no one has written a Lenten lullaby.
Jesus didn’t preach damnation but joy. He welcomed children, and when you do that, you are one accustomed to laughter and curiosity. These are some of the stories we always revisit walking with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem.
Yes, Lent ends at a cross. (Easter begins at an empty tomb.) What could be more dismal and fatalistic than a journey to a place called The Skull/Golgotha? I don’t revel in the sin that gripped and still grips the world. I don’t take lightly the people who sought to trick, try, and crucify Jesus. I am ashamed they look just like me, and, perhaps, are sensible in the ways my own twisted self finds things sensible. But I am aware of the light that shatters darkness, the hope that transcends fear, the courage of the one who said, “Follow me,” and God’s grace that includes even me.
Some call this resurrection.
* * *
From noon to 1:00 today, drive through the church alley for our “drive by” imposition of ashes. See below.
Here are the poems.
* * *
ASH SEASON
Ruth Linnea Whitney
Everything was easy then and clear.
The world and I were heady with our holdings.
I sowed my future, breath to breath, cunning
as that lone cock who crowed while they led my Lord
up the stone walk and hoisted him between thieves.
The season turned and ease receded, the world and I
turned gray. My father’s jaw burned to silt in an urn.
My mother’s slender wrists cast over buffalo grass
where she began. My friend saw her boy earn his wings,
his plane and body splinter. Far away, a girl of six knelt
on a land mine she took for saw grass. Hours like these,
the ashes fell.
I kneel now and listen for the fall of ashes.
Listen for the One who knows each spark,
sees each particle alight on earth,
gathers each tiny grave into the enormous dark,
where the return to life is done.
Ruth Linnea Whitney lived two years in Zaire (now DRC) and has spent numerous lengthy sojourns in other countries of Africa with Health Volunteers Overseas. While husband David taught Orthopedic Surgery to local doctors, she taught ESL to AIDS orphans or distributed toys on the hospital children’s ward. These experiences inform her new novel, Mimosa Road, written mostly during The Time of Covid and forthcoming from Adelaide Books. And they inform her debut novel, Slim (Southern Methodist Univ. Press, 2003) for which she received the 2004 First Book Award (previously Angell Award) from the PCUSA Writer’s Guild. Her short stories and personal essays appear in The Threepenny Review, Kaleidoscope, Natural Bridge, Assisi, and elsewhere; poetry in Raven Chronicles and Ancient Paths; journalism in Chicago Tribune, Town & Country, and elsewhere. She serves on the Social Justice/Ecology team of 1st Presbyterian Church, Port Townsend, WA, where, with David, she makes her home.
ruthlinnea@olympus.net
* * *
Ash Wednesday Redux
Louie V. Andrews III
Ash Wednesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Friday.
Tens of hundreds of thousands of ashes,
Daily collected,
Daily distributed,
Daily placed in limbo.
Ashes in a vase,
Ashes on a table,
Remains waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
Ashes resurrected without celebration,
Ashes conveyed without consecration,
Hearts aching and aching and aching.
Palm Sunday the branches are burned.
Palm Sunday the ashes are set aside.
When did Palm Sunday become
Palm Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday,
We wait,
Yearning to assimilate ashes into the breath of God.
We ache,
Eager to accomplish our sacred task.
Ashes to Ashes,
Dust to Dust,
But not today.
Ash Wednesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Friday.
Tens of hundreds of thousands of ashes,
[Written for the millions waiting to celebrate the resurrection of a loved one.]
* * *
News
Please sign up for the book study. (Call the office.)
BOOK STUDY! You are invited to a congregation-wide four session book study.
WHAT? Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World, 2015). A father talks to his fifteen-year-old son about the realities of inhabiting a black body.
- WHEN? Thursdays, February 18 and 25 and March 4 and 11 at 11:00am to 12:00 noon.
- HOW? Sign up by emailing or calling Patty Farthing in the church office. We will meet on-line via Zoom. 217.356.7238 / Patty@firstpres.church . Borrow books from our public library in paper, digital or audio form.
- WHO? Everyone in our congregation and community is invited. Pastor Matt Matthews will facilitate. Our Compassion, Peace, and Justice Committee/ Spiritual Formation Committee will host.
- WHY? Jesus asks us to love each other.
* * *
Everyone is welcomed to a “drive-by” imposition of ashes from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Ash Wednesday, TODAY. Those who feel safe driving through the alley will receive ashes imposed upon their foreheads leaned through open car windows. Matt will be double-masked and will sanitize a gloved hand between congregants. While everyone is warmly invited to drive by, if you are at-risk or otherwise feel unsafe, please stay at home. Come at your own risk. We’ll be as safe as is humanly possible. Why ashes? They remind us who and whose we are. We will gather for a live Zoom service this evening at 7 p.m. led by Eric Corbin.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
* * *
In-person Worship begins on February 21st at 10:15. After careful discussion and prayerful deliberation, the COVID-19 team and the Session have recommended that we resume limited in-person weekly worship on the First Sunday of Lent, February 21st at 10:15 a.m.
For those of you who feel safe to attend, please pre-register by calling the church office at 217.356.7238. Registration will run from Monday morning to Thursday noon the week before each service. (We are preregistering not only as a means of contact-tracing, but also to keep attendance at or under fifty [50] people, including worship leaders and ushers. That is the limit prescribed by state public health guidelines.)
Remember, your Session is doing everything it can to keep everyone safe during this season of pandemic. While the end may be in sight with local and statewide numbers trending downward, not everyone is vaccinated yet and Covid-19 is still deadly. Some experts guess our nationwide death toll due to Covid may total over 600,000 by later this Spring.
The best way to safeguard against getting Covid is to limit one’s exposure to it and to get vaccinated; while we have prepared as safe a worship environment as possible, and all participants will be required to check in, wear masks at all times, and sit at a distance of six feet from other families, we cannot guarantee that somebody won’t get sick. Those who come to worship come at their own risk.
These in-person services will be, essentially, services of welcome, scripture, prayer, and preaching. These brief—40-minutes, or less—services will include no spoken liturgy, no congregational singing, and no choir. The preacher will speak from behind a plexiglass barrier. There will be no indoor fellowship, and no coffee or food service before or after the service.
This may not sound like a very welcoming or, even, friendly invitation, does it? You know what I mean. So, make wise decisions for you and your family, stay away if you are high risk or don’t feel well, and know that I look forward to “seeing” some of you online at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday (FirstPres.Live), and others of you face to face at 10:15 a.m.
God is good.
* * *
What do these folk have in common? If you guess right, I’ll buy you Jarling’s Custard Cup! So far, about a dozen saints have played the game. (All guesses get ice cream.)
- Astronaut Buzz Aldrin,
- the musical genius Ludwig von Beethoven,
- the football quarterback Terry Bradshaw,
- Winston Churchill,
- the singer Judy Collins,
- Monica Seles the tennis pro who holds the longest undefeated streak—33 matches—for the Australian Open,
- Abraham Lincoln.
* * *
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter):
Joke from long ago, about airlines that no longer exist.
Conversation between Pilot and Air Traffic Control (ATC)”
Pilot: What time is it?
ATC: Who is asking?
Pilot: Why does it matter?
ATC: Well, if you are Pan Am I say oh-nine hundred. If you are TWA, I say 9 am. If you are Ozark, I say Tuesday.
Good Word:
The 23rd Psalm
The Lord is my shepherd.
LET US PRAY
Shepherd me, O Lord.
I cannot make the journey alone, and I don’t like betrayal by kisses, the injustice of mob rule. I don’t like the mob in me. And the shame for only being Your Son’s fair weather friend. I’m not afraid of the journey so much as I am of myself.
Shepherd me, O Lord.
* * *
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
* * *
Daily Lenten Devotion from The Presbyterian Outlook
As a Lenten devotional discipline this year, you are invited to pray with
Scripture as a way of discerning what God is calling you to be and to do
during this season.
John Calvin spoke of the Bible as the “lens of faith,” likening it to a pair of eyeglasses that enables us to see the world with clearer vision as God’s creation. As theologian Serene Jones notes in “Inhabiting Scripture, Dreaming Bible” (a chapter in “Engaging Biblical Authority”), this was Calvin’s way of saying that Scripture “brings clarity and focus to all aspects of our lives” and “lets us see what we otherwise would not.” In
short, once we have these eyeglasses on, “there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that escapes their vision-framing power.”
PRACTICES:
• Scripture as prayer: One of the ways we can “put on” Scripture is by praying or meditating contemplatively on a biblical text — slowly and contemplatively reading it as a prayer to God. Indeed, this is an ancient and robust practice of prayer. When we pray with Scripture, we ponder deeply the words and images of the text. Using our imaginations, we
can even enter into the world of the text in order to discern God’s wisdom.
• Movement of God: Praying with Scripture in this way can be an aid – a focusing lens – to help us discern the movement of God in our personal lives and in the life of the world around us. Throughout the season of Lent, you will be invited to pray with one passage from Scripture each day and prompted to reflect on what it is disclosing to you about movement toward God and movement away from God in your life.
• Prayer journal: You may find it helpful to keep a journal in which you briefly note what surfaces in your prayer time, so that over the course of the Lenten journey you can track the movements of God’s Spirit in your midst. Also, consider the prayer focus of the week as you journal and pray.
• Bringing the Bible and hymns to life: Each week, a hymn will be suggested for worship and reflection. During your devotional time each day, read the words (or sing or play the hymn!) and reflect on the truths the text reveals to you. (If you don’t have a hymnal, you can Google the hymn or visit hymnary.org.) Likewise, consider the action prompt each day and note how the Spirit nudges you to fulfill it.
FEBRUARY 17, 2021
Ash Wednesday, FEBRUARY 17, 2021
PSALM 51:1-10
The first biblical text for our Lenten journey is Psalm 51, which is traditionally read on Ash Wednesday. Psalm 51 is striking not only for its honesty about sin, but also for its confidence in God’s merciful love amid the brokenness in our lives and in the world. The psalm is a prayer – a penitential prayer – and you are invited to pray Psalm 51:1-10 in a translation of your choosing.
Practice: Read the psalm slowly two or three times and ponder deeply its images, noting which ones capture your attention. Such images can be points at which God is speaking to you and focusing your attention.
Reflect on the images for at least five minutes (longer if you desire). As you do so, sense the movements of your spirit and the emotions that they evoke — both movements toward God and away from God. Movements toward God could include, for example, a sense of hope, peace or love that surfaces. Movements away from God might include a sense of guilt or despair.
Journal: Note these movements in your journal so that you can review them during your Lenten journey.
