During Lent, CRS member congregation First United Church of Oak Park chose to focus on music and liturgy from the Black, Indigenous and POC (people of color) traditions with a campaign entitled “Fasting from Whiteness.”

As we move toward our Easter Celebration of the Risen Christ, and beyond, and we end our Lenten fasting, consider the command given to the people and seek out opportunities to address poverty in our community and world.

Lent provides us the space to remember and the opportunity to re-adjust our lenses—or get us some new ones. An anti-racist lens. A decolonial lens. An intergenerational lens. An anti-sexist lens. An LGTBQIA+ affirming lens.

We must consistently in all places and in all times commit to ensure the dignity of every human is not only respected but truly valued. As Richard Lischer writes in The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America, “This understanding of full humanity lies at the heart of King’s efforts to develop the Beloved Community.”

Regardless of whether you thrive in crowds or in quietude - at some point we all need rest. We all need to practice self-care to be our best selves. Self-care evangelist Katie Reed says, “Self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you.”

Family, as we enter into the seasonal observation of Lent (for those who engage in this faith practice), in the spaces and places that we occupy in our towns, our cities, our states, our countries, and our worlds, juxtaposed with the multiple pandemics that are currently still occurring in our lives, I suggest we reflect upon what fits and doesn’t fit in our lives.

It’s a helpful reminder during this Lenten season that the popular act of giving something up was designed to create room in the heart, mind and soul. Creating room within ourselves is an intentional practice of preparation. Preparation so that we may be transformed by the resurrecting power of God.

After twelve months of this pandemic, if our greatest desire is to get back to where we were a year ago, we have missed the memo from the Holy Spirit.

My fifth-grade teacher had a box on her desk for loose change that we collected and sent to an overseas children’s mission. We learned the children received food, clothing, vaccines, and were also baptized as a result of our offerings. One day, our teacher said that our offerings had lagged, and the children were not getting the help they needed.

Some of my favorite parables throughout the gospels are the ones where Jesus is speaking to us about growth; specifically, the idea that something big can emerge from something small.

Behold, the sacred, beautiful and resilient bodies of Black womxn. For centuries our bodies have been vessels of truth telling. Our bodies, woefully sacrificed, raped, stolen, objectified and commodified. Yet, with tenacious courage and truth, we emerge unbowed and restlessly pursuing freedom and justice.

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock: “and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Matthew 7:24-25

When the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked prevail, people go into hiding. No one who conceals transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Proverbs 28:12-13

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27

I recently came across a poem that I wrote one Lent. It reminded me of the intentionality of the Lenten journey: not merely giving up chocolate or wine to say we did it, but going all the way down the path to find our True Self.

He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. Matthew 4:2

6 This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. 7 What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Isaiah 58:6-7 MSG