My Blog

Category: Lent

  • Fasting and Feasting During Lent

    Wednesday, February 10, is Ash Wednesday. At the services on that day, we will be invited to observe a holy Lent with these words:

    Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

    I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

    There are many ways to observe a holy Lent. Some people give things up. Some people take things on. There’s a way to do both at the same time. The chief purpose of these disciplines is to become more conscious of ways we depend on things more than we depend on God so that we may draw closer to God and grow in our love for our neighbors.

    Here are some ways to keep a Holy Lent, by William Arthur Ward:

    Fast from judging others; Feast on the Christ dwelling in them.
    Fast from emphasis on differences; Feast on the unity of life.
    Fast from apparent darkness; Feast on the reality of light.
    Fast from thoughts of illness; Feast on the healing power of God.
    Fast from words that pollute; Feast on phrases that purify.
    Fast from discontent; Feast on gratitude.
    Fast from anger; Feast on patience.
    Fast from pessimism; Feast on optimism.
    Fast from worry; Feast on divine order.
    Fast from complaining; Feast on appreciation.
    Fast from negatives; Feast on affirmatives.
    Fast from unrelenting pressures; Feast on unceasing prayer.
    Fast from hostility; Feast on non-resistance.
    Fast from bitterness; Feast on forgiveness.
    Fast from self-concern; Feast on compassion for others.
    Fast from personal anxiety; Feast on eternal truth.
    Fast from discouragements; Feast on hope.
    Fast from facts that depress; Feast on verities that uplift.
    Fast from lethargy; Feast on enthusiasm.
    Fast from thoughts that weaken; Feast on promises that inspire.
    Fast from shadows of sorrow; Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
    Fast from idle gossip; Feast on purposeful silence.
    Fast from problems that overwhelm; Feast on prayer that strengthens.

    —William Arthur Ward (American author, teacher and pastor, 1921-1994.)

    I’ll see you in Church!

    Ron Blue Small

  • Sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole ~ March 22, 2015

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    The Fifth Sunday in Lent

    Listen to the Sermon for March 22,2015 

    Read the Sermon for March 22, 2015

     

     

     

  • God So Loved the World…

    In his book, Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, And How They Can Change Your Life, author Eric Metaxas asks this question: “If God could speak the universe into existence, could he not afterward speak into that existence?” Our Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday in Lent presupposes God’s ability to speak into our universe. The heart of that passage is something many of us long ago committed to memory: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

    Martin Luther called that statement “the Gospel in a capsule.” One theologian said that if all the Bibles in the world were destroyed and every page of scripture obliterated, if one Christian could remember that one verse, the most basic premise of our faith would survive.

    And the message is not just words; it is the Word made flesh. The best way to send a message is to wrap it in a person. The Creator and Sovereign of the universe wrapped himself in the person of Jesus Christ and spoke into our existence in a unique way. In his life and ministry, Jesus demonstrates in words and actions that all things came into existence and have their being by and for the Love of God. When we contemplate his passion, death, and resurrection, we are reminded that the Love of God knows no limits. Even death, which we humans usually consider the final limitation, is not stronger than the Love of God.

    St. Paul said it this way: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).

    We have to be careful to remember that this particular kind of love is not primarily a feeling or an emotion. It is a firm decision made in the heart and mind of the Creator before he spoke the universe into existence. So firm and unbreakable is God’s decision that it provides the best explanation we have of God’s nature.

    This knowledge has implications for those who believe it to be true. The implications are summed up in Our Lord’s Summary of the Law: Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-39). The overriding purpose of human life is to love God and to love what God has created in the same way God loves us.

    That would be a very tall order if it were up to us alone. But it’s not and that’s the best news of all. Our own efforts to love like God are effective only because of God at work in us. Christians sometimes refer to that partnership as being “in Christ.” God has great plans for the universe. Our only reliable glimpses into God’s plans tell us that Divine Love is the driving force and human beings are specially designed and called to be partners in carrying out the plan. Please pray about that as you contemplate how “God so loved the world…”

    I’ll see you in Church!

    Ron Short Sig Blue

     

     

     

     

    The Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
    Interim Rector

     

  • Sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole ~ March 1, 2015

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    The Second Sunday in Lent

    Listen to the Sermon for March 1,  2015

    Read the Sermon for March 1, 2015