Pre-Lenten Devotional

So, apparently I have a blog. I'd forgotten about that for a few weeks. I know, your lives have been quite empty without it.

Anyhow, I thought I'd post the lenten devotional I just wrote for Saint Mark UMC. It's not quite Lent yet, but I feel this actually does coordinate with a lot of what I've been thinking/reading/praying about recently. Besides, when Lent does come, I think I might make the blog a daily devotional activity. Thoughts are strongly invited about this reflection:

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

12"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything. 13"Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, "The two shall be one flesh." 17But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Lent presents a bit of cognitive dissonance to those of us who celebrate the gracious love of God to be the essence of our faith. Especially at Saint Mark, where so many of us have come to escape words of condemnation and abuse, why would we ever spend 40 days in the desert of penance and lament?

Paul reminds us, as he reminds his fellow Christians in Corinth, that the grace of God does not negate God’s law or God’s judgment—it fulfills it. The very gratuity of our salvation in Christ is only recognized when it stands in contrast to the condemnation under which we all stand as sinful humans. The freedom offered in the grace of Christ does not free us to remain as we were but empowers us to grow in love of neighbor and love of God. So we journey to the desert, not away from God’s love, but fearfully toward it, asking that it the burning light of love my purify our hearts. To be purified, we must see the stain. To rise with Christ on Easter we must journey with him into the tomb by way of the cross.

This means taking time to do the hard work of being honest with ourselves about where we have abused the freedom found in Christ. It means tackling difficult subjects about issues we prefer to ignore—our daily habits, our financial and dietary choices, and, yes, even our sexual ethics. This particular passage is hard for many of us because we have experienced such painful attacks upon our sexuality and our bodies. And yet, the freedom of Christ demands that all aspects of our life be approached with the same responsible love that was given to us by God’s own self-humbling, even to death on a cross.

Prayer: Gracious God, though we never have to earn your gracious love, teach us how to live in accordance with what you have given us. Purify not just our hearts but our whole selves that we may offer our body, mind, and soul as a living sacrifice to you. Amen.