[re]imagine Lent: 3/17/2023
We encourage you to sign up for the 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge, a challenge with our partner Southeastern Iowa Synod to participate in Lenten practices, including these daily devotions. Just signing up counts as participation! More info here.
“ [Jesus] spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.””
Catching a new vision can be messy business. In Jesus’ case in John 9, it was a muddybusiness, that included literal dirt, bathing, and neighbors arguing. Do you ever get the sense that we are living this story?
It seems that there are competing visions everywhere we look. It seems that there is mud-slinging as arguing neighbors try to convince each other of their right-ness. In the midst of it all, miracles are missed, people are hurt, and we lose sight of what really matters.
Yet God is not afraid of this mess. In fact, more than once in scripture, we find that God gets down and dirty – creating beautiful, new, wonderful things out of the mud on which we walk. This Lent as we reimagine vision, I find myself just a little hopeful that the muddy climate in which we are living is really just God’s Spirit stirring up something new, and that if we have the eyes to see, ears to hear, and courage to listen, we might just be in store for the revelation of something bold and beautiful.
I am hopeful that maybe, out of these culture wars, God would reveal to us, the church, a new vision for what it means to be people of God. That may be, out of the dust that settles from the pandemic, the waters of baptism might be poured out and mixed up so that the Spirit has room to play and create something meaningful. Maybe, out of the blindness of our sin, God’s love poured out in Jesus Christ would help us see.
Prayer
God, help me to see with ready and willing eyes what it is that you see. Help my sight turn into belief, and turn my belief into action, that following your vision for a world of mercy, peace, and love, I might follow where you lead, through the messiness of death, to the everlasting light of your resurrection dawn. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Journal Prompt
We, humans, are constantly casting visions: how we want our life to look in 3, 5, or 20 years. How our companies can impact the world. How our congregation can best live into its mission. Yet how often do we allow God to shift or change that vision? Do we ever stop to wonder if God has something in store that we haven’t even imagined?
This week I invite you to think about your life, your work, or your congregation. How do you listen for God’s vision? How do you know if your current trajectory aligns with that vision? What has felt extra messy or difficult, and might that be God’s Spirit at work?
Week Four Devotions by Rev. Erika Uthe, uthe@seiasynod.org