Lent 2024

Greetings from the St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer!

FORMING DISCIPLES OF JESUS IN EVERY CONGREGATION

The St. Paul Center for Theology and Prayer exists to form disciples of Jesus in every congregation. It seeks to do this by equipping and resourcing local congregations for the tasks and joys of faith formation, teaching and learning, catechesis, and the life of prayer.

TSPC is moving into 2024 with energy and excitement. In this edition of the newsletter, we’ll fill you in on some of the things you can look forward to from us in the months ahead - including a new online course we’ll be offering during Eastertide. We’ve divided our calendar year into themes: in this season of Lent, we’re starting out with the theme of PENITENCE.

Don’t forget, you can find our previous newsletters online. If you’re reading this because someone shared it with you, and you’re not yet on our newsletter mailing list, please do sign up here, so you’ll be sure to receive all future news from TSPC!

A THOUGHT FROM TSPC

Penitence

Lent is a season of penitence. At TSPC we want to focus on that strange and beautiful word throughout Lent this year. Penitence comes from the Latin word for repentance. It’s used to translate the Greek metanoia in the New Testament. Penitence, repentance, or even being sorrowful for the parts of ourselves that reject God’s love (what we typically call sin) aren’t popular subjects in our society, or even in our churches. We tend to think this is about guilt-inducing self-righteousness, and picture over-zealous street preachers shouting at innocent bystanders as they just try to get a sandwich on their lunch break. We want to talk about love and grace, forgiveness and healing, not “our manifold sins and wickedness” (BCP, 331). But I fear this reveals a juvenile and half-hearted understanding of penitence—something that our faith holds as not only in line with that vision of love and grace, but as a loving and gracious gift in itself; an invitation that welcomes us into the ever-abiding love and embrace of God. In fact, we can go as far to say that our penitence is God’s forgiveness.

God isn’t interested in competing with us for our redemption. God doesn’t do contest. God does grace. And God’s attitude or action towards us doesn’t need to be changed or improved upon by our own attitude or actions. God forgives not because of anything we do or do not do but because God is forgiveness, God is mercy, God is love. Our repentance isn’t a twisting of God’s arm to forgive us, but the experience of God who is always and already mercy and forgiveness. Our penitence and God’s forgiveness are different words for the same thing.

The social nature of our sin also requires truth telling—to ourselves, to one another, and to the world, whether this is through restorative justice where public acknowledgement and reparative actions are required, or it is repentance of our personal failures to love before and with the Church. One of the important ways the Church lives this truth is through the sacrament of reconciliation (also commonly called confession). Confession is not a “private” act at all, but a social and communal one (“where two or three are gathered…,” remember). It’s a sacrament that makes us into truth-tellers, brings us out of hiding, and shows us who we really are. We are all well-trained in hiding, even from ourselves. The reality is, we don’t cringe at words like penitence, sin, and repentance because we fear that we are sinful and in need, we all know we’re imperfect and fall short: errare humanum est. What we really fear is being found out, of people seeing we aren’t the perfectly curated self we present on social media. But, the thing is, this fear is paradoxically a form of pride—thinking our sins are worse than our neighbor’s and make us particularly unworthy.

Confession, becoming truth-tellers, enables us to truly discover and know ourselves—to know ourselves as God’s beloved, and to know that our sinfulness is not the truest thing about us. Our sin is actually pretty boring. It’s God’s love that is noteworthy, thrilling, and exhilarating. Confession is a reality check on our humanity—a gracious recognition of the smallness of our sin and the greatness of God’s mercy. We acknowledge that God is God and we are not. If we cannot bring ourselves to this point of humility, we will always see God’s forgiveness as a threat, because that forgiveness takes away our fantasy that we are in control. Penitence is an acknowledgement of who we are. A friend of mine said it best: “The sacrament of reconciliation is God’s gift to us to keep going at being human.”

This sacrament certainly isn’t required in Anglican tradition, but it is on offer to us. Our BCP actually provides two rites for reconciliation and commends it to us with great encouragement (BCP, 317). The classic Anglican maxim about confession is “all can, some should, none must.” And there might be good reasons people have for using other means provided by the Church to reconcile with God and others and become truth tellers about themselves. But, for most of us, the grace of this sacrament will be an enriching home of encouragement, freedom, and blessing.

If you’re interested in learning more about the sacrament of reconciliation, speak to your priest, or reach out and get in touch with us at TSPC and we’ll help with some resources for you to learn more. This Lent, let us “keep going at being human” and commit ourselves to the gracious and transformative life of penitence.

With prayer and thanksgiving, Jarred

The Rev. Dr. Jarred Mercer, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Newburyport, and part of TSPC’s leadership team

WHAT’S ON AT TSPC (and beyond!)

lent 2024

Learning to Pray

As you consider penitence and reconciliation during this time of Lent, we remind you that our Learning to Pray Video Series is available for your use! These six videos explore different practices of prayer, considering how and why we pray, and different forms of prayer that might enrich our spiritual lives. You can watch the videos online, and read our Conversation Guide (at the link given on the webpage) for ways to use the Learning to Pray videos in your community. Perhaps this may form part of a Lenten exploration in your parish?

Lent Preaching Series

Speaking of Lenten explorations - on Tuesdays in Lent, you are warmly invited to attend (in person or online) the Preaching Series at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. This year, their theme is: "Preparing for the great uprising that is Easter: A word to the church from younger leaders"

In this time of rapid change and uncertainty for the church and the world, and in a year when we are preparing to elect our next bishop, how do we chart a hopeful path into the future, following Jesus? This Lent, we open our ears and our hearts to receive a message from preachers in their 20s and 30s.

5.15pm on Tuesdays in Lent - these young church leaders’ sermons will be part of a service of Evening Prayer, which will be followed by a soup supper and conversation. All are welcome! If you aren’t able to join in person, you can find the live stream on the cathedral’s YouTube channel.

Baptism and Collaboration in the Body of Christ: A Lent-Easter Devotional and Formation Program

This year, the Dioceses of Vermont and Massachusetts will offer a joint Lenten devotional called "Baptism and Collaboration in the Body of Christ." The devotional will feature lay, ordained, and monastic voices reflecting on the daily scriptures of the season and the various "Will you…" questions of the Baptismal Covenant. The devotional will be available to download from the diocesan websites for individual, small group, or parish use. Worship and virtual conversation guided by each week’s focal baptismal vow will be held on Thursday evenings from February 15 through April 4 from 5:45-7:45 p.m. with the Green Mountain Online Abbey on Zoom.Everyone is welcome and RSVPs to the Rev. Adwoa Wilson (awilson@diovermont.org) are appreciated.

The Prodigal Son - screening and conversation coming next week!

In our last email, we let you know about Enigma Chamber Opera’s upcoming production of ‘The Burning Fiery Furnace’ (at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, February 16 and 17 at 7pm). This church parable by composer Benjamin Britten - a chamber opera, fully staged with orchestra - explores the story from the Book of Daniel, of Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego at the court of Nebuchadnezzar.

Enigma have been exploring all three of Britten’s church parables, presenting them at the cathedral over the past few years. In 2022, their second production was of ‘The Prodigal Son’; and Enigma and the cathedral have teamed up to give folks a second chance to explore this musical retelling of the well-known story from Luke’s Gospel.

On Thursday 15th February, 5-7pm, you are invited to a screening of ‘The Prodigal Son’ in the Lawrence Room at the cathedral (138 Tremont St, Boston). The presentation will be followed by discussion of the parable, with Artistic Director Kirsten Z Cairns, and Dean Amy McCreath. Refreshments will be included! The event is free to attend; you can sign up, here. All are welcome!

If you missed either of the previous two presentations from Enigma Chamber Opera, you can catch them online February 14th through 21st; and then come along and see ‘The Burning Fiery Furnace.’ All details at https://enigmachamberopera.org/watch

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coming eastertide 2024

Finding Our Way: Developing practice of contemplation with land to reckon with trauma

Tuesdays in April (2, 9, 16, 23, 30) 6-7pm, online

We’re delighted to offer the next course from TSPC, led by the Rev. Rita Powell, Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard. In ‘Finding our Way’, the goal is to connect to the land around us, and the history of that land, in prayerful, healing and transformative ways. Attendees will be able to take the ideas explored in the course back to their own parishes and landscapes.

Here is Rita’s description of this exciting program:

If we are Christians and we are in America, we need spiritual help and healing. The ongoing living legacies of slavery, colonization, and greed are entwined in our own tradition, poisoning our culture. It is the call of the prophets to help us lament and understand this, and, with God’s help, be transformed by examining our past.

Building on the “Landscape of Slavery at Harvard Tours,” this course will draw from the wisdom of the Christian desert tradition. Theology and practice which recognizes the Land around us as pastoral teacher, living source of wisdom, can offer us a way to live and move and have our being in the face of all the challenges we face. We will learn from women, black activists, and poets as we imagine new ways to be faithful to the promise of the Incarnation.

Each session will be made of three parts: storytelling, examination of a text, and creative writing. The methodology for the course is inspired by visionary leader Adrienne Marie Brown’s Emergent Strategy, practices for collective transformation. The storytelling draws on moments of hope and possibility happening in our own time, in and through and with the Episcopal church and others. The course is an invitation to develop a practice or experience within your own context.

World Around Us As God’s Letter to Us (April 2nd)
Egypt: Sacred Ground–Divine Presence (April 9th)
The Living Mountain: Prayer of Paying Attention (April 16th)
Bodies as part of Land: Word Made Flesh (April 23rd)
Honoring what can not be named: God of the Visible and Invisible (April 30th)

The course will run Tuesdays in April, 6-7pm. The online component of the course will be followed by an optional ‘pilgrimage’ together (planned as a group, to find a date which works for all) to walk the land and explore how to put the ideas into practice. Please sign up to attend this dynamic program at Eventbrite, here. If you have questions about the course, please contact rita@harvardepiscopalians.org

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Closing with … INSPIRATION for penitence

The Rev. Suzanne Guthrie's 2010 reflections on the practice of penitence stand the test of time. Her reminder of the blessing of being beloved but imperfect folks, invited to a life of continually changing, forgiving, and being forgiven, is so helpful. "What is church if it isn’t a place to come to change, and to learn how to change with others who are changing?" You can read the whole piece here:

Repentance: Repeat as needed | The Christian Century

The Very Rev. Amy McCreath

What helps or inspires you as you practice penitence? Let us know your thoughts - our email inbox is always open!