Reflection for Tuesday, March 10 from Pastor Brad

As we’ve moved into these days of reflecting about the way food is a part of our spiritual practice, I’ve thought a bit about time as a component of a meaningful meal. Of course, there’s the time to prepare the ingredients of the foods we eat, to say nothing of the time it takes to harvest those ingredients in places far from the shores of our own lives. There’s the time we invest to eat a meal -- not to swallow it whole but to take time to appreciate the food we have and to focus on being present with our meal companions in a way that feels spacious and open. When I think about meaningful meals in my life, a generous sense of time has been an important quality in what made them good.

Time seems an important value to Jesus in meal sharing. In the feeding of the five thousand in Mark 6, Jesus seems to observe time so spaciously. Even as the disciples want to hurry things along and have the crowd disperse to find something to eat for themselves, Jesus invites folks to sit down and stay and sees the moment as a beautiful opportunity for sharing together. Jesus takes the time to bless God for the food that is at hand and for the way that it would nourish all of those hungry lives on the grassy plain. There’s no hurry; there’s just the opportunity to hold good time together.

On this Lenten pathway, I hope that I might take the Spirit’s invitation to practice holding good time with the meals that I am fortunate to eat each day. In prayer, in conversation at table, in an attitude of hospitality and openness, in thanksgiving for God’s provision, may mealtime be marked for us with time that is full of grace.

Reflection for Monday, March 9 from Pastor Brad

It’s the second week of Lent, and we’ll take some time this week for our hearts’ reflections to tune in to table fellowship and food sharing as a spiritual practice in our daily lives. As we begin this week, I’m thinking of a story of mashed potato preparation for a large dinner at Carondelet UCC years ago. Members of the church were busy preparing for this particular dinner in the same way they had many times before; by this time, meal prep was routine at CUCC. Everyone had a job and knew how to execute it with efficiency.

The mashed potatoes, too, were being prepared like before. They were mixed together in a large bowl with a commercial-sized mixer to do the mashing and mixing. This time, though, the mixer spun and whirred and spun gobs of mashed potatoes right out of the basin and all over the kitchen walls. What a surprise! What a mess! (And according to the story, what a good memory it was for those who worked together to prepare that meal and to clean it up, too)

Perhaps one of the gifts of our table sharing as a spiritual practice in our lives is that the Holy Spirit whirs wondrous surprises when God’s people take time to share food, conversation and presence with others. At table, we find wonders of friendships growing deeper; strangers becoming friends; communities built to be stronger; love that is known even more profoundly; visions of hope shared that can seed a bright future.

As you reflect on your food sharing and table fellowship spiritual practice this week, may the Spirit make your tables holy tables, and may you know the goodness, delight and surprise that God can bring to you and the places where you gather with others.

Lenten Reflection for Thursday, February 27 from Pastor Brad

Since I’ve been a pastor at Carondelet United Church of Christ, it’s been a privilege to be one who offers ashes to those who wish to hold that sign upon their bodies each Ash Wednesday. I’ve shared that moment for 10 Ash Wednesdays now, but each year, that role becomes alive for me with a new tenderness as we remember together our vulnerability and our call to turn again to God’s love.

I’ve tried to be careful in my imposition of ashes on foreheads or palms or wrists. I’ve tried not to be too messy; not to let flecks of ash drop into eyelashes or eyes; not to be too out of proportion with how a symbol of our faith is sized up on the forehead of one who comes to receive it; not to press my finger too hard upon someone else.

It was the same last year. After these tender moments of sharing the ashes with other disciples, I gave myself the sign of the cross on my forehead with the ashes; like I’ve often done. After that, we prayed together, shared the peace of Christ with one another; we sang and then blessed each other for our Lenten journey and we were on our way for the evening. The service ended, and I went downstairs and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and...oh my goodness! The cross on my forehead was gigantic! I smeared two lines of ash that were well above my eyebrows and coming down almost onto the bridge of my nose. It seemed so outsized to me, and I thought about standing in front of the congregation minutes earlier with that on my forehead. I felt so embarrassed.

But then I did a double take in the mirror a moment or two later with this sign still on my face, and I had a different sensibility coming up inside of me; one that was warm and humorful and good and thankful. “This is who I am,” I thought. “This is who we all are. God’s love is so gigantic, so bold, so full, so good that it just slathers itself on us and claims us in such an outsized way simply because of the beloved children we are to God. We are all so loved by God.”

As you begin your Lenten walk, may there be moments in your journey when you encounter the surprising and wonderful love of the One who loves you with all abandon.