Fasting from the Feast During Lent

Admittedly it’s an odd fast to keep, to give up Holy Communion during Lent. Our church teaches that in the bread and cup of Holy Communion our Lord gives himself to us in a special way. “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you.” As Lutherans, we take these words – and the practice of Holy Communion – seriously.

So why would we pause from receiving the sacrament?

For some of us the experience of sharing communion at home has gotten a bit sloppy, inconsistent, or just odd as the pandemic has worn on. Oh, right, communion! Well, here’s half a hamburger roll. Do we have any grape juice or wine? Uh, well, would orange juice or water work? The communion we’ve shared at home has been real, no matter how ragtag it might feel at times. Even with our last-minute elements and forgetfulness, we’ve been united across time and space with our Lord and with the whole Christian Church by those words of promise – “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you.”

The Means of Grace

Holy Communion is a gift of God, one of the three “means of grace” that God gives to the church to steward and use for the comfort and nourishment of God’s people. The three “means of grace” are the Word of God, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion.

• The Word of God – Jesus is the Living Word of God, received in preaching and the proclamation of Scripture, in Bible Study and in singing hymns, in the promise of Christian fellowship and in the confession and forgiveness of sins.
• Holy Baptism – in Holy Baptism our Lord washes us of the stain of sin and gives us the promise of new life. In baptism we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection, and made one with his body and the whole church.
• Holy Communion – in Holy Communion Jesus gives himself to us in bread and cup, the Passover lamb who frees us from bondage to sin and leads us into new life. In receiving his body and blood, we share in an eternal feast that reveals to us the abundance of God’s grace.

The Use of the Means of Grace: A Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament, is our church’s guidelines on how we steward these means of grace. It was adopted by the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in August of 1997, and would make for a great short-term study in our congregation.

This Lent we will pause from feasting at the Lord’s Table, but we will not be without real means of God’s grace. Instead, we will turn our attention toward the Word of God and Holy Baptism as means of God’s grace that sends us into the world in mission. Each week in worship you will be invited to recall your baptism by marking the sign of the cross on your forehead, perhaps with a scented oil or with water from a small bowl.

And, throughout this season of fasting I will offer reflections on Holy Communion, inviting each of us to prepare spiritually to receive anew the gift of Holy Communion during our Holy Week and Easter services.

May God bless us in our Lenten fasts, and nurture us through the renewing of baptism and the promise of God’s Living Word.

Peace be with you.
Pastor Chris Duckworth

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New Joy's Lent Schedule of Worship

Lent begins on Wednesday, February 17 with Ash Wednesday worship at 7pm online. As we will not be meeting in person, there will be no imposition of ashes this year. Lent concludes during Holy Week, when we host our Good Friday service on April 2, 7pm. Easter Sunday worship is April 4, 9:30am.

Brief, spoken midweek prayer services will be held on Wednesdays during Lent via Zoom at 6:30am, 1pm (at the start of Midweek Bible Study), 7pm, and 10pm. They will each be similar in nature. I’m leading these services at different times understanding the different schedules each of us have. I hope that with these four different times of prayer more might be able to participate in common prayer during the season of Lent.

 

 

"Giving Up" for Lent

By Pastor Chris Duckworth

There’s something perfect about coming back to church after a year-long deployment only to return at the start of Lent – that purple season of fasting and discipline, of repentance and renewal.

It might seem easier if I came back during the months-long green season – the church’s “ordinary time,” as it is sometimes called. Or to get back in the saddle at Advent and Christmas, when we sing “Joy to the world!” and light candles in the midst of the dark and cold.

But nope. I return from a deployment in the desert – where I led a somewhat spartan lifestyle that inspired me to reflect on the lives of those early monks who fled to the desert to live in isolation and self-denial – to a season that is modeled as a sort of desert journey itself, a period of self-denial and discipline in obedience to the One who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.

Typically we speak of “giving up” things for Lent – soda, chocolate, meat. I once gave up music with a beat, listening to nothing but Gregorian Chant for all of Lent (strictly speaking chant does have a beat, but nothing like that of my favorite 80’s dance tunes).

And while we talk about “giving up” for Lent, pastors – myself included – often try to nuance and broaden the Lenten theme. We pastor-types often want to expand Lent’s discipline so that it’s not just about “giving up” a beloved (and perhaps unhealthy) food, but instead about “taking on” a discipline that would draw us closer to God and neighbor.

Meh. I’m usually one for nuance – but not this year.

After a year of giving up all kinds of things for the deployment – time with family, chairs that are comfortable, good coffee, civilian clothing, Diet Pepsi, pleasant restrooms, control over my schedule, and more – I came to a new level of appreciation for the value of “giving up” stuff, “giving up” aspects of my life. Learning to live without certain amenities or comforts or everyday familiar things led me to spend more time both within myself – in my head and my heart, examining myself – and time beyond myself – in touch with God and with those around me. In those times I wrestled, I struggled, I grew … and for that wrestling, struggling, and growth I am grateful.

What makes Lent different than a deployment, of course, is that I can cheat during Lent. No matter how hard I looked there were no comfortable chairs on deployment. I have comfortable chairs at home, and even in my office. If I give up comfortable chairs this Lent, it’ll take some effort – and a whole lot more standing.

It was easy to give up Diet Pepsi on deployment because it was all but impossible to find. Here, I can buy cases of the stuff at Kroger.

So after a year of forced discipline, I am now looking at a season of self-imposed discipline for the sake of examining myself, my God, and my neighbor. If I stand more often those times will be opportunities to reflect on my sisters and brothers who are standing at Syria’s border with Turkey, aching for the comfort of life without bombs.

If I refrain from drinking soda it will be a chance to drink more water and consider the living water of eternal life that my Lord offers me and this world that he so loves (John 4).

If I give up meat – even if just on Fridays, for example – I can do so to share in a centuries-old tradition of obedience and witness to the church’s allegiance to God rather than to our own bellies and desires.

I encourage you to give something up this season, and in so doing to spend more time within yourself, and beyond yourself. Yet however you mark Lent, my prayer is that you would draw closer to God and to the world that God so loves during this sacred season.

Pastor Chris