Remember, 

Release, 

Return, 

Reconnect, 

Rejoice at the reunion

… and Repeat as necessary. 

Probably none of us live in constant communion with God. 

We need to keep coming back. We need cycles of remembrance and return and reconnection. Fortunately, we know, because of the gift of Jesus, that the fundamental nature of God is Mercy and Grace. 

This Mercy and Grace embraces us as we are, in our drifting away and our return, in  our forgetting and our remembering, in our sleeping and our waking up again. God always welcomes us back and rejoices at our reunion. God welcomes us back before we even know we need to come back home. However much we may be worse for the wear, any rift with God, God has already repaired.

The story of the prodigal son is Jesus’ beloved illustration of the fact that God’s fundamental nature is Mercy and Grace. I have found that this Mercy and this Grace is so enduring that it applies even when we have become like the prodigal son more than once in our lives. In reality our return home to God is rarely one and done. I think it is in fact a cycle in most of our lives of wandering away and squandering our life force for a time, and then remembering, releasing, returning, reconnecting, and rejoicing at the reunion. 

Even minute to minute, right? Again, probably none of us live in constant communion with God. So we need to be frequently returning.

That’s why it is good to pray in a regular way, good to worship with a community often enough, and good to abide by the ancient cycles of our church calendar. 

We are now in the season of Lent, the 40 days and 40 nights before the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. It began with Ash Wednesday this past week, where we are marked with ashes and reminded of our own mortality and that ultimately, we belong to God. We are from dust and stardust and to dust and stardust we shall return. Our awareness of death can free us to release what we need to release and reconnect as we need to reconnect for wellness of our Souls and our relationships with God and with each other.

Traditionally Lent is a period of repentance and fasting. “Repentance” has a harsh connotation for many, bringing along feelings of judgment and guilt. But the word in the Hebrew Scriptures simply means “to return.” It is a homecoming! And the word in the Greek New Testament means something like a metamorphosis of consciousness. It is an awakening!

So, how do we need to return? How do we need to awaken or re-awaken or remember?

What can that look for you during this period of Lent. What are you called to do or to refrain from doing to practice reconnection with the Divine.  

The word “religion” itself means to reconnect. Re-ligio, “ligio” as in ligament, the connective tissue that keeps a body whole and strong and flexible. The practices of our faith, when they are healthy, are practices of reconnection, of healing disjointedness, of returning to a reunited whole. 

So, this what I propose to be the cycle of a life of faith, in mercy:

Remember, 

Release, 

Return, 

Reconnect, 

Rejoice at the reunion

… and Repeat as necessary. 

Remember: You are a beloved child of the living God. 

Remember: You belong in the embrace of the creator of the cosmos

Remember: Your very being draws its being from the sacred Source of all being

Remember: The sacred Source of all being is beyond all being, beyond all name, beyond the boundaries of our lives and our deaths, beyond our imagination and our understanding

Remember: In God’s Mercy, the Infinite is Intimate, nearer to you that you even are to yourself, closer and more constant than the sweetness of your breath. 

Remember: You are from dust and stardust, and to that you shall return 

Remember: Your inheritance is an abundance beyond measure. You were made for life and for fullness of life for whatever measure of life is given to you. 

From this remembrance, we can realize the ways that we have become confined and constricted and constrained from this fullness of life, realize the ways we have turned from the reality of God, the ways we have wandered or been forced away from our true heart-home. Some of this may be due to things in our control, and some or a lot to things outside of our control. Either way, by God’s mercy as manifest through Christ, we can be free.  

We can then release what we need to release to be free to return to the reality of the Divine, return to the Love Supreme, return to our sacred Source and transcendent destination. This release can look like fasting, from abstaining from something we consume that in fact is reinforcing our distance from God. Or this release can look like letting go of our impediments to doing something new to mend our connection with God or to mend our connection with others or with our whole self. 

Our return is a reconnection, a reconnection with what is live-giving and soul-saving – a reconnection with God, a reconnection with the Holy Spirit, a reconnection with Christ, a reconnection with community, a reconnection with creation, a reconnection with your own vitality and purpose, a reconnection with the vitality and purpose of others in this human and more-than-human universe. 

            Any moment of reconnection, however humble, is met with rejoicing. 

            Rejoice in the reunion. Rejoice in the release, rejoice in the relief. 

The theme that the worship committee and I felt moved to lift up as our theme for this season of Lent, is Reconnection. 

Reconnection can be a kind of short-hand for this whole cycle. And I think it offers a helpful way to reflect on how we can practice this cycle during this season of Lent. We can ask ourselves and ask God in a prayerful way, “What kind of reconnection am I being called back to? With whom or with what could I reconnect for the wellness of my soul?

What is the deep remembrance this calls us to? 

What does it call me to release?

How does it call me to return?

Remember, you are of God, in God you are beloved. 

Any return, any reunion with the fullness of your inheritance as a beloved child of God is a cause for rejoicing. Because the true nature of our God as manifest through Jesus is Mercy & Grace. Thanks be to God. 

(Delivered February 26, 2023, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge)

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