Here at the beginning of Lent is a good to reflect on questions such as these:

What is the renewal that our souls need?

As individuals, as a community, as a society, as a global species?

What is the renewal our souls need?

Are there ways that we’ve lost our way?

Are there ways that we can find our way again for the sake of the well-being of our souls?

Again, as individuals, as a community, as a society, as a global species?

How do we need to remember what is true and good and holy and beautiful?

What do we we release what keeps us from knowing or living out what is true and good and holy and beautiful?

How can we return to the embrace of God’s Love?

How can we renew through the live-giving, soul-saving Spirit of the Living God?

May we rejoice in Christ, in community, in creation.

The season of Lent is an opportunity to reflect on what we need for the renewal of our souls.  What we need to remember, what we need to release, how we need to return, for that renewal and further rejoicing. Remembering our mortality, in the light of our eternal God, we can feel the precious gift of our lives. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, last Wednesday, as a reminder of our mortality, held as it is in God’s Grace as known through Christ. The opportunity is to appreciate the preciousness of our lives, the gift from God that is every moment, and to allow that to move us toward what our souls need to be renewed.

Lent is an opportunity to practice that renewal. Traditionally this means fasting or abstaining from meat or alcohol or sugar, as well as committing oneself to devotional practices.

For contemporary Protestants, at least, there’s been a creative approach to this, where Lent can involve each person’s prayerful discernment of what practices or habits to let go of, and what practice or habits to commit to.

This is as much about what we say “Yes” to as about what we say “No” to. The invitation is to be imaginative and prayerful about what your soul really needs, and about your contribution the spiritual wellbeing of our community and society.

So, this certainly can mean abstaining from alcohol, if you find that if you’re honest with yourself, it’s become a problem and you could use help. But it also can mean starting a prayer practice or a devotional practice or an art practice … or recognizing, for example, my conscience has been really troubled about something but I’ve been too afraid to speak up or get involved, but if I’m honest what I need for the wellbeing of my soul is to challenge that fear and do x, y, or z.

This is something we can help each other with. You don’t have to feel like you’re going it alone. We’re in this together. And certainly, the Holy Spirit is here to help us out.

It’s very important that above all else Lent is an exercise in Grace and Mercy. This is not about attaining perfection, or wallowing in our imperfection, but about a shift in our orientation, a reorientation around the reality of God for the sake of our soul’s renewal.

Your life is a gift from God. You are a gift from God.

May you be blessed for the renewal of your soul.

Delivered Sunday, February 18, 2024, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge