14 Feb Ash Wednesday Invitation: Journey With Us

Dear Westwood Community,

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. I want to invite you to worship, online or on campus at noon, in our Sanctuary. Please know that you can also watch via YouTube any time afterwards.

On Ash Wednesday, our worship includes an invitation for each of us to write a confession on paper; those prayers are burned, and mixed with the palm ashes so that they can mark our foreheads with a sign of humility and grace.

When it’s forced on us, confession can feel like a tool of shame and judgement. When it’s freely chosen, I have found it to be a practice that leads to liberation and life. Because we believe in the graciousness of God’s love, we trust that our confession will not lead to our own destruction; instead, we claim assurance that it will lead to our transformation. Through it all, we know that we are loved by God. Divine love enables us to do the hard, vulnerable work of confession–as well as the continuing difficult work of change, repair, and reconciliation.

This is all a journey, as we hold together things that seem like they should be in tension: confession and forgiveness, seeking God and receiving abundant grace, dangerous vulnerability and trust in a God who saves.

In worship during Lent this year, we invite you to take this journey with us.

In the Loft, our Lenten theme is Pilgrimage; this practice of holy journeying invites us into transformative exploration of ourselves and the world.

In the Sanctuary, we will use the biblical stories about Peter each week, following his “wandering heart” through the season (to borrow a phrase from the beloved hymn, “Come Thou Fount.”)

We wanted to share some resources for deeper practice at home, too. Our children have heart-shaped boxes with lenten practices for your families to use, which they received this past Sunday morning. You are also invited to use a free devotional, created by A Sanctified Art. Access it online, or pick up a copy at church. It has art, poetry, scripture, reflections, and space for your own journaling. I hope you will use it.

We have also installed new prayer banners outside the church along Wilshire, and have hung new art images in our narthex gallery. We encourage you to use this visual art as an invitation to contemplation and prayer.

This year, Lent begins on Valentine’s Day–a confluence of holidays that seem pretty uncomfortable together. I’m reminded, though, as I think of Valentine’s Day hearts, of what a gift it is when we allow our hearts to be broken on open Ash Wednesday. I think of words from the Hebrew prophet Joel, which we often read today:

Rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
who is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing. (Joel 2:13)

May you experience divine love today, and may love be with you as you move through this journey of Lent.

grace and peace,
Pastor Molly