05 Mar Set Intentions / Take Action this Ash Wednesday

Dear Westwood Community,

Whether or not we are ready, Lent arrives, inviting us into a journey of transformation. This season invites us to be intentional about our devotional lives, drawing from the deep well of meaningful practices in our spiritual tradition.

This year, we encourage you to use Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem as a template for your faithfulness. In worship this season, in both the Loft and Sanctuary, we will be drawing from Luke’s gospel, sharing stories about Jesus and his ministry, and locating ourselves in the spaces between the supposed binaries that often define our priorities.

I pray that this year, our church community will find courage that’s needed in this moment in our lives and our world. In addition to our regular worship life, we invite you to use this free devotional from A Sanctified Art. It includes art, poetry, and commentary designed to help you reflect on your own practice of faith. It identifies themes in the gospel that speak powerfully to us now: “Jesus’ ministry disrupted the established social, political, and religious divides of his time. Jesus intentionally pointed out cultural and political extremes to emphasize the radical, inclusive, and surprising love of God. When we study these stories in their historical and cultural context, we see how they mirror the divisions many of us experience in our families, churches, and communities today” (from the Introduction to the devotional).

Each week focuses on a pair of supposed binaries – words we frequently consider to be opposed to each other, but between which we find gracious space, incredible nuance, and beautiful complexity. You are invited to reflect on your own place between these ideas, and to pay attention to the Holy Spirit as you open yourself to consider any ways you might be called to be transformed.

Ash Wednesday starts with our first pair: intention and action. So, today, may you set intentions for a transformative lenten journey, and may your actions deepen your intentions and prayers, too.

How will you align your intentions with your actions during this season?

I encourage you to join us for worship this evening, too, in the Sanctuary or by Livestream at 7pm. Ash Wednesday worship is one of my favorite worship services of the year: it is humble, honest, and authentic. I love the tradition of writing prayers, and burning them with last year’s palm branches, to make the ashes that mark our foreheads. I treasure that it is both unpretentious and grace-filled.

May your lenten journey lead you to an encounter with God that surprises you–may you find the divine in the midst of opposing ideas, and beyond all the categories we have considered.

grace and peace,
Pastor Molly