Preaching Plan

Preaching Plan

Dear Friends,

“A Messy Lent”

By the time you read this and we start the March-May plan we will be very much in the season of Lent. Once upon a time people would see Lent as a season of preparation, contemplation and fasting (apart from Mother’s Day) leading up to the great feast of Easter.

Now I’m obviously not doing very well at this. I won’t tell you what I got for the A-level RE exam (while at Cliff College of all places), otherwise you’d be wondering how I ever got to “vicar school”, but I’m not very good at all of this. I start off with good intentions, with the best and most holiest of ideas as to how I can navigate my way through Lent, and turn out better the other side. But it can last for a few days, or in bad year, a few hours!

So where am I going wrong? I just wonder if it might be better to start with one small change, one thing that I could do differently this year. That one thing might just be the defining activity that will transform my Lent this year.

Because, let’s face it, life is messy! And what I would be trying to do is  have 40 days of an un-messy life! But Lent starts off messy. Just watch me trying to make pancakes! Some people in my house are glad it’s only once a year with all the cleaning up to do!

I take inspiration from the rock piles, or ‘stone stacks’ that have appeared on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne (and I guess in other places too) over the years. They are unkempt, vulnerable, crazy, misshapen and yes, messy. Not a well-honed, or beautifully crafted cairn. But a random stack of stones, contributed to by each person who has come along and added their stone to the pile. They look great, and several together are a work of art.

So my plea this year is, don’t try to be too holy. Don’t try to be too saintly. Don’t see Lent as an opportunity to put everything in order and lead a blameless life. Life is complicated, life is messy and life will get in the way of what you are trying to do to focus on your Lenten journey.

So be kind to yourself, and others. Have a Messy Lent. Yes, do what you can to reflect on the themes of wilderness and temptation and start taking something up – tackling injustice, speaking up for the needy, supporting the Food Bank. But don’t worry if you don’t achieve all you set out. The most important thing to remember for me is that, as Jesus experienced, God was with him in the desert, and in fact took him to there in the first place!

Your minister and friend

Rev Tim Morris