Lenten Plans

 Note from Mark Davis: Today I have asked SueJeanne Koh, the Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian for both St. Mark and New Hope Presbyterian Churches, to write our Friday letter. SueJeanne has done great work in bringing the journeys of St. Mark and New Hope together, and has coordinated ongoing meetings between me and Rev. Chineta Goodjoin from New Hope. Much of our attention of late has been preparing for the season ahead, as SueJeanne’s letter will show. 

It is hard to believe, but the season of Lent is starting in a few weeks, with Ash Wednesday on the 22^nd. I grew up in a church that did not pay attention to liturgical rhythms apart from Christmas and Easter, but increasingly, many of us have seen the formative value of Lent and Advent for our communities. If Advent is a season of waiting and hope, then Lent has typically offered us a time of personal reflection, abstinence from indulgence, and remorse about individual sin. 

One way to approach this liturgical season is by turning intensely inward. This year, we invite you to approach it a bit differently. Throughout Scripture, the word “repent” has different valences, referring to the emotions of regret, the conviction of sin, or a change of mind. It also describes a turning back to God, as in John the Baptist’s cry, “Repent, for the reign of heaven is near.” To say that the reign of God is near is to suggest that the matter of repentance is not only a spiritual posture, but also one that asks us to orient ourselves in the world differently – seeing God at work, and seeing the need for God among us. 

This year’s Lenten theme is “Joining Jesus at the Margins.” It is an invitation to both St. Mark and New Hope communities to cultivate this vision of repentance. This vision is both about seeing the world, and being present in it, in ways that recognize God’s solidarity with those on the margins of our society. It is to decenter ourselves by joining those people at the margins, and to see the world from those margins. We will have some familiar events–like our Ash Wednesday service and weekly text study focusing on Luke’s fourth chapter. But we will also read Scripture alongside Howard Thurman’s prophetic book, Jesus and the Disinherited. And to bring both Scripture and Thurman’s words to life in our context, we will plan a couple of site tours in Orange County using A People’s Guide to Orange County by Thuy Vo Dang, Elaine Lewinnek, and Gustavo Arellano. Finally, through the season we will ask you to share your own observations and experiences of God at work among us, through words and art.

We hope that these Lenten rhythms, both familiar and newer, will bring us closer to seeing worship and the work of justice as intertwined. And we hope that these opportunities will help reveal God’s hope and heart for our world, and open our eyes to the histories of marginalized communities among us—to use Thurman’s words, whose “backs are against the wall.” We live in a visual age—a stream of images emanates relentlessly from our smartphones, tablets, and computers, amusing us with memes as well as haunting us with images of grief, brokenness, and all-too-familiar violence. To see the world as God would have us see it, and then to be as God would have us be, is what we hope to do by joining Jesus at the margins. To cultivate this vision is spiritual, creative, and tangible work, and orients us to the God whom we worship.

SueJeanne Koh

Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian