Day 4 - Feb 29
Rev. Lauren Bennett
| Community Connections: | WTS Alum ('19), WTS Community Engagement Fellow 2015-2018; Associate Pastor at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis |
| Superpower: | Engagement |
Stretch fully before God ~ Isaiah 58:1-12
A few days ago, we began our Lenten journey with Ash Wednesday. We acknowledged, from ashes we are created and to ashes we will return. God’s breath brings creation into life from the ashes of the world. Each ash was a part of something larger: a tree, a graham cracker, a chair, a blanket…and each ash might again birth a new form of creation. Like a pile of ashes taken from a bonfire shared amongst friends or collected from a house fire, each pile of ashes contains both commonalities and distinctions, just like creation.
In worship, we offer praise and thanksgiving to the God of the universe who knows us by name and is as close to us as our own breath. Stanley Hauerwas, reflecting on Marva Dawn’s writing, says worship for God is character building because it requires truth-telling; truth of ourselves as we present ourselves before God and truth as we practice the embodied disciplines of worship.
For me, worship provides a place of accountability so that we can “stretch fully before God” in seeking and sharing truth. In worship, we remember the tenants of our faith, which we boldly proclaim in community. We creatively consider how the text that spoke to a people thousands of years ago still speaks. We stand, sit, sing, kiss, eat and drink through our bodies to honor the God within and likewise the God who surrounds. As we live in a world where the bodies around us often experience violence, we may not divorce justice from worship. They tangle together because of the nature of our creation.
Day 4 - Feb 29
Rev. Lauren Bennett
| Community Connections: | WTS Alum ('19), WTS Community Engagement Fellow 2015-2018; Associate Pastor at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis |
| Superpower: | Engagement |
Stretch fully before God ~ Isaiah 58:1-12
A few days ago, we began our Lenten journey with Ash Wednesday. We acknowledged, from ashes we are created and to ashes we will return. God’s breath brings creation into life from the ashes of the world. Each ash was a part of something larger: a tree, a graham cracker, a chair, a blanket…and each ash might again birth a new form of creation. Like a pile of ashes taken from a bonfire shared amongst friends or collected from a house fire, each pile of ashes contains both commonalities and distinctions, just like creation.
In worship, we offer praise and thanksgiving to the God of the universe who knows us by name and is as close to us as our own breath. Stanley Hauerwas, reflecting on Marva Dawn’s writing, says worship for God is character building because it requires truth-telling; truth of ourselves as we present ourselves before God and truth as we practice the embodied disciplines of worship.
For me, worship provides a place of accountability so that we can “stretch fully before God” in seeking and sharing truth. In worship, we remember the tenants of our faith, which we boldly proclaim in community. We creatively consider how the text that spoke to a people thousands of years ago still speaks. We stand, sit, sing, kiss, eat and drink through our bodies to honor the God within and likewise the God who surrounds. As we live in a world where the bodies around us often experience violence, we may not divorce justice from worship. They tangle together because of the nature of our creation.
