Lenten series: Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Our Lenten series is titled “Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace.” It will feature presentations, discussion, spiritual practices, and strategies for followers of the Way of Jesus desiring to develop relationships or remain in relationship with family members, co-workers, and neighbors (broadly defined) across lines of difference.

We will focus on what I am calling “the four L’s”: Listen, Learn, Lament, and Love. Many of you have told me how difficult it is to be in relationship with family members and neighbors with different political perspectives and backgrounds. Because of what journalist Bill Bishop calls “The Big Sort,” many Americans are living, socializing, and exchanging Facebook posts with people who look and think like them. We are not often in relationship with neighbors who look and think differently than us.

Jesus’ followers are called to be, in the prayer attributed to St. Francis, instruments of God’s peace. How might we listen deeply to and develop empathy for others without abandoning our beliefs and values? How might listening deeply to homeless neighbors, neighbors from the North Side of Minneapolis, and those who have different political and religious views, inform the way we talk to God, and listen for what God or Love might be calling us to do in response?

The Lenten series will take place on Zoom on Tuesdays, February 23, March 2, March 16, and March 23 from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. Presenters will include Don Samuels, Reed Carlson, and Dan Johnson.

Opportunities to listen to and learn from homeless neighbors and advocates will take place via Zoom on February 18 and March 18 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm (Metropolitan Interfaith Coalition on Affordable Housing or MICAH meetings).

An RSVP to Blair Pogue for the Lenten series at rector@stmatthewsmn.org would help me and the presenters know how many people to expect.

Image: São Paulo Zoo, Brazil, 2018. Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.