*Daylight Saving Time begins this Sunday, March 8. Set clocks forward one hour.*
This Lent (February 18-April 4), we are following A Sanctified Art‘s “Tell Me Something Good,” in our worship and Church School. We’re looking at what was central to Jesus’ life and ministry: radical welcome, love for neighbors, care for the vulnerable, nourishment for the hungry, nonviolence in the face of injustice.
On Sunday, we will visit Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6:30-44) and remember the words of Paul to the churches at Ephesus about God’s capability expanding beyond our imaginations (Ephesians 3:14-21).
Here’s what artist Lauren Wright Pitman had to say about how the scriptures inspired her for this image (left).
Far More Abundantly, inspired by Ephesians 3:20-21
by Lauren Wright Pittman
I read this Ephesians text alongside the feeding of the five thousand. I placed Jesus at the center of the image, but he did not feed the crowds alone. He asked his disciples to offer what they had. They responded with meager resources, yet those small gifts were enough.
Through the lens of Ephesians, if Jesus were to ask us today what we have to give, our answer would be:
We have the power you have given us to do the impossible. The same power that turned five loaves and two fish into a feast for thousands— with leftovers—empowers us “to accomplish far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine.”
Do we allow this truth to settle into our bones and animate our actions? I’ll admit, I tried to avoid this passage because it felt overly optimistic in light of today’s world. People still go hungry. Wars rage. The earth groans under our misuse. Yet if we reimagine the systems we created, studies show it is possible for every human being to have what they need. That would require massive restructuring, international cooperation, and the reallocation of resources—but not more than we already possess. We don’t need a miracle of multiplication. We simply need to use what we’ve been given.
In a world convinced of scarcity, this is astonishingly good news. We already have enough. And as my mentor used to say, “Enough is abundance.” What will we do with this abundance? Is it too lofty to dream of a world that sustains all of life? Perhaps. Yet I believe it is God’s own desire that all may have life, and have it abundantly. This is the work before us, accomplished through the power at work within us, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Consider the archway and what it could symbolize.
Do you see a table, a tablet, a boat, a door, a tomb—or all of these things or something else?
On Sunday, we’ll consider:
What problems in the world do you consider impossible?
Where are you needing possibility in your life?
Where are you hoping for possibility in the world?
In faith,
Kent
