i-Llan: 2nd March 2025 – Fragments that alter the world

Thoughts on the Sunday before Lent.

The links referred to are:

From 2022 https://www.alisteningspace.org.uk/illan2022-02-27/

From 2023 https://www.alisteningspace.org.uk/i-llan2023-02-19/

and you can read the bible readings for this Sunday before Lent here

i-Llan is part of alisteningspace.uk

Transcript

Welcome to i-Llan, a podcast connecting faith, life and scripture. This episode on the Sunday before Lent begins, thinks about fragments that alter the world.

Each week, as I ponder what to write, I turn to previous posts on the same readings to see what I wrote then. On the equivalent Sunday before Ash Wednesday three years ago, the Ukraine war had just begun. Much that I wrote then, I would say again today and you can read it on https://www.alisteningspace.org.uk/illan2022-02-27/.

This year, as that war rumbles on and a wave of bad-tempered rhetoric threatens to sweep away chances of peace, what can I add?

As in recent weeks, I turn to the collect prayer which, this Sunday, goes:
 Almighty Father,
 whose Son was revealed in majesty
 before he suffered death upon the cross:
 give us grace to perceive his glory,
 that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
 and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory.

Give us grace to perceive his glory:
On the equivalent Sunday in 2023, I wrote about the darkness that reveals God’s presence. Times when it seems God is absent are times when he is actually profoundly present, though hidden. That, too, seems highly relevant today, and you can read it here. 

But, while acknowledging the mystical truth of God’s presence in seeming absence, I can’t linger there. Life goes on in a myriad small, practical ways, and it is in small, practical ways that I look for God’s presence to be revealed. In today’s troubled atmosphere, I’m reminded of a passage in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo 

 ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’ 

What do we decide to do in the time that is given us? 

Repeatedly in recent days, I have seen and heard people insisting on searching for beauty and refusing to be controlled by negativity. This is not to deny that much in this world is wrong, shameful and worrying, but to make a habit of watching out for the good and true, however small and brief the glimpses may seem. Believing that truth and beauty endure can help us find strength to keep going.

As the prayer goes: that we may be strengthened to suffer with him

Jesus urged his followers to be like the pinch of salt that gives taste to the whole dish, the yeast that leavens the whole batch of dough. Salt and yeast are small things that make a world of difference. Similarly, small acts of kindness, small refusals to accept untruth, small gestures of solidarity, seem insignificant in comparison with Christ’s sacrifice, but they all add up. Trusting in Jesus’s power over evil helps us follow his example of sacrificial living when called upon to do so.

What you give attention to matters. What you do matters. As I heard poet Pádraig Ó Tuama say this week, the things we make are fragments that alter the world.

So, my Lenten disciplines this year include:

• prayer for all parts of the world to be transformed by peace, justice, wisdom. (Too often, I think, we omit to pray for the western leaders who need our prayers as much as anyone.)
• fasting from negativity and, each day, looking for a revelation of God’s beauty and goodness.
• almsgiving by doing something positive to contribute to the well-being of my communities, local and further afield. 

So I hope to serve Jesus, who sacrificed his life for mine, and, as the prayer says, to be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory.

What will you decide to do with the time that is given you this Lent? 

What fragment will you offer to alter the world?

So I pray that you may perceive God’s glory in mystery and the mundane
and be strengthened to live a God-centred life
in suffering and joy. Amen.