Lent 2022
At the Matthew 25 Initiative, our desire is to see the unseen and the marginalized treasured.
For this Lent Season, we told the stories of the least of these through 40 days of Anglican-informed, inspiring, beautiful, and theologically-robust engagement pieces — in the vein of the church's traditional disciplines of lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Lent - Day 1
The Anglican way is rooted in contemplative activism. . .to become like Christ (Eph 4:15) who went to the mountain to be with the Father and then returned to those who needed him. We engage and retreat in the character of God, from whom justice and mercy flow. Contemplative activism is about finding voice in Christ to give voice to the voiceless.
When God made us in His likeness (Gen 1:27), we were invited to share in His work on earth. Like a child who begs to join a mother in the making of bread, the task of measuring, mixing, and kneading may be the small person’s most bustling task of the day. The mother, though, carves patient space among her many demands, slowing her process toward completion. She knows that her real job of discipleship happens in these small moments of working together. In the promise for something good, the child joins the mother, and is formed into her likeness.
The different Kingdom is both here and on its way. Our job is seeing with sober eyes the web of non-flourishing, and choosing daily to join the great untangling. The work is difficult and seemingly unceasing, but this holy work toward shalom should be as normal and close to home as the need for making bread.
Lent - Day 2
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
— Micah 6:8
Lent - Day 3
“Shalom” is deepest peace (Is 9:6-7), justice, and moral health. All creation was formed out of God’s shalom and is that for which we are destined in his love. It is the work of God’s restoration project, seen most powerfully in his son’s life, death, and resurrection. As it remains unfinished, part of the task is to imagine how to achieve, how to step into, this different kind of Kingdom.
Christian Community development is a vision that, as followers of Christ, is grounded in the incarnation. The Son entered a time, a place, a culture and lived the kingdom of God tangibly. Christian community development begins with the belief that all communities have a distinct “music” in the way they live and move. A striking illustration of what this looks and sounds like can be found in the first eight minutes of the movie In the Heights. The spray of the hose, the jingle of keys, the playful laughter of children, the stepping on of gum, the momentary conflict of strangers – Washington Heights has it's own story when we stop and pay attention.
Radically place-based, relationship-based, and time-based, community development takes the time to learn and love. In the way of Jesus, it commits to long term relationships, working shoulder-to-shoulder with neighborhood leaders, asking Jesus' question: "What do you want?" The community names the treasures and the flaws, sins and graces, of their story understanding Christ's engagement of the physical, spiritual, social, and cultural aspects of personal and societal life.
Anglicans who take this pledge to love their place learn that the way of companionship is daily, and sometimes long, will surprise and humble. They learn to "see" —truly see— within the mile radius of their parish. The work of Christian community development is the approach toward a new normal, as justice and mercy take hold, and the gospel transforms.
Lent - Day 9
Lent - Day 10
Lent - Day 4
When God created our world, He made us to live in deepest shalom – mind, body, and soul. Sin’s plot twist ushered us into a broken world where the mind was left to process stress, trauma, sin, and pain.
In the Old Testament, Job’s children, servants, and livestock die in rapid succession, followed by the destruction of the blameless man’s property. He doesn’t have time to catch his breath and recover from such grief, let alone does he have enough emotional energy to cope with the onset of a disfiguring disease. Through the unjust suffering of this man, the Bible maps a life of the mind during compounded and complex suffering.
Disrupted mental health, like physical illness, has a biologic component to this suffering. It’s what happens when our bodies break down and in this case, it is our brain’s physiology and the regulation of our central nervous systems that are affected. Whether it is depression from quarantine isolation, grief from the losses of a foreign war, the demoralization created by the difficulties of finding a living wage, turning to substance abuse and other addictions due to the lack of access to mental health care … many of these situations can ultimately lead to desolation in which we get lost.
The narrative of our lives begins to change when mental health suffers over a sustained period of time. And no one is immune. It truly does take the Church to help mitigate the impact of disrupted mental health, mental illness, and all the systemic social implications that follow. But it will take getting some dirt under our finger nails and pushing us out of our comfort zones.
In the restoration of Israel, God promises that He will heal those who are “crushed in spirit” or “broken-hearted.” His will: “let them enjoy abundant peace and security,” (Jer 33:6). Peace and security are both states of whole and healthy minds - affirming the essential call of the Church’s role in its pursuit for wholeness and true shalom for the cities we call home.
Lent - Day 8
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
— Philippians 4:7
For those of us not living in poverty, it’s easy to assume that it doesn’t impact many people. This simply isn’t true and, unfortunately, poverty is affecting even more individuals and families in North America, largely in part to the pandemic.
Here are some statistics on poverty according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Stats Canada, and CONEVAL, Mexico:
In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty, approximately 3.3 million more than in 2019
Over 3M Canadians, including over 560,000 children, live in poverty
At the end of 2020, about 44 percent of the Mexican population fell below the poverty line.
Pray for someone you know who struggles with mental health.
When it comes to the topic of mental health, we know two things: we all desire mental health, which requires nurture, care, growth and healing in various ways, and our desired outcome is wholeness depicted in biblical shalom. Beyond those commonalities, we encounter multiple factors, including but not limited to brain wiring, trauma, genetics and addiction.
As this week we spotlight poverty, homelessness, and mental health. We acknowledge complexities as many friends, parents, and cherished children of God come to mind. We pray for shalom, physically, materially, emotionally, mentally, neurologically, relationally, and spiritually. All wholeness. Shalom.
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." — Philippians 4:7
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son,Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
— John 1:14 (The Message)
Lent - Day 5
The Anglican minister John Wesley convened a handful of friends at Oxford to lead a devout Christian life together. They spent hours each day in study, prayer, and care for the marginalized. Their initial ministry to prisoners planted a seed of activism that grew into expressions of care for the body, mind, and soul. Eventually, Wesley’s leadership gave birth to lending stocks, medical clinics, schools, and poorhouses to address the acute needs of society.
He was an outspoken activist against the slave trade causing protests during his preaching. He fought alcohol traffic, excessive interest charged to the poor and other staples of British economic life. Wesley insisted on the pursuit of both inner and outer holiness, a life of both prayer and mission, this is how we define contemplative activists. He advocated for holistic care and discovering root causes for poverty. He made no distinction between delivering them medical care and proclaiming the gospel. One was not social service and the other evangelism. Both were good news.
He was known for holding tensions and believed in finding common ground and choosing the middle way while at times agreeing to disagree. He believed holiness must be lived. John Wesley died poor, because he gave away his remaining money at the end of his life, and requested that his casket be carried by those in poverty and be paid for doing so.
Wesleys own words echo Matthew 25. His life, grounded in prayer and worship, moves almsgiving into advocacy and activism.
"Almsgiving, In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked. It gives to the traveler and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of a husband to the widow, and of a father for the fatherless; we may be a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain. It may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame; yea, a lifter up from the gates of death.
— John 1:14 (The Message)
Lent - Day 6
Our relationship to God is through Christ’s priestly ministry to us. God’s heart for the poor is declared throughout the Bible, making clear to us that our image is meant to also reflect this aspect of his Image (Col 1:15). He renounces injustices that those living with few resources face, and instructs the church to care for them. The language of the Bible and God’s love for the poor is often stronger than many Christians are willing to use.
Christ became nothing to pave the most radical road to glory for the sick and lost, the vulnerable and those without resources. Experiencing homelessness and poverty himself, Christ had no place to lay his head (Matt 8:20) and carried nothing with Him on the way to the cross. He shows us that the way up was to lay down being defined by means, privilege, and reputation.
These edges of society brim with Christ’s presence for both those who suffer and for those working in solidarity and proximity, toward restoring shalom. In a blazing invitation to glory, the King of Kings lived, preached, and worked among the most brokenhearted, inviting us to do the same through companioning those most vulnerable. Through the power of ecclesial community, we are called to see, dignify, and offer radical presence in uniting the poor to Christ.
“Blessed are the poor who have nothing to own / For their hearts have a road to the kingdom of God / And their souls are the songs of the kingdom of God,” (@JonGuerra).
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.
— 1 Samuel 2:8 (ESV)
Lent - Day 7
If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your night be as the noonday.
— Isaiah 58:10
Lent - Day 11
When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. (Luke 14:13)
“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
— Amos 5:21-24 (The Message)
Lent - Day 12
When God created our world, He made us to live in deepest shalom – mind, body, and soul. Sin’s plot twist ushered us into a broken world where the mind was left to process stress, trauma, sin, and pain.
In the Old Testament, Job’s children, servants, and livestock die in rapid succession, followed by the destruction of the blameless man’s property. He doesn’t have time to catch his breath and recover from such grief, let alone does he have enough emotional energy to cope with the onset of a disfiguring disease. Through the unjust suffering of this man, the Bible maps a life of the mind during compounded and complex suffering.
Disrupted mental health, like physical illness, has a biologic component to this suffering. It’s what happens when our bodies break down and in this case, it is our brain’s physiology and the regulation of our central nervous systems that are affected. Whether it is depression from quarantine isolation, grief from the losses of a foreign war, the demoralization created by the difficulties of finding a living wage, turning to substance abuse and other addictions due to the lack of access to mental health care … many of these situations can ultimately lead to desolation in which we get lost.
The narrative of our lives begins to change when mental health suffers over a sustained period of time. And no one is immune. It truly does take the Church to help mitigate the impact of disrupted mental health, mental illness, and all the systemic social implications that follow. But it will take getting some dirt under our finger nails and pushing us out of our comfort zones.
In the restoration of Israel, God promises that He will heal those who are “crushed in spirit” or “broken-hearted.” His will: “let them enjoy abundant peace and security,” (Jer 33:6). Peace and security are both states of whole and healthy minds - affirming the essential call of the Church’s role in its pursuit for wholeness and true shalom for the cities we call home.
Lent - Day 13
As Anglicans, we do not look to escape the physical world for a better spiritual world. Instead, we witness heaven (already and not yet) crashing into earth, with all that God has created and affirmed as good.
The physically vulnerable live in a state of suspense. The promise of wholeness is left unfelt, as their earthly bodies highlight dependencies and limitations.
At the onset of the pandemic, our physical vulnerabilities highlighted our collective mortality. We synchronously experienced what happens when our bodies are threatened with mysterious diseases. As we walked down the path of what’s not-meant-to-be, we considered our bodies and thought about what healthy versus helplessly sick meant for us all.
Drawing from this moment, we may have developed vocabulary and empathies for what the physically vulnerable face: loneliness, pain, grief in loss, a desire to be known and seen. We look at the life of Jesus and see how he stopped to heal the sick coming down from the roof, or changed his foot path to minister to those suffering in their homes. His message is made clear: the work of shalom involves our bodies. God did not come only to reconcile our souls, but He sent His son to affirm our physicality. As it is, the church’s role in the story of redemption very much includes the companionship of those who are physically vulnerable.
Lent - Day 14
The Hospice Movement, as it is known today, emerged out of our Anglican tradition in the mid twentieth century in London. Dame Cicely Saunders, who struggled with chronic back pain, was shaped by the experience of a Polish immigrant in his last days. Her faith formed her advocacy for pain management and the dying. Saunders opened a home for the “Dying Poor” that introduced the values of “dignity, compassion, and respect” as requirements to medical practice and palliative care.
She incorporated the idea of “total pain” which included the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of suffering and the importance of caring for both the patient and their families. Ironically, the powerful healing ministry that hospice offers is now disproportionally more accessible to those with resources, despite the fact that Saunders developed this integrated understanding of wellness for those on the margins and living in poverty. Our Anglican heritage, as seen through her work, is one that should shape us today.
“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” — 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Lent - Day 15
Picture a moving spotlight: we begin with Mary’s humble desperation in finding a place to give birth, then move to Jesus healing a man let down through a roof, followed by walking to Jairus’s house to raise his daughter from the dead, only to be stopped along the way by a woman reaching out to touch Christ’s cloak to stop her bleeding.
While on earth, Jesus stopped to address our physical suffering, emphasizing the holy work in companioning those experiencing acute or chronic illness, or the dying.
On the cross, the vulnerability of Christ’s humanity was on full display. Son of the Creator, who made the heavens, earth, and everything in it, came to us in the simplest of ways to suffer and die as the ultimate plan for our redemption. The Bible shows us his relational loss and grief, deep humiliation, and unimaginable physical anguish along the way.
As the church, we “deal with death” every Sunday at the communion table, when we take the body and blood that has been broken and shed for us. After ingesting such a reminder, we embody the life of Christ to our neighbors, near to and powered by his suffering and the knowledge that life and healing in him, shalom, will have the last word.
"But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
— 2 Corinthians 12:9
Lent - Day 16
Even if you’re not included in the numbers, there’s a high probability you know someone living with a disability within North America. Here are some statistics according to Statistics Canada, Statista, and the CDC that help us see the physically vulnerable live all across our communities and require some level of care:
More than 6.2 million Canadians aged 15 years and over are living with some form of disability that affects their level of freedom, independence or quality of life.
In 2018, it was estimated that nearly 48.6 percent of the population with a disability in Mexico lived in poverty.
1 in 4 adults in the United States are considered physically vulnerable and require assistance with mobility, cognition, independent living, hearing, vision, and/or self-care.
Many with disabilities are able to live thriving lives, contrary to the narrative of ableism, which values the world’s currency of power. Even those with significant physical and intellectual disabilities still have the capacity to fulfill their vocation of loving God and loving others, which at the end of the day is the entirety of all our vocation in God’s kingdom. Accomplishments, achievements, abilities are all measured up against the metrics of loving God and loving others. Those with disabilities can teach the world what it means to be human.
Lent - Day 17
As you reflect on this topic of The Physically Vulnerable, please consider these questions:
Reflect on your own experience with physical vulnerability. What fears and insecurities did / do you have?
Identify those who are physically vulnerable in your family or community. Are there any ways that you might be able to gift a “continuous offering” that meets a need?
Consider the moment when the celebrant breaks the bread (called Fraction) during Holy Communion. He declares Christ’s redemptive role as the Church’s Passover (Exodus 12; 1 Cor 5:7b), reminding us that in the very moment His body was broken, we were invited to feast. Take a few minutes to draw this out in your imagination, and discuss or write out your reflections.
We can move toward the brokenhearted because that is where Christ lives. What about Christ’s life on earth gives us tools to companion those who are experiencing sickness, dying, and disabilities? Answers can include both finding a way to bless those in hospice work, health professionals, therapists, caregivers, and being creative about how you might come near, offering some real estate in your schedule. How?
What are your own arenas where you feel you “perform” shy of expectations? Where you don’t live up to a standard you feel you ought to? Or possibly where you might feel like a failure? How do you experience your sense of worth as a result of the answers to those questions? How might those with disabilities teach you about your own value and treasuredness in the kingdom, what it means to be truly human as defined by God’s metrics of loving him and loving others?
Lent - Day 18
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.” — Genesis 1:27a
Lent - Day 19
St. Margaret (1287-1320) is the patron saint of the poor and anyone dealing with a disability or physical challenge. She also is venerated as one of the patron saints of the pro-life movement.
Margaret was born with significant physical impairments that left her suffering on the fringe of society. Upon joining a local convent, she was intensely devout and devoted her life to serving her neighbors. She was known to say that in the sufferings of her neighbors, she saw the image of the suffering Christ. As for her own disabilities, she regarded them as a means to unite her pain with the pain Christ endured on the cross.
To live as St. Margaret, means to value all of life, from in utero to birth to death, and every moment in between, especially those whose lives are vulnerable, fragile, seen as discarded, on the margins. If the church doesn’t demonstrate the value of every single life then who will fulfill God’s vision to restore all things unto shalom?
Lent - Day 20
God is a migrant God, and we are a migrant people. Jesus left his home to journey to our broken planet “without a place to rest his head” in order to make us a home and be our refuge. The story of God’s people from Genesis to Revelation is one of being on the move. Famine, slavery, escape, division, oppression, war, economic poverty, persecution; these were reasons that God’s people experienced both forced and unforced migration.
We have the imperative to “Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners” (Deut 10:19). It is not unclear how God’s people are to respond to immigrant communities–”love the sojourner”– while our civic policies wrestle with compassion and safety in practice. God has accomplished his purposes through immigrant communities throughout history, and the future of North America and the church is tied to how we proclaim and demonstrate the gospel in our immigration and refugee response.
Canadian and US economies depend on immigrant thriving; cultures and communities are enriched; and the vibrancy of the immigrant church will infuse our life in Christ. In Mexico we are seeing the poor receiving the poor and traumatized sojourners, and the church is responding in ways that makes the watching world stand up and notice the power of the proclaimed and embodied gospel.
“El defiende al huérfano y a la viuda, y muestra su amor al extranjero dándole alimento y vestido.”
— Deuteronomio 10:18
Lent - Day 21
“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” – Jesus, on his disciples’ status as sojourners, John 17:16
“If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.” — Leviticus 25:35
Lent - Day 22
Those vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation lack commonly identifiable features, shared geographical location, or similar socioeconomic status. In the same way, perpetrators come in all shapes and sizes, controlling with a mix of physical and psychological chains.
We ask God to open our eyes to these victims. Often hidden in plain sight, we rely on experts and agencies to develop tools for identification. Yet along the way, we know that the poor are among the most vulnerable. Being an advocate against sexual abuse and exploitation means working to disrupt tangled webs for those lacking in resources: foster children, immigrants and refugees, those experiencing homelessness, the neglected. Within this week's focus on immigration and refugee care, we acknowledge that most refugees, especially women and children, experience some form of sexual exploitation.
Over time, this advocacy work unsurprisingly becomes the work of prevention, intervention, and aftercare.
The web of injustice means that when we feed the hungry or provide pathways to a home for the homeless, we take power away from a potential trafficker or even intimate partner who offers security in exchange for exploitation. We build relationships in our communities to take power away from an abuser who relies on their victim’s isolation in order to control and demand. The church’s role in seeing without fear means that the invisible have an opportunity to be met in the light.
The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
Psalm 9:9
Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed—and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors—and they have no comforter.
Ecclesiastes 4:1
Lent - Day 23
The central deliverance stories of the Old and New Testaments began with the flight of refugees. Moses and the Jewish people fled from the oppression of Egypt. Jesus and the Holy Family fled King Herod’s violence into Egypt, one of our Savior’s first experiences of identification with human frailty and suffering.
Every decade hundreds of millions of people all over the world flee their homes seeking refuge and asylum.
According to UNHCR, more than 3.6 million refugees have left Ukraine (as of March 22, 2022), while an estimated 6.48 million people have been displaced within the country (March 16, 2022).
An estimated 318,500 Afghans were newly displaced inside the country by the middle of 2021 per UNHCR — with women and children making up 80 percent of all forcibly displaced within Afghanistan.
15,381 people from Haiti have fled in 2020 and applied for asylum in other countries, according to WorldData.info.
By the river in Babylon, we sat down, and we wept as we remembered Jerusalem.
Psalm 137:1
Lent - Day 24
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” — Hebrews 13:2
And as you further reflect on this topic of Immigration + Refugee Care, please consider these questions:
Reflect on your own family’s migration. If you are several generations removed from their stories, what are you curious to imagine and know? If the story of immigration is near, in what ways does Christ’s experience resonate with you?
Why do you think that the suffering that comes with leaving home is part of the story of God’s restoration of shalom?
Reflect on the quote earlier this week "It is not uncommon for Christians to not feel like 'strangers in a strange land'; their place of residence has lost its strangeness." Lay your life before God and ask for him to gently evaluate, encourage and convict. In what ways might your experience of the world center around comfort rather than living as an exile of Jesus' kingdom?
How do you or how does your church engage with the story of immigration within or outside its parish?
In what ways can you learn to better recognize situations and individuals who are at-risk of sexual abuse and exploitation?
List out the names of people who could help you if you got into financial, physical, or emotional trouble. Take a moment to thank God for each individual. What are ways in which you do or can companion someone who either has a short or nonexistent list?
Lent - Day 25
Lent - Day 26
Caroline Chisholm (30 May 1808 – 25 March 1877) was a 19th-century English advocate of the vulnerable known for her support of immigrant female and family welfare in Australia. Convinced at an early age that God was calling her to help those in need, she soon revealed a keen ability to recognize those unnecessarily on the margins of society. Carline herself came from resources but was shaped by what was called “Anglican evangelical philanthropy” movement. She is commemorated on 16 May in the calendar of saints of the Church of England.
As a married woman, she began her active adult work as an entrepreneurial educator of at-risk girls and young women in Madras, India. In 1838 the Chisholms moved to Australia. Shortly after arriving, Chisholm noticed that many female immigrants had a hard time finding jobs due to employment obstacles and prejudice. Chisholm arranged for these women to find good jobs on farms and in communities outside of Sydney. She was known to be seen on her horse, leading wagons full of immigrants into the interior of the country where there were opportunities without as many hindrances.
She opened up multiple forms of housing for newly arrived immigrants and often housed several in her home at any given time. She fought for permanent prosperity for immigrant families and faced incredible resistance; however, she brought about immigration reform through changing laws and changing systems that blocked those whom she referred to as integral to “a well formed society.” Two laws are worth mentioning. In 1849 Chisholm established the Family Colonization Loan Society. This organization helped people get to Australia and find jobs, and she also helped in the passage of the Passengers Act of 1852, which ensured clean and safe conditions on ships carrying immigrants from England.
She was moved by two strong values: her devotion to the significance of family life and her deep love of God. She influenced Charles Dickens and even when her health broke down, she continued to speak on behalf of immigrant rights. She was dedicated to her husband and family, while at the same time a ship was built in her honor and named after her in England. She became one of the most famous women in the UK, and yet her scorn for material reward and public position contributed to the obscurity of her last years in Australia.
One of her biographers described her advocacy as being grounded in a deep sense of God’s providence and her awareness of God as her father with “fatherly concern.”
Lent - Day 27
Families, youth, and children find themselves “at-risk” when they are in environments susceptible to or marked by instability. Unemployment, single parenthood, teen pregnancy, violence, mental illness, and drug abuse offer a look at the wide-ranging determining factors.
The church is called to be a haven for the lost and lonely, and to companion those who are exposed. For those not living as close to the margins of society, it can be humbling to see how insulated we are from a life lacking in safety nets, when we take time to reflect on what it means to live at-risk. The breakdown of family and relationships as well as financial crisis or sustained deprivation opens up kids, youth, and families to grievous and repeating cycles of trauma, addiction, violence, or crime which can even become generational.
Most of the church worldwide lives in some way on the margins and vulnerable. So these concerns are about the “we” not “them.” To be faithful in North America, in our call to befriend those at risk, it costs the church something in exchange. The cost comes in the form of time, shifting priorities, budget impact, or even in the loss of parishioners who are uncomfortable with the very messy work with the many "least of these."
Becoming proximate to suffering is unnerving, and messianic feelings erode. We choose presence and hospitality over comfort and insulation and our own personal or family goals. We show up as volunteer mentors, we tend to the community garden offering free produce, we offer rides across town out of our way, we help someone do the tedious work of filling out forms. In order to participate in the work of Christ, we purposefully build, with time and inconvenience, into a collective life of repairing what has been broken.
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.” — Psalm 68:5
Lent - Day 28
“The LORD watches over the foreigners in our land, and he sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.” — Psalm 146:9
Lent - Day 29
Our redemptive story includes collectively losing the plot so severely that it resulted in the grotesque murder of the Son of God. In deep contrast, many of our churches offer a starkly domesticated version of a life in Christ. When we perpetuate a culture of appearing put together, we lose the more realistic picture of our humanity. When we emphasize false importance and miss including who Christ came to save, all of us sinners, we cultivate an unlikely standard that those struggling with addiction and recovery cannot meet.
A recent statistic finds that one in seven Americans suffer from addiction. Fifty percent of Americans know someone who is in recovery from substance abuse disorder. We have yet to see the full consequences of these numbers as a result of the pandemic and the pain of the past two years. The church must commit to an in-road for those suffering from addiction and in recovery. The work of companionship requires patience, training, and Christ’s love. Loving people who do not have the tools to love us back can land us in webs of rejection, hurt, and complexity, but the Gospel has capacity to confront the hounds of hell and hold the despairs of all God’s people as well as the world’s.
Followers of Christ are not immune to many forms of addiction whether alcohol, substances, pornography, food, internet, gaming, tobacco, news media, gambling, status; this list could fill this entire page as many addictions can get dressed up in moralism as well. We walk as wounded healers, recognizing that pain and fear leads us to a desire to escape; and then those escape habits begin to misshape us spiritually, psychologically, neurologically, physically, and relationally. Wholeness requires both grace and hard work even for the most resourced; therefore we understand that it is that much more difficult for those who live with incessant obstacles, crushing poverty, hopelessness, and fragile vulnerability.
A church with a recovery-culture does not flinch at the sight of sin, however raw its form. It takes on the messiest versions of its parishioners and its neighbors, and welcomes in without a filter. Creating a system of care and understanding and proactive hospitality is a critical role of the church, as nothing less is worthy of the Gospel.
Such a church heals broken children, youth, and families.
“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” — 1 Peter 5:10
Lent - Day 30
Several factors can make children, youth, and families considered “at-risk,” but the most common is poverty. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 40% of children in the United States live in low-income families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.
Children raised in poverty are more likely to lack the basics of food, clothing, adequate housing and health care. Each year in the U.S., approximately 20,000 youth will age out of the foster care system and an average of 600,000 babies will be lost to abortion.
At-risk kids aren’t limited to the United States. It’s estimated that 25% of children in Mexico live in poverty, often leading to child labor, limited access to healthcare, and social inequalities in classrooms. In Canada, children of federally-sentenced fathers are up to four times more likely to be in conflict with the law than Canadian children in general.
Children from low-income families in every culture are more likely to:
Become sexually active at younger ages as well as become sexually exploited
Become a gang member as a place of belonging and protection
Attack someone or get into a fight
Steal something worth more than minimal sums
Run away
Be trafficked
Lent - Day 31
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” — Psalm 51:12
Lent - Day 32
Several factors can make children, youth, and families considered “at-risk,” but the most common is poverty. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 40% of children in the United States live in low-income families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.
Children raised in poverty are more likely to lack the basics of food, clothing, adequate housing and health care. Each year in the U.S., approximately 20,000 youth will age out of the foster care system and an average of 600,000 babies will be lost to abortion.
At-risk kids aren’t limited to the United States. It’s estimated that 25% of children in Mexico live in poverty, often leading to child labor, limited access to healthcare, and social inequalities in classrooms. In Canada, children of federally-sentenced fathers are up to four times more likely to be in conflict with the law than Canadian children in general.
Children from low-income families in every culture are more likely to:
Become sexually active at younger ages as well as become sexually exploited
Become a gang member as a place of belonging and protection
Attack someone or get into a fight
Steal something worth more than minimal sums
Run away
Be trafficked
Lent - Day 33
Follow the ancient Lenten practice of Almsgiving — extending sacrificial generosity to “the least of these” — and give to our M25i Grant fund that offers tangible help.
Anglicans are doing this work of fighting for kids and youth who need advocacy and protection. Anglicans are helping families get on their feet and flourish. Anglicans are sitting in methadone clinics praying and offering friendship. The gospel in word and deed.
Each year, we award strategic matching grants to Anglican ministries and programs that, among other needs, serve vulnerable children, teens, and families across North America. Your funds allow us to make dreams for the mending of our communities come true.
Lent - Day 34
Over-criminalization is the result of relying on prison sentences to correct conduct that should be addressed by civil or administrative means. According to the Justice Declaration, America is home to five percent of the world’s population, but a quarter of the world’s prison population. Such a culture has a devastating impact on breakdowns in families, derailing of youth who could find healing, and contributes to continued unjust impact on communities of color. Mass incarceration is a tragic unnecessary crisis.
The Gospel is big enough to hold all the grief and corruption, which means that the church has a critical role to play in acknowledging the failings of our justice system and offer actual restoration as companions and advocates. Forgiveness and healing are possible because of the transformative power of the gospel as well as the active work of the Spirit to mend many layers of brokenness.
Christ’s call for the church to sponsor care for the vulnerable runs throughout the Bible. In this way, we care that the justice system is fair for all. Similar to most justice and mercy work, the task of promoting and defending a truly redemptive system for all requires a diverse and long-form investment in communities with fewer resources.
Our response to those in prison, jails, detention centers, is clear in the words of Christ: “I was in prison and you came to visit me… whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me.” Do you wish to encounter Christ? Visit those imprisoned. Be the presence of Christ, and seek to encounter him there. God’s kingdom is not limited by prison walls, but it also dreams beyond incarceration to full flourishing.
Caring for the poor and vulnerable includes caring for families, churches, neighborhoods, and schools. The inter-web extends to caring and defending victims and for survivors well, learning the legal system and advocating for proportional punishment. A Christian understanding of incarceration and restorative justice begins and ends with the recognition that every person carries the imprint of God and is worth being seen and treated fairly, and offered healing in Christ.
Lent - Day 35
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” — Hebrews 13:2-3
Lent - Day 36
Ministering to broken hearts that have faced torment, trauma, fear, chaos, death, and destruction is intricate work. It requires disconnecting ourselves and others from schemes that may have stunted development and blocked us from knowing Christ’s love for us.
Trauma has the potential to make an impact down to the cellular level. As a result, healing and recovery is not linear and may require lifelong endurance. Survivors need a Christian community courageous enough to hold the wounds endured.
As we understand that whole damage exists, we believe that there is hope for whole healing. Whole healing will include spiritual, psychological, physical, emotional, and relational dimensions. Those trained professionally to offer care and resources are a great gift to the world. For the poor, professional care and resources are often out of reach. As the church, we can also offer support and presence through listening and holding stories of pain and bringing them before God the Healer and Shepherd.
Offering healing prayer is a type of companionship that calls on the authority afforded to us in Christ Jesus to address traumatic suffering. The sense of being all alone and helpless in a painful event can be met by the powerful love of God through many forms of prayer. The church can learn how to be trauma-safe through the way they protect, listen, and empower and understand the role of the body for survivors.
In this world, it is inevitable for us to experience the effects of sin and unforgiveness, feelings of shame that come from being cut off or abandoned, or plans diligently made but undermined. For some, crushing undignified mistreatment can arrest living into the freedom and beauty of God’s purposes for someone’s life.
Standing as sons and daughters of the living God, trauma healing and prayer is a declaration of God having victory over hell. Engaging in every resource he has given us for healing, honors the craft with which he made us. When the church is equipped to companion in this way, we are living into a sacred space, playing a role in calling forth the different Kingdom.
Lent - Day 37
According to the Sentencing Project, the United States is the world’s leader in incarceration with over 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails — a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety.
People also tend to “age out” of crime. Research shows that crime starts to peak in the mid- to late-teenage years and begins to decline when individuals are in their mid-20s. After that, crime drops sharply as adults reach their 30s and 40s.
Incarceration is ineffective at reducing certain kinds of crimes — in particular, drug crimes and youth crimes, many of which are committed in groups. When people get locked up for these offenses, they are easily replaced on the streets by others seeking an income or struggling with addiction. In fact, the majority of federal inmates in Mexico are imprisoned on drug charges, and often prisons become the place from which the drug industry is fostered on the outside.
Incarceration has not touched all communities equally. In the U.S., black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Latinos are 2.5 times as likely. In Canada, indigenous people are vastly over-represented in the prison population — making up nearly 31% of prisoners.
1 in 111 white women have the likelihood of being imprisoned compared to 1 in 18 black women and 1 in 45 Latina women.
We must ask the question: Why are these statistics the case? How can we make a difference and bring about change? What does healing and restoration look like through God’s eyes?
Lent - Day 38
“The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.” — Psalm 69:33
Lent - Day 39
Some contemplative activists have stories from their personal experiences that lead them to justice work; however, many have no particular background in the suffering and discomfort they choose to enter. The difference maker for those from resources or comfort is that they know their Bibles, and they know their God. Elizabeth Fry was one such Christ follower.
She came from a wealthy Quaker family and was highly educated, but her spiritual life took off when she surrendered afresh as a Christian at 18 upon hearing a sermon on abolition of slavery. As a result she wrote her “mission statement” committing to speak well of people, choose honesty, live simply, and use her time to honor God in every way.
As a young mother of eventually 11 children, Elizabeth began moving close to the vulnerable by offering food and medicine to those experiencing homelessness. This work led her to visit prisons where she encountered extraordinary human degradation as incarceration was seen as punishment and not as a chance for reform. Disproportionate sentences for crimes and sentences was the norm in 19th century England. Against the advice and expectations of her social community who believed “safer” philanthropy was advisable, Elizabeth took personally the suffering she witnessed. Not only did she advocate for fair and reduced sentences, but she also companioned those on death row to the gallows so that they knew they were held in prayer until the end.
She campaigned for separation of men and women inmates, for female guards and education and employment in women’s prisons. She advocated for policy change and legal reform which led to the Prison Reform Act of 1823. She revolutionized mental asylum care practices, visited every convict ship for 25 years fighting for prisoner dignity and abolishing transport ships. Elizabeth established half-way houses with a vision for restorative justice, founded groups that came alongside at-risk families, improved nursing practices and established schools for at risk women, libraries for coast guards, and a nursing school, and established soup kitchens. There was nothing “safe” about her work as disease was rampant and the places she frequented for her work wasn’t deemed in any way “secure.”
For both prisoners and those reentering society, her ministry was marked by the power of the Spirit transforming lives; many through her faithful presence found healing and knowing themselves as reflecting the image of God. Re-convictions decreased as her principles caught on in the rest of England and began to influence continental European prison practices. Elizabeth and many supporters stood in the stream of evangelical Christianity of Wesley and the Anglican church in their times. Her love of Scripture saturated all her work, as she was known to read the Bible aloud in every meeting, bought Bibles for all whom she served, let prayer and listening in her Quaker style. Women prisoners loved listening to her long-read of Scripture passages as it seemed to “wash away all grief and fear.”
Despite struggling physically and mentally during periods of her entire life, she lived the contemplative activist life, grounded in her prayer life. She asked God "Oh Lord, may I be directed what to do and what to leave undone” and was described as "demonstrating the effects of true Christianity” as she herself stated that her life was dedicated to “the spread of the gospel."
Lent - Day 40
Anglicans are doing this work. Parishes are stepping into places of suffering and make the difference for healing, for restoration, for transformation.
But as we know. There’s a thing called a budget and limits. Hopes that get stuck, because the resources for a new initiative don’t stretch far enough. The M25i Grant is a difference maker.
We require strategic planning and raising matching funds for these parish and non-profit efforts to help build sustainable support. We also coach and mentor, so that fruitfulness is increased.
M25i Grant has helped 130 ministries prior to 2022. We want to help more, but the account is finite without givers.
As part of the Lenten tradition of almsgiving, would you consider giving even $10, $20, $100? After giving, spend some time on the “Ministry Partner” page of our website to see the kinds of “Anglicans on the Street” work that your giving enabled.
Lent - Day 41
Restoring a place lends to the restoration of its people. God’s work of salvation extends to the entirety of His creation, including the health of the land and the food it provides. We are not visitors on earth, waiting for Jesus to come back to escort us into a better reality. We seek the flourishing of everything here, in eager expectation that God is also working in the now to restore His creation. When we seek to understand the Bible’s teaching on God’s creation, we move through considering the Creator who made creation “very good” (Gen 1:31), the call for man to steward the land (Gen 1:28), and the continuing purposes of the land (Gen 1:29-30). Just as caring for the poor is our call, caring for every “plant yielding seed in its fruit” is also a necessary expression of our faith.
Two billion people of the world’s population derive their livelihoods from working the land. Within this statistic, many of the poorest in the world depend on rain-fed agriculture, subsistence farming, artisanal fishing, and pastoralism. Field-level observations provide widespread evidence that communities facing the most dramatic consequences of environmental degradation and climate change are disproportionately poorer communities. The United Nations Development Program, Human Development reports, “In many cases, the most disadvantaged people bear and will continue to bear the repercussions of environmental deterioration, even if they contribute little to the problem.” Paradoxically yet expectedly, richer communities underwrite more environmental degradation than poorer communities. The church’s hope in Christ roots us in this long effort toward righting wrongs and working toward the restoration of all things.
Part of the long process that contributes to cultivating good soil comes with taking action to care for biodiversity conservation. In our work protecting the vulnerable, the church’s work must include habitats and species that are at risk. When we become students of creation, we move from a posture of consuming and wasting to one of tending and stewarding. All church communities must seek profound connection or reconnection with the land, which comes with a continuous commitment to learning its rhythms and systems.
"You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you."
Nehemiah 9:6
The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory. Psalm 97:6
Lent - Day 42
"He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-bringing forth food from the earth…
How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-living things both large and small.” Psalm 104:10-14, 24-25
Lent - Day 43
Engaged in the thriving of the soil, we become interwoven with its purposes and notice its breakdown. We see communities without access to nutritious foods, and are called to take on the work of rebuilding and restoring more equal streams of distribution. This is the employment of the Kingdom, affirming as Julie Canlis writes, “In the incarnation, God did not just come for our souls but for our bodies.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “It is important to know that hunger and food insecurity are closely related, but distinct, concepts. Hunger refers to a personal, physical sensation of discomfort, while food insecurity refers to a lack of available financial resources for food at the level of the household.” While many communities have resources for addressing hunger, food insecurity takes that long, steady, and creative use of shifting resources to address. Also according to the USDA, 11.1% of U.S. households were food insecure at some point during 2018. That was before the pandemic began shaking all the statistics, and we are still assessing the landscape.
The foundational aspect for the church to recognize is that caring for creation is interwoven with contributing to solving food insecurity for less-resourced communities. A life lived in Christ is one that seeks the restoration, or the reconnection of lifelines. The application of such a task to the issue of food insecurity is for us to reconnect affected communities with accessible and nutritional sustenance.
We stay near to the poor because we have been anointed and sent to “proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:17-19). Christ coming down to earth was God’s incarnational presence of this good news. For the church, such a call includes loosening bonds of food insecurity for beset communities. We hope for and take action toward the flourishing of all communities, caring about how and when they are able to receive sustaining food for their families.
"You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing."
Psalm 65:9-13
Lent - Day 44
It’s not surprising that poverty is closely connected to food insecurity, and children in poverty are most at risk for long-term effects due to nutritional imbalances, which then leads to generational health impacts that then are highlighted during a global pandemic. Kids facing food insecurity are far more likely to experience issues with physical, cognitive, and emotional development. Sadly, hunger and food scarcity impacts millions of families in North America each year. There is no reason anyone should hunger in North America.
13.8 million of U.S. households were food insecure during 2020.
Inadequate food access affects between 25 and 35 percent of the population in nine Mexican states.
1 in 8 households in Canada was food insecure, amounting to 4.4 million people, including more than 1.2 million children living in food-insecure households in 2018.
"Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?" Ezekiel 34:17-18
“Whoever has two shirts should share with the person who doesn’t have any. Whoever has food should share it too.” — Luke 3:11
Lent - Day 45
“Because God created the natural—invented it out of His love and artistry—it demands our reverence.” — C.S. Lewis
The Lord our God has entrusted us with the care of creation. We are honored participants in God’s redemptive work of Shalom toward the full community of creation. Let us testify to the hope that God will one day redeem the creation and establish His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Shalom is our origin and is our destiny. Christ, the Shalomer, in his death and resurrection, shows us the way. As a part of the Trinity, with all power and wealth, he became vulnerable, marginalized, poor, homeless, a refugee, thirsty, a prisoner, physically broken, distressed, abandoned, unseen. He says to us “Come! Come near those with whom I identify, with whom I am close, near where your trust and hope will be tested and purified.” He says “Come, among whom you will encounter ME.“
On this Good Friday “know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” – 2 Corinthians 8:9
This is a Servant Creator King worthy of our full surrender.
Lent - Day 46
On this Holy Saturday, we hold the in between. As Derek King, our M25i Theologian Observer, writes:
“Our world is broken. It will not fully be redeemed until Christ returns and makes it whole again. When God created our world, he made us to live in eternal peace and reconciliation. He bestowed upon us humans his image and, in doing so, invited us into caring for this world. We failed miserably. But God’s good redemption plan is in motion. It is not, however, an escapism from our past mistakes, but another invitation: to join with him in bringing his healing on earth as in heaven. A good place to start is in seeking justice and mercy, contending for shalom.”
The cross accomplished the justice of God and the mercy of God. So we take up our cross as disciples and we practice resurrection in the world.
We need your help to do this practically as Anglicans on our watch. These Lenten reflections will come to an end in two days, and we invite you again into the Lenten practice of almsgiving.
Would you consider giving even $10, $20, $100? How can new outreach happen in our parishes without the generosity of other Anglicans?
Lent - Day 47
Embracing the fullness of Scripture and Shalom inspires ongoing creation care. Few embodied reverence and delight in creation like St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and all ecological life. Now, here is a man who knew and lived the death and resurrection of Christ. Blessed Easter Sunday!
Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, St. Francis came from a background of wealth, travel, family support and networks. His life leaned into ease and enjoying his status and achievements. He didn’t choose to stretch his comfort zone, seek distressing and confusing situations, or move outside his social circles.
In God’s kindness, he led Francis to solitude and exposure, by being both imprisoned and encountering lepers covered covered in ulcerated skin sores and with disfigured limbs, who at that time were deemed afflicted because of their choices and sin. In his words “God allowed me to begin my repentance in this way: when I lived in sin, seeing lepers was a very bitter experience for me. God himself guided me into their midst… what appeared bitter to me became sweetness of the soul and body.” He encountered Jesus as promised in Matthew 25.
Joan Acocella, a writer deeply inspired by St. Francis, eloquently states “As he saw it now, the more a person was despised, the more he or she resembled Jesus in his last agonies, when he was abandoned by almost all the people he had come to save. To obey Jesus, therefore, you had to join those who were abandoned."
Francis was known for his kindness and cheer, held a “rule” but offered grace when circumstances shifted, was a leader who inspired loyalty, led a monumental construction project, and organized community life that grew to thousands with missionary ventures. His contemplative life provided the focus he needed to live grounded in prayer, poverty, and devotion to God’s creation. St. Francis gave away his resources, his reputation, his family, his own clothing in hopes of bringing the church back to his understanding of the Jesus of Scripture.
St. Francis became known for peacemaking with sultans, bridge-building with Christians who disagreed with him, caring for the sick, building lasting friendships with men and women, taming a wolf, and preaching to his “sister” birds. He eventually achieved papal approval to establish a new Franciscan order based on a desire to serve the poor and spread the Gospel.
After six years of painful physical suffering, St. Francis died in October, 1226. It was noted that a flock of larks flew near to sing as he passed into his Savior’s arms.
St Francis was prophetic, pastoral, prayerful…a model for contemplative activism.
Don’t be afraid! I am the First and Last. I am the living one. I died, but look–I am alive forever and ever! Revelation 1:17-18
Lent - Day 47
As we conclude our Lenten series, our prayer is that the words, statistics, and Scripture we’ve shared have served as soul-opening, finding voice in Christ to give voice to the voiceless. He asks us to accept His invitation to participate in His work on earth. In doing so, we are kingdom builders, serving and loving the least of these (Matt 25:45).
Today, as Anglicans, we stand in a history and theology that has produced movements which include the abolition of slavery and apartheid, brought healing and reconciliation after genocide, helped shaped Alcoholics Anonymous, birthed Church Army and Salvation Army, gave rise to the hospice movement. The Matthew 25 Initiative is a community of Anglicans engaged in works of justice, mercy, and reconciliation who care about God’s heart for the vulnerable, marginalized, and under-resourced in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
This is the call to every believer, essential to faith and love and relationships with God. This is not the call to just the “mercy ministry” types or the “justice” or “servant” types. It’s the non-negotiable for every Christian; for as Scripture says, if we do not care for the poor, God cares not for our worship, listens not to our prayers, says our faith counts not, and declares that we have no love (Isaiah 1, Isaiah 58, James 2: 1 John 3).
So the work isn’t finished. While our Lenten series is coming to an end, your journey to “see” as God sees doesn’t have to end. Follow Matthew 25 Initiative to continue exploring the topics we’ve shared over the last seven weeks, hear stories of ministry practitioners serving those on the fringes of society throughout North America, and discover opportunities to participate in and support this mission to “breathe again, sent forth, forgiven, to bring this breathless earth a breath of heaven.”
How can new outreach happen in our parishes without the generosity of other Anglicans? Would you give open-handedly and sacrificially? Were every Anglican in the pew to give something, just imagine the stories we could tell next year!