With Easter’s arrival, Lent is officially concluded. However, Easter represents the beginning of the New Creation. The next 40 Days are not a time to “go back to normal”. Easter hope gives us the motivation and power to live new lives–lives of justice and righteousness.
How have the 40 Days For Shelter changed your view of property, home, comfort, and housing for others? What specific action have you taken to address homelessness or housing instability in your community? How will you live differently beyond Lent 2012 as a result of your participation in this year’s Lenten Compact?
Take a moment to share how the 2012 Compact “40 Days For Shelter” has impacted your life.
Tongue on Fire 
What a great Easter day! A celebration of God’s new creation bursting forth! A day to remember that we who are in Christ are privileged to give testimony of the Kingdom of heaven to the world–especially the poor, the sick, the stranger, the homeless, the thirsty (i.e. the least of these). I found Paul’s final statement in 1 Corinthians 15 to be so profound. “Therefore (in the light of the resurrection and the victory of Christ), my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of God, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Amen! Testify, people of God. Testify!
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He is risen!
My thank you on yesterday’s page stands, but today I read an article that helped clarify my thankfulness for this Lenten Compact: the people of the Risen Lord bringing transformation to the world. The following quote references the church’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement:
“Precisely because they shared so much theological common ground with white Christians, the leaders of the black churches were able to use moral and theological arguments to effectively shame many Southerners into accepting desegregation. (The latter story is told, masterfully, in David L. Chappell’s “A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow.”)
The result was an issue where pastors led and politicians of both parties followed, where the institutional churches proved their worth as both sources of moral authority and hubs of activism, and where religious witness helped forge a genuine national consensus on an issue where even presidents feared to tread.”
Regarding homelessness, economic injustices, and immigration, I’ve joined with you all to try to be Christ’s love in action. May our small efforts and prayers echo, becoming “a religious witness” forging consensus and just action.
Amen.
for the full article, which sadly ends on a less optimistic note:
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