Pastor Note for
February/March 2025

“So … what should we give up for Lent this year?” I asked. The question sat in the air as we tossed around some ideas as a family which kept coming back to diet. Our stomachs are the route that Lent generally takes, at least its disciplines. Maybe it just feels like good practice between Valentines and Easter, giving up chocolate, sweets, soda, or countless other treats. And yet an interesting reality of Christianity is its absence of food rules and taboos. Even the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, who spoke and wrote of the importance of fasting in its many forms saw that when it came to actual diet, it remained an individual’s choice and not an institutional or religious mandate.

There is something to be said about this common practice, just how countercultural abstention is to the logic of consumption. It becomes a witness in our lives of what really matters, or at least an attempt to grow in our understanding of what gives life meaning, depth, and purpose. When we apply these beyond just a brief season, choosing to live on enough rather than more than enough, they help us to affirm an alternative logic of thankfulness. Honestly, Methodists are well versed in the rich tradition and connection between food and spirituality. Lent and its disciplines help us to simply reconnect food and spirituality subjecting eating to the scrutiny of Christian conscience and tradition. It is to ask and answer what, why, how, and how much which speaks volumes about us and our God. So, as we enter Lent, we sound a fast and reconnect to our spiritual heritage and traditions allowing us to enter more fully into the life of Christ, the doctrines about Christ, and Christ’s sacrifices made for us.

Yours in Christ, 

Rev. Daven Oskvig