It is the season of lent, a season to reflect, make amends and look forward to the promise of new life, to the first fruits of spring. We have been so proud and confident, and yet we find this is our downfall. Our being right is destroying us, our trying to be everything for every person, pulling us down and so our minds turn to being kind to ourselves, kind to others and kind to the earth.

The gathering of Christians was built on brokenness. We are formed into a body, a commonwealth gathered to a table, breaking bread and sharing the fruits of the earth. Life to the full. Yet in our companionship, the breaking of bread reminds Christians of the brokenness of Jesus’s body on the cross, and the wine, the pouring out of his life. Knowing our brokenness brings us before God. Our God saves us from despair, and to coin a word, rightwiseness is a gift, true peace.

Come let us boast in the goodness of God. Come let us love God. Come let us love one another, friend and enemy. It begins with us knowing our need, the need of humanity and the need of the Earth; a seed sown in good soil, that we might grow not wither.

God’s discipline is in giving us up to our own ways. It’s standing beside us when we muck up, being there, ready, when we choose to turn back to the right path, realise we’re in the long grass on the road to nowhere. The gate to where we want to be, I believe, is Jesus’ cross, the place of brokenness, the beginning of victory.

The cross becomes at once the place of slaughter and the throne of God’s love. The light of life is God’s presence in all creation, drawing us to peace.

So in this season of moving from darkness to light, you might consider sharing a hot beverage with us at the chapel on a Sunday morning at 930am or a bowl of soup on a Wednesday evening at 7pm. Yes, religion will follow, but you don’t have to stay!