LENT COURSE SESSION 5

Lent Discussion 5

Judges 18:5-6 Then they said, “Ask God whether or not our journey will be successful.” “Go in peace,” the priest replied. “For the LORD is watching over your journey.”

After Easter, the journey out into the world begins. For the last session, we invite each group member to bring some food for the journey, padkos to share with everyone. Bring something from one of the sessions that particularly struck you, or something you found somewhere else : words, a picture, a song, a Bible quote or story. Anything to help us all grow as disciples and citizens.

Here are some resources we offer for the rest of the journey:

1) The final column written by former Business Day editor Songezo Zibi. Zibi writes : “you sleep a lot easier at night, and will have better answers for future generations, if you put the country and its people first. We have a responsibility to confront even those matters that make us uncomfortable, because they show our prejudices and biases”

http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2016/02/29/it-s-time-to-say-goodbye

2) A sermon from American pastor Nadia Bolz Weber, urging defiant hope in the face of despair

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2015/12/bullies-terrorists-and-anxiety-a-sermon-on-defiant-hope/

3) A line from the Beatles’ song Hey Jude:

Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better

4) A Facebook post from the NGK, condemning racism and calling on Christians to “set an example of tolerance and good judgement when it comes to the interests of the total population of the country”

https://www.facebook.com/NGKerk/posts/10156686808425001

and a slightly older NGK post

http://www.gemeentes.co.za/Pdf/Redaksioneel8.3.pdf

5) In 1934, his lecture Art as Experience, John Dewey warned that we should safeguard against wholehearted action becoming a grudging, piecemeal concession to the demands of duty.

You may want to use Neil Gaiman’s short fairytale “Instructions” to shape your citizen/disciple/hero journey. Here is a link, but find an illustrated copy if you can.

http://genius.com/Neil-gaiman-instructions-annotated

Gaiman’s book starts out inviting readers to “touch the wooden gate in the wall you never saw before”. What is the wooden gate for you? Various creatures encountered on the journey offer help, or pose threats. Where does help come from, on your journey? Where does danger lie? “There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is why it will not stand” warns Gaiman. What is the worm, and what is the tower? Then, finally :

“When you reach the little house, the place your journey started, you will recognize it, although it will seem much smaller than you remember. Walk up the path, and through the garden gate you never saw before but once. And then go home. Or make a home. Or rest”