The Matthew 25 Initiative (M25i) invites you to join them this Lent beginning Wednesday, February 14th. The following is the information they recently provided to walk with them in this season.
Dear Anglican friends,For our third year of Lent, we once again invite you to join us on a journey of normalizing Anglican justice and mercy by thoughtfully engaging in this historic Christian season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – this time, through the lens of Isaiah 58:6-12. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah speaks God’s message that he desires a certain kind of fast. What does it mean for us to engage in the kind of fasting that God has chosen? We are hard pressed to find a passage that is more Lenten in its explicit message orienting our gaze to the path towards Easter.
Over the coming forty days of Lent, we will unpack a “true fasting,” and we will ask the Lord to work in us and through us, on behalf of the least of these, connecting Isaiah 58 in the Old Testament with Matthew 25 in the New Testament.
The 40 pieces of content are inspiring, beautiful, and theologically grounded–provoking reflection on Christ’s heart for those who are vulnerable, trafficked, living in poverty, unhoused, and as refugees and immigrants far from home. The goal is an interweaving of scripture, socio-historic data, stories, saints who show us what it means to be contemplative-activists, prayer, and reflection to shape our souls in Christ-awareness and Christ-likeness.
Our aim is to provide you with rich resources asking the question: how do we engage our neighbors with kingdom “lenses” that nudge us to “draw near” like Christ in our particular time and place? Join us throughout Lent.
Rhythms of each week:
Mondays: Unpack topic: why Anglican Christians care/should care about this topic, starting from Scripture and Biblical theology, vision casting for the week’s theme
Tuesdays: Stats to paint the scope of the issue + quote
Wednesdays: A story from the life of a “contemplative activist” in history
Thursdays: Ministry highlight, encouraging engagement with an established ministry doing work in that space
Friday: A closer look and topic wrap-up
Saturday: A focused prayer for those suffering and/or ministering under that theme
Sunday: A quiet day with no content (no email), in order for us to linger with all these threads and continue in prayer.
Last year during Lent we explored what it means to work for justice and mercy through the lens of the Good Samaritan. This year we are digging deep into Isaiah 58, and learning what God means when he says that He desires “true fasting.” We aim to highlight Anglican practitioner work that implements best practices alongside skilled justice and mercy literacy.Themes:• the oppressed (human trafficking)• food scarcity• the unhoused• creation care• the restoration and flourishing of all God’s people
Interested in growing your understanding of justice and mercy in 21st century North America? Join us for forty, daily (and brief!) reflections on what true fasting might look like in our particular time and place. Sign up here.
