Lent at Lincoln Street

Our Lenten Theme - Seeking: Honest Questions for Deeper Faith

The lectionary for Year A offers us many stories of Jesus encountering people who are seeking.

In these stories, each person is seeking a new beginning, a different life, a deeper faith. What unfolds is an exchange filled with questions and exploration. Often, an unveiling occurs—assumptions are disrupted, a new perspective is revealed, mystery grows.

Our seeking won't necessarily lead to answers, but perhaps will help us find clarity and a new perspective. Ultimately, let us pray they lead to a new beginning, a restoration, a wider grace, as we seek clarity, connection, wonder, justice, balance, calling, a sense of the sacred, and how to live as a disciple. Throughout this season, let us ask ourselves: what am I seeking? What is God seeking?

Calendar for Lent and Holy Week

Come and join a six-week Lent devotional study every Sunday at 8 am downstairs (Feb 22, March 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29). This study will use a calendar of devotions by Amy Sigmon. There are brief readings for each day in Lent, which includes a suggested Scripture, a short devotion, and a short prayer or practice—all based on the Revised Common Lectionary. This short devotional study has been enjoyed by our church members for the past several years. In the United Methodist Church, Lent is a 40-day season (excluding Sundays) of spiritual reflection, repentance, and preparation for Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 18, 2026) and ending on Holy Saturday. It commemorates Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness with focus on prayer, fasting, and acts of service. Please feel welcome to attend any or all of the Sundays—whether you have read the devotions or not. Please contact Laura Rodgers for a copy of the devotional study guide or pick one up in the narthex. Laurie Abling and Laura Rodgers will be discussion leaders.

Lenten Giving Project: PIRC and Kellogg Middle School.

This year our Lenten Giving Campaign will focus on issues of Immigration and Detention by focusing on two organizations and two ways of giving, time and money.

Kellogg Middle School has been mobilizing to support families living in fear of ICE, and those needing support with food as government resources are less secure. We are seeking to build relationships with these neighbors by volunteering at one of their monthly Free Food Markets. The Market will be held March 27th (Friday) 2:00-5:30 pm. They are seeking 10 volunteers to set up and work the market. More details to come. Keep in mind this will require becoming an approved volunteer with PPS, which can be completed online at this link: https://www.pps.net/volunteer/volunteer/volunteering-with-pps Please let Barbara know if you intend to volunteer bkutasz@gmail.com
Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) is working in our community and across the state in a number of ways to support the immigrant community. They host a hotline where people can report ICE presence, refer community members to rapid response legal support and social services and operate an immigrant resource center where family members can get information about detained loved ones. PIRC has trained over 5,000 Migra Watchers all across the state to respond to ICE Activity and continues to train more each month. Please make your financial contributions to PIRC in the manner you typically give to the church, with a memo that says LENT.

And later in the Lent/Easter season:

Palm Sunday, Sunday, March 29

Donations for the Floral Cross, Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5

Easter Egg Hunt and Games, April 5

Easter Sunday, April 6

Visual Meditations for

Ash Wednesday and Lent

Ash Wednesday

seeking: Is this the fast that I choose?

"don't look up"
by T. Denise Anderson
Inspired by Isaiah 58:1-12
Oil on canvas

I love portraiture because I believe there is something deeply profound about our faces and what they can communicate. Few things are more beautiful to me than the shapes and shadows created in our faces by directional light. The pieces I have offered for this Lenten series attempt to show the drama that light and darkness create together on the human visage. Because I’m a person of color, I am careful to acknowledge how scripture’s preference for light over darkness has historically been used against darker-skinned peoples. Therefore, I do not subscribe to a light/dark dichotomy that suggests one is preferable to the other. I believe light and dark work together to frame a specific part of the picture that needs our attention the most. In each of my pieces, light is coming from a specific direction and cooperates (not competes) with darkness to spotlight something.

The Isaiah text prophesies to a community preoccupied with religious observance that draws the gaze “upward” to God, but neglects the people and matters that are most important to God. God is not calling for fasts and religious rituals that only focus heavenward. As the community has focused on things above, they persist in injustice below. The people have exalted themselves above their kindred and wondered why God has not responded to them. Meanwhile, God is shining light on what they’ve neglected below—that is to say, their own community.

The person depicted here is fixing their gaze upon a light source that is just below and to the side of them. This is an invitation to stop elevating one’s worship and oneself above one’s siblings and peers, for it is there that God may be found. —Rev. Denise Anderson

First Sunday in Lent

seeking: Who Will You Listen to?

"Tune In"
by Lisle Gwynn Garrity
Inspired by Matthew 4:1-11
Silk painting with digital drawing and collage

In this image, the words of the Tempter hover in the background. The Tempter’s voice lingers like a ringing in Jesus’ ears, saying: “Take charge. Hoard your power. Dominate. Control.”

Somehow, Jesus has deciphered that these words are simply background noise. He closes his eyes and goes inward, wrapping himself in a posture of self-embrace. From this introspective perspective, Jesus essentially says, “Get behind me, Satan.”

The backdrop of this piece resembles the dust of the desert. Like sand washing along a beach, the sediment shifts into water in the top left, hinting at what bolsters Jesus in his ministry: his belonging to God. His belovedness washes over him, giving him the courage to defy the deception of the Tempter and tune into his inner wisdom. In this way, he is given a new song to carry with him, a lullaby from God that goes, “You, my child, in you, I am well-pleased.” This is a melody for singing, a song for dancing.

What are the voices that linger with you like a ringing in your ears? What are the messages that try to deceive or devour you? Let those voices buzz and fade into the background. Close your eyes, tune in, and embrace yourself. From your belovedness, what song will you sing?

—Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity