Rich spiritual food for an Ash Wednesday of fasting

The Ecumenical Centre chapel hosted three services today. Morning prayer and Holden Evening Prayer began and closed the day and at lunchtime we had a special service to launch the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance's Food for Life - Fasting for Life campaign.

Jenny Borden who is currently Acting Director of EAA, preached a good sermon including this:

More than one billion people are suffering from hunger around the world. Despite the goodness and bounty of God’s gifts to us in creation so many people experience scarcity: famine, hunger, deprivation and want. And yet at the same time there are people in all parts of the world who suffer the effects of too much – too much salt, sugar, fat, calories – too much choice, too many things, too much wealth.

And concluding with this:

- we live in the hope of a costly cross that proved love to be creative and not a disaster
- and we accept that we’re never going to get it all right and so live confidently in the sorrow and forgiveness of Ash Wednesday, that does not reject us because we fail but wraps us around and includes us all as part of a community, where even failures like us are still valued for what we can achieve.

You can find the whole of Jenny' sermon here. More on the Food for life campaign here.

It was a day of rich spiritual fare in the chapel with much to ponder as we met to sing "Let my prayer rise up like incense before you" at the end of the day