Grace, peace, strength, courage and creative mischief be yours, friends and colleagues of the NWIM synod.
This week we turn an important corner in the church year. We will mark the coming arrival of Spring by deepening our prayer for six weeks before celebrating Christ's resurrection. And we begin this period of fasting and prayer by reminding one another that we will die. We are mortal. We fall into sin. This is part of our humanity and leads us to rejoice in the mercies of God all the more.
As humans, we are never lacking for reminders of how we fall short, how we mistreat each other, ourselves, and the planet. But friends, Lent 2026 seems especially brutal on this score. ICE agents harass, harm and detain us and our non-white neighbors, then harass, harm and even kill those who get in the way. Instances of abuse, rape, and murder at ICE detention centers continue to rise (the very crimes immigrants are accused of committing in justification for this brutality). Our hypocrisy already stares us in the face. To sharpen the sting even more, massive amounts of documentation linking many, many national leaders to sex trafficking seems like it may be ignored altogether, and no justice will come for the victims. Our cries for the suffering ones go up in agony but seem to be swept away like a winter wind.
In this wintry moment, we need to walk together. Not only with the living but also with those who have gone before us. The saints accompany us both in the mountaintop highs and in the valleys of travail. This Lent, I'm interested in learning about Saint Thecla.
Have you read The Acts of Paul and Thecla? You should. I had not even heard of this text until this year. Now I wish it had made the cut of stories that got to be regarded as holy scripture. I commend it to you as a devotional text for Lent 2026. You can find it online or in Hal Taussig's book The New New Testament.
Thecla, like so many female saints, was betrothed to a prominent man in her hometown in Egypt. But the apostle Paul came through there one day, preaching and teaching about the way of Jesus, and Thecla was hooked. Not on Paul, but on her calling to follow Jesus. She expressed this by renouncing marriage completely, much to the dismay of her suitor and mother. Several times, in several different ways, the authorities and her family try to have her punished unto death for her “impious” scorn of her womanly duties. But Paul affirms her calling and invites her to share the good news. A very early affirmation of women in ministry!
We can praise Thecla for her defiant rejection of the men who try to take her--her body, her dignity--by force. We can seek inspiration from Thecla for the steadfastness of her faith in the face of trials. We can admire and emulate her pluck in pouring water over her own body and blessing herself when Paul told her to wait—after all, baptism is for everyone! That's a Lenten theme as well.
But today I want to celebrate the life Thecla came to build. I wish to understand, celebrate, and draw encouragement from what she did with her one wild life. We see her near the end of her days shepherding a community of healers and helpers. Living in touch with nature, opened to their neighbors in need, practicing mutual care. In fact their healing wonders were so pronounced that the local doctors become upset because of a lack of business and come to attack Thecla in one last round of “we will take what we want from you by force.” And again, nope. (You really need to read this!) My point isn’t even that she avoids the attack. It’s that she built a community based on kindness, healing, wholeness and restoration because of her faith in Christ.
Thecla's example is fitting for Lent. Renouncing the brutal ways of the world, we can instead move in this world like a healing river, receiving life and nourishment from upstream, then sending it along the way with our own additions and blessings. We are creative and strong. We can be healers and helpers. We can nourish relationships of trust. This too is part of our human story.
Thank you, Thecla, for your story that resounds through the generations and comes to bless us. This Lent, may we inherit a measure of your pluck and spunk and healing power.
Peace and courage,
Liv
For a personal encounter with Thecla story, read this essay by Meggan Watterson.
Or check out this artwork and reflection by Cara Quinn.
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Liv Larson Andrews (she/hers)