The walk Jesus made toward Jerusalem, toward the events of Holy Week, was a shared experience. It was, by grand design, both a world-changing experience and a community experience.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus turns toward Jerusalem and meets a community of 10 men suffering from leprosy. There’s a crowd in Jericho, neighbors standing shoulder to shoulder, when Jesus finds Zacchaeus the tax collector in the tree. There’s a crowd accompanying him as he met a beggar along the road to Jerusalem and a crowd waiting when he entered Jerusalem.

Our Lenten season, which begins March 2, can be a shared experience, a community experience, a shoulder-to-shoulder experience. We will be neighbors walking together with Jesus as He again approaches the cross.

Sewickley UMC will join St. Matthews AME Zion and St. Paul’s Lutheran Churches in producing special Lenten worship services on Sunday evenings through Lent. It launches with an Ash Wednesday Service March 2, with Pastor Hannah delivering the message at St. Matthews AME Zion.

Let’s pray for our neighbors. Let’s pray for our communities.

On March 6, as the sun sets at approximately 6:18 pm, from wherever you are, with whomever wants to join you, let’s pray together for our neighbors and neighborhoods. If you’re in the worship service as the sun sets, you can set aside another time to lift this prayer. And we can all return to this prayer throughout the Lenten season.

Let’s pray for neighbors we love, for neighbors we haven’t connected with lately, and for the neighbors we have yet to meet. Let’s pray for the oldest and the youngest among our neighbors.

Let’s pray for the schools in our neighborhoods. Let’s pray for the churches in our neighborhoods. Let’s pray for our community leaders. Let’s pray for our police, our fire departments, and our emergency responders.

Let’s pray for the food banks and other agencies that serve our neighborhoods.

Let’s pray for the businesses that serve our communities.

Let’s ask through prayer for opportunities to connect with neighbors. I have a friend in the SUMC community who looks for a service project to join every Lenten season.

For two years – since March 2020 – we’ve been living with the impact of the Covid viruses, and our relationships with neighbors and neighborhood have been changed and often diminished. Let’s ask for His help to restore and enhance those relationships.

The events of Holy Week served and encouraged the world, but they began in neighborhoods. Let’s include our neighbors and neighborhoods in our walk with Jesus to the cross this year.