Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2016
First Reading: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near-
a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep. Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!
We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Sermon:
Just this past Sunday, my husband and I returned from Puerto Rico. We’d never been there before. It was a wonderful place to escape from the cold; very friendly and green, so green. We went to a rainforest, the only American Rainforest in the National forest system. As we entered, there was an overwhelming sense of awe. Some of the trees are thousands of years old. There are more species of trees in this one forest than in all the other national forests combined. One tree in particular was remarkable. It was a palm tree whose roots started above ground. You could see how intentional its roots were in digging in deep. There were hundreds of roots coming from one tree, all helping to ground it in the soil and to soak up the over 200 inches of water that the rainforest gets every year. The bark was covered in moss, soft and moist. These trees form the canopy for the rainforest, home to insects and birds and rare tiny frogs called coquis. And all of this began with a single drop of water.
Which brings us to Lent. Lent is an opportunity to start over, to try again, to be more intentional about our relationship with God, especially in our pray, to pray in a way that is meaningful, in a way that changes us and deepens our faith. Anything that can help us to become more deeply rooted in our faith is can be part of Lent. How do we begin?
Fear is often a motivator. In today’s readings we hear Joel warning us to shape up. That’s very typical of the Hebrew scriptures—true fire and brimstone. Joel insists that now is the time for us to fast and to weep. We hear the warning, the threat of punishment, the ‘or else’ of this reading. You’d better repent. Blow the trumpets to wake everyone up to this reality. God is at the ready. Will he be merciful or very, very angry? We hear a small caveat that God can be nice, slow to anger, even gracious but you just never know how God will act so better be safe than sorry. The message is one of fear to motivate change.
Paul wants us to be reconciled with God, with the very clear inference that we are to blame. Sin is assumed. We have fallen away through sin. Paul and the disciples are trying to show us the way back to God. They’ve done their part, he says, now it’s our turn. The gauntlet has been thrown. Now it’s up to us to make good choices, to repent and turn from our sinful ways. Paul uses comparisons and subtle “look what we’ve done” to urge us on. Guilt can be a strong motivator as well.
Thankfully, Jesus takes a different angle. He uses love as a motivator. Imagine that. Jesus invites us to connect with God. He says “when” you pray not “if” you pray. He assumes good of us, that we do pray and that it is a “when”, a time set aside for privacy, for silence, for time away from the chaos of life. So, Jesus says, when you go there, this is how you are to do it. Jesus offers gentle instructions, giving us contrasts, not this way but that way—not like the hypocrites who make it so obvious to others. That’s not prayer, that’s showmanship or one-upmanship—the I-do-it-better-than-you game. No, that is not prayer. This is how a good rabbi should be teaching us, how to help us connect with God in authentic ways, ways that actually change the relationship and deepen it.
Prayer is just that—a connecting with God. Jesus wants us to understand how vital it is for us to do this regularly, daily, like steady drops of water that collect over time. For a while, I decided that my life was a prayer, that everything I did was prayer. I was a busy mom and daily prayer just didn’t seem possible. It was a convenient way of hoping to pray but not wholly effective. Rather, choosing to be intentional about prayer is what Jesus is urging. Times when we become aware of God in the midst of our day, can be a prayerful moment. And so I found that simple ways of incorporating time for prayer can work. Most often, I turn off the radio during Lent, so that my drive time is prayer time, a time for silence and intention. Anytime we can find where there is an opportunity, we can use it to reconnect with God.
Images help us as well. Those roots from the palm tree in the rainforest help anchor me. They are such a powerful image for prayer. I long to be that firmly rooted in God, where I can withstand hurricane-force winds that bend and threaten to break me. Hundreds of roots that anchor me in God, the source of all life. The rainforest is a network of life, all inter-connected and inter-reliant. The single drop of rain that multiplies over and over again to renew the plants and to grow the roots is essential to the whole system. We need God, just like the roots of those palm trees need the water and the ground. Can we be grounded in God like that? Can we work to spread our very roots in God as our earth, rich loam, yes dirty ash that help to green us, to grow us in the network of life. Life is not lived on the surface or if it is, we often grow stale and restless. We become despondent because as spiritual beings we need more. Perhaps our Lent can be a time of intentional moments that ground our soul, in deeper, meaningful ways.
The silence of the rainforest was striking. Once we heard the coqui teasing us. Sometimes words can be helpful in prayer, or soft music or humming. Other times, silence can be a balm for us in the chaos of life. This is what Jesus is encouraging us to do, to take a time out in our daily life, a time that he knows we need, alone, in quiet, when we can actually focus on our God with assurance. Silence can be one of the most healing experiences—the silence of a new fallen snow, a morning sunrise or a bright moonlit night. These are snapshots of beauty or emotion that cannot be found when we rush. Ten seconds or ten minutes, at a stoplight or while doing dishes, these moments of prayer need to be chosen, pondered, reflected upon and allowed to deepen in our souls. Dorothy Whiston, one of my spiritual directors, often encouraged me to marinate in these kind of moments. I love that verb for prayer: marinating. Soaking in God’s love to help move us through our longing our sadness even through our pain. Maybe that’s our image—a jar of pickles or olives, marinating in the oil, the balm of God.
Silence like this can be risky—we do not know what we might hear or become aware of in the dark, through silence. Our deepest fear is one of abandonment, that we are utterly alone in life. Which is often why we keep making noise. And why we keep avoiding prayer. Is it true? Are we really just all alone in this life? Jesus would never have insisted that we go to pray alone if God was not to be found there. Nor would he encourage us to give thanks, or to be forgiven as we forgive others. The Jesus prayer, or the Lord’s Prayer as it is known, is primarily a relational prayer, one that speaks to the inter-connectedness of us all, the give and take of daily life and the constancy of God who provides for our every need.
Lent is a time to deepen our choice to trust in God, a God who is mysterious and sometimes elusive. A God who is rain or sun or dirt. May we choose to plant ourselves, to root ourselves in a place that reconnects us to God this Lent. Whether it is ten seconds or ten minutes, may we interrupt our busy lives to pray, to become mindful of the God who beckons, who can help us feel deeply connected and never forsaken.
As we are marked with dirt, may we feel ourselves claimed by a God who cherishes us, who sees us as the co-creators we can be in our own forest. This Lent our God waits for us to come away, to find the treasure that awaits in the precious space of time set aside, and to be renewed in what really matters—love, sacred relationship that is eternal. Blessings on your Lenten season. Amen.
