Ash Wednesday 2008
Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21
Pray, give alms, and be pious, but not to impress others, only for the purpose of improving your relationship with God and neighbor.
Prayer is communication with God. When did you hear God speaking to you recently? Have you sat quietly and listened to God? You can do this using the prayer book: morning and evening prayer with lectionary appointed texts of Scripture. As you read the prayer if your mind wanders to something that is worrying you or disturbing you or giving you great joy, jot it down on a small piece of paper. Place the paper in your hand and close your hands around it in prayer posture. Then open your hands and imagine that God is taking the paper from you. Now with empty hands and open heart, be still and listen. You may be inspired to re-read a psalm, a passage of scripture, or to just think through what your connection was between the scripture, the prayer and your concern. Prayer is not a way to let God in on what is happening in your life. God already knows. In fact, God already knows what you want, what you need, and what you wish would change. Our challenge this lent is to allow God to be God and we need to be us. I’ll be Ann, you be Sam, Joe, Joan; God will be God this year, at least for 40 days. It is an interesting experiment and worth the effort.
We are mortal, we live toward dying. Our lives are journeys from and back to God. All of the journey can be and should be led by the Spirit of God. It will not always give us the satisfaction we seek, the success we crave, or the luxuries we covet. We may have to rearrange our schedules, read a book, volunteer in the community, forgive a neighbor who has offended us. We might find time to visit with friends, go fishing, or spend some time in the Thrift shop. Facing our mortality is difficult. It is one of those things that we put off. I have a will, and an advance directive. We all need to prepare for that day when our journey will end and we will enter the eternal embrace of God’s perfect love. I find it easier to think about my own terminus than about someone else’s. In this service we recognize in the imposition of ashes our mortal frame: remember o man/ woman that dust you are and to dust you shall return.
As we travel along life’s highway we have a few fender benders. We might even have a major wreck. I am not thinking about our cars but about our relationships. When I reflect about my life, I have had some wonderful friends and some friends whose friendship I no longer enjoy. I suspect I am as guilty of the breach as any other person and when I think about the loss, I am sorry. I confess that I have not given my best effort in every relationship. I confess that I have left undone things that I should have done and have said and done things I should not have done. Sometimes, it is impossible for us to restore what is broken and lost. With God we are in a better place. God is always more willing to forgive than we are to confess our sins. We may find repentance and forgiveness a difficult subject to discuss. We may feel uncomfortable acknowledging our sins but we may as well tell God, because God already knows!
I want you to spend some time during Lent thinking about the good and not so good relationships in your life. May a short list of those for which you are truly thankful and those broken relationships that still cause you pain and remorse. Take these lists and on a plain piece of paper draw a cross. Now take a piece of tape and tape those lists to the cross with the writing side face down. You don’t need to dwell on the broken or the blessed, but we all need to see in the cross of Christ unconditional love and forgiveness. There is the place where God’s presence intersects our fragile, vulnerable and sinful mortality. There is the place where heaven meets earth. There on the hard wood of the cross is where Jesus stretched out his arms in love to draw all within his saving embrace.
In our tradition Good Friday stands in the middle of three days of Christian worship, our triduum. Beginning with Maundy Thursday, the foot washing, the sacrament of the table, the one commandment to love one another as I have loved you, the stripping of the altar, and the vigil of prayer in the Garden of Repose, continue into the Good Friday liturgy, and that is culminated with the Easter vigil, with the glorious celebration of the resurrection. It is well that we begin the season of Lent remembering our frail and mortal nature. It is well that we are members of a community that provides fellowship as we walk in faith. It is a good and right thing that we should always know that God is with us, renewing our faith, giving us the gift of grace, and surrounding us with love and mercy. Our God is an awesome God. Our God forgives. Our God has invites us into fellowship with God and commands us to love one another.
So be in prayer, give alms, and be pious but not to impress your friends, family, neighbors, work colleagues but to strengthen, renew and nurture your relationship with God.