Ash Wednesday
The Rev. Amy Hodges Morehous
Ash Wednesday
Feb. 13, 2013
On this Ash Wednesday evening, we gather together to affirm that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
I don’t know if you’ve seen our Bishop’s message for this Lent this year. If you haven’t, I would encourage you click the link, and listen. The link to the video is also posted on the church’s Facebook page. (Of course, if you’ve given up Facebook for Lent, I suppose you’re out of luck til Easter.)
In the video, the Bishop reminds us that Christ is tempted for 40 days, and that he is tempted because he is human, and temptation is part of being human. We are all tempted, daily, sometimes hourly, because we are human. We are dust, we are mortal. Our Bishop quotes someone as saying that our most basic human temptation - the time we are most dusty - is when we forsake our deepest values, and embrace those things that are counterfeit. Forsake our deepest values....
We frequently respond to our temptations by giving things up in Lent. It’s a question we ask each other. “What are you giving up?” If you don’t have an answer for that, you feel pretty inadequate. I’ve given up many things in my 40 years. I’ve given up chocolate, soda, television, fried food, meat, caffeine. Not all in one year, obviously - it would be unfair to make those around me completely miserable. One year, I even gave up self-criticism, which was terribly difficult, even more difficult than the year I gave up criticizing others. Of course, once Lent was over, I picked most of those right back up.
And what did I learn from my various small sacrifices? In some cases, I learned that I was far too dependent on something than I would like. The year I gave up chocolate I learned that I could be tremendously resentful for a short period of time. And I frequently was reminded each time that I am all too human in many respects. But I’m not sure any of those small sacrifices substantially changed my relationship with God, or others, or even with myself.
Our Bishop suggests that is what the season of Lent is really about - change. It is the gift of time - 40 days - to reorient ourselves. Forty days - a tithe of time for the year - to grow toward being the person God would have us be. I’m not sure God has a particular interest in our relationship with chocolate, or soda, or whatever thing we’ve chosen to give up this year. But I do think God is profoundly interested in our relationship with him, and our relationship with each other. Bishop George suggests that now is the time to reorient ourselves toward our deepest values, toward those things we hold most true in our hearts, and move away from what is counterfeit. Move away from what is false, and toward what is real.
For instance, what if we really took 40 days and lived into this Lent as if we believed that God's love and mercy and forgiveness were profoundly real?
What if, instead of chocolate, we gave up judging ourselves and each other harshly? The world around us would have us believe that we are deeply inadequate - never enough, never quite right, never dressed well enough, never young enough, or beautiful enough, or rich enough. Did you look in the mirror this morning and see a beloved child of God, or did you see someone else? Someone less than whole? Someone the world outside has conditioned you to see? What if you spent 40 days seeing yourself as you really are, a beloved child of God?
When it's hard for us to see that we are loved, just as we are, that makes it even harder to see others with the same eyes of love. What if we looked at our neighbor, and instead of seeing someone who is different, we saw someone who was just like us? What if you looked at the person in the next car as you’re driving to work, the one who's driving you nuts in traffic, and said to yourself, "They're on the same road I am, and we're all just trying to get home the best way we know how." What if we spent 40 days suspending judgement, and giving our fellow human beings a break? What if we went even further, and committed to doing something daily to help others see that they, too, are beloved children of God? What kind of world would we create?
What if we lived into Lent as if we really believed that we belonged to God, that we are loved more than we can possibly understand? What if we woke up every morning during Lent and reminded ourselves that we and everyone in the world comes from and belongs to God? What would we choose to do differently?
Once we have seen who we are, seen who God would have us be, we can see, clearly, those things that separate us from God, and from each other. Those things are called ‘sins’. We don’t much care for it, this talk of sin and repentance, but we need it. When my daughter was 4, she asked me what a sin was. At a loss for how best to answer her in a way she would understand, I finally said, “Sin is something that makes God’s heart sad.”
Lent is traditionally a time to take note of our sins, to own up to our sinful nature, and to offer those up to God with a repentant heart. During Lent we are called to honest and loving self-examination, called to take stock of what it is that we do to grieve the very heart of the God that loves us. We are not called to subject ourselves to abject misery, not to make ourselves or others suffer. Not to list and recall our sins so that we may hoard them, so that we may hang on to them and beat ourselves over the head with them for years. God is not interested in furthering our misery and suffering - we do that pretty well all on our own. During Lent, we are gifted with time to offer our sins and shortcomings up to God so that they do not fester within us, so they they do not turn into self-loathing and hatred.
Because we are human, because we are dust, because we forget that we are loved, we have a profoundly hard time forgiving ourselves. That makes it even harder to believe that God can forgive us. But what if, and this is a big if, we lived for 40 days as if we really believed that God forgives us? That God’s mercy is deep enough and wide enough to forgive the things in ourselves that we find unforgivable? Do you really believe tonight that you are forgiven? Do you believe that God's mercy is large enough not only for you, but for your neighbor, too?
This Lent, as we look at how we see ourselves, I would ask each of us to give ourselves permission to let go of our past sins, and give them over to God. Many of us need help with that. If it seems like too large a task to do alone, I would urge you to seek out one of the clergy, and ask about reconciliation. (If you are curious about it, you can find it as Reconciliation of a Penitent, page 447 in the Book of Common Prayer.) If you are weighed down tonight by past or current sins, you must know that God does not desire us to grieve our sins forever. We are not required to sit with the clergy and confess our sins so that we can get into heaven. Instead, we are invited by a loving God to confess them so they do not drag us down, so they do not disrupt our relationship with God and our neighbor, pushing us further and further away. Hoarded sin and anger and hurt turns into more sin, and anger, and resentment and self-loathing, which drives us further away from a God who loves us deeply, a God who yearns to be a loving presence in our lives. It is a vicious cycle that the more we fall into sin, the more profoundly unworthy and unloved we feel. We are called this Lent to reconcile ourselves with God not because we are worthless sinners, but because we are sinners of infinite worth. We are worth so much, you and I, that God sent His only son to walk among us, to speak to us, to die and rise from the dead for us.
This Lent, you have a gift. Forty days to embrace God’s merciful love and forgiveness. Forty days to see ourselves as God sees us, forty days to turn and reorient ourselves toward those things that are most real. Forty days to let go of the weight of sin that can drag us down.
Tonight we affirm that we are dust, yes, even sinful dust, but we are also loved dust, we are forgiven dust, we are dust that will be someday loved and transformed into God's own likeness. Dust we are, and to dust we shall return.
Amen.
Ash Wednesday
Feb. 13, 2013
On this Ash Wednesday evening, we gather together to affirm that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
I don’t know if you’ve seen our Bishop’s message for this Lent this year. If you haven’t, I would encourage you click the link, and listen. The link to the video is also posted on the church’s Facebook page. (Of course, if you’ve given up Facebook for Lent, I suppose you’re out of luck til Easter.)
In the video, the Bishop reminds us that Christ is tempted for 40 days, and that he is tempted because he is human, and temptation is part of being human. We are all tempted, daily, sometimes hourly, because we are human. We are dust, we are mortal. Our Bishop quotes someone as saying that our most basic human temptation - the time we are most dusty - is when we forsake our deepest values, and embrace those things that are counterfeit. Forsake our deepest values....
We frequently respond to our temptations by giving things up in Lent. It’s a question we ask each other. “What are you giving up?” If you don’t have an answer for that, you feel pretty inadequate. I’ve given up many things in my 40 years. I’ve given up chocolate, soda, television, fried food, meat, caffeine. Not all in one year, obviously - it would be unfair to make those around me completely miserable. One year, I even gave up self-criticism, which was terribly difficult, even more difficult than the year I gave up criticizing others. Of course, once Lent was over, I picked most of those right back up.
And what did I learn from my various small sacrifices? In some cases, I learned that I was far too dependent on something than I would like. The year I gave up chocolate I learned that I could be tremendously resentful for a short period of time. And I frequently was reminded each time that I am all too human in many respects. But I’m not sure any of those small sacrifices substantially changed my relationship with God, or others, or even with myself.
Our Bishop suggests that is what the season of Lent is really about - change. It is the gift of time - 40 days - to reorient ourselves. Forty days - a tithe of time for the year - to grow toward being the person God would have us be. I’m not sure God has a particular interest in our relationship with chocolate, or soda, or whatever thing we’ve chosen to give up this year. But I do think God is profoundly interested in our relationship with him, and our relationship with each other. Bishop George suggests that now is the time to reorient ourselves toward our deepest values, toward those things we hold most true in our hearts, and move away from what is counterfeit. Move away from what is false, and toward what is real.
For instance, what if we really took 40 days and lived into this Lent as if we believed that God's love and mercy and forgiveness were profoundly real?
What if, instead of chocolate, we gave up judging ourselves and each other harshly? The world around us would have us believe that we are deeply inadequate - never enough, never quite right, never dressed well enough, never young enough, or beautiful enough, or rich enough. Did you look in the mirror this morning and see a beloved child of God, or did you see someone else? Someone less than whole? Someone the world outside has conditioned you to see? What if you spent 40 days seeing yourself as you really are, a beloved child of God?
When it's hard for us to see that we are loved, just as we are, that makes it even harder to see others with the same eyes of love. What if we looked at our neighbor, and instead of seeing someone who is different, we saw someone who was just like us? What if you looked at the person in the next car as you’re driving to work, the one who's driving you nuts in traffic, and said to yourself, "They're on the same road I am, and we're all just trying to get home the best way we know how." What if we spent 40 days suspending judgement, and giving our fellow human beings a break? What if we went even further, and committed to doing something daily to help others see that they, too, are beloved children of God? What kind of world would we create?
What if we lived into Lent as if we really believed that we belonged to God, that we are loved more than we can possibly understand? What if we woke up every morning during Lent and reminded ourselves that we and everyone in the world comes from and belongs to God? What would we choose to do differently?
Once we have seen who we are, seen who God would have us be, we can see, clearly, those things that separate us from God, and from each other. Those things are called ‘sins’. We don’t much care for it, this talk of sin and repentance, but we need it. When my daughter was 4, she asked me what a sin was. At a loss for how best to answer her in a way she would understand, I finally said, “Sin is something that makes God’s heart sad.”
Lent is traditionally a time to take note of our sins, to own up to our sinful nature, and to offer those up to God with a repentant heart. During Lent we are called to honest and loving self-examination, called to take stock of what it is that we do to grieve the very heart of the God that loves us. We are not called to subject ourselves to abject misery, not to make ourselves or others suffer. Not to list and recall our sins so that we may hoard them, so that we may hang on to them and beat ourselves over the head with them for years. God is not interested in furthering our misery and suffering - we do that pretty well all on our own. During Lent, we are gifted with time to offer our sins and shortcomings up to God so that they do not fester within us, so they they do not turn into self-loathing and hatred.
Because we are human, because we are dust, because we forget that we are loved, we have a profoundly hard time forgiving ourselves. That makes it even harder to believe that God can forgive us. But what if, and this is a big if, we lived for 40 days as if we really believed that God forgives us? That God’s mercy is deep enough and wide enough to forgive the things in ourselves that we find unforgivable? Do you really believe tonight that you are forgiven? Do you believe that God's mercy is large enough not only for you, but for your neighbor, too?
This Lent, as we look at how we see ourselves, I would ask each of us to give ourselves permission to let go of our past sins, and give them over to God. Many of us need help with that. If it seems like too large a task to do alone, I would urge you to seek out one of the clergy, and ask about reconciliation. (If you are curious about it, you can find it as Reconciliation of a Penitent, page 447 in the Book of Common Prayer.) If you are weighed down tonight by past or current sins, you must know that God does not desire us to grieve our sins forever. We are not required to sit with the clergy and confess our sins so that we can get into heaven. Instead, we are invited by a loving God to confess them so they do not drag us down, so they do not disrupt our relationship with God and our neighbor, pushing us further and further away. Hoarded sin and anger and hurt turns into more sin, and anger, and resentment and self-loathing, which drives us further away from a God who loves us deeply, a God who yearns to be a loving presence in our lives. It is a vicious cycle that the more we fall into sin, the more profoundly unworthy and unloved we feel. We are called this Lent to reconcile ourselves with God not because we are worthless sinners, but because we are sinners of infinite worth. We are worth so much, you and I, that God sent His only son to walk among us, to speak to us, to die and rise from the dead for us.
This Lent, you have a gift. Forty days to embrace God’s merciful love and forgiveness. Forty days to see ourselves as God sees us, forty days to turn and reorient ourselves toward those things that are most real. Forty days to let go of the weight of sin that can drag us down.
Tonight we affirm that we are dust, yes, even sinful dust, but we are also loved dust, we are forgiven dust, we are dust that will be someday loved and transformed into God's own likeness. Dust we are, and to dust we shall return.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment