Ash
Wednesday; Isa. 58:1-12; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC
2/10/2016
Jim
Melnyk: “Two Temptations of Lent”
Well here we are,
at the start of Lent. Again. Too often, perhaps because of the language of
the Ash Wednesday Liturgy – language like that found in our Collect of the Day,
or perhaps a few of the heart-rending verses of Psalm 51 which we repeat each
year, we get caught in the brokenness which the liturgy focuses upon and have
trouble seeing the hope the season of Lent has to offer. In that light, I’ve been thinking about two
temptations that we each may face as we begin this season of introspection,
contemplation, repentance, and reconciliation.
On the one hand, we may be tempted to respond with the
thought: yadda, yadda, yadda, this again – talking and praying about our wretchedness,
our sinfulness, our need for repentance.
We might be tempted to approach the words of the liturgy thinking,
“Well, this is certainly not addressed to me.
I’m a good person. I’m not
wretched! It really must be about all those other folks – all those really evil
people in the world – or at least that guy down the street from me who screams
at his kids and kicks his dog all the time.
I’ll just tune out the words or spend my time thinking about the folks
those words are really about – anybody except for me.
Yet who among us has never sinned – never missed the mark? Who among us has never messed up badly enough
to damage a relationship we care about deeply?
Who among us has gone since last Lent – or even last Sunday – without
something in our lives we wish we had or hadn’t done, or said, or thought? Ash Wednesday reminds us that we do have a
tendency to mess things up in our lives – and sometimes even in the lives of
others; things for which we need to experience the forgiveness of others –
forgive ourselves – and most certainly, experience the forgiveness of God. Sin doesn’t necessarily make us evil – or
wretched – or even bad people – (though admittedly some sinners may be all of
those things rolled up into one messy ball).
Sin means we’re simply human – fallible – given the freedom by God to
choose selfishly in our lives or to choose rightly – perhaps choosing selfishly
more than we care to admit.
On the other hand, we may be tempted to think to ourselves,
“Oh, how terrible I am. I am not worthy
of anyone’s love, let alone God’s love.
I am a miserable wretch.
Everything I touch turns to dust.
Just like the Psalmist says – and we will repeat in unison shortly – “I
have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb.” How many of us have heard in our lives – or
said to our children or our spouse or partner, “Can’t you ever get it right?”
or, “Why do you always ruin everything?”
How many of us have ever said to a parent, “You’re always on my back!”
or, “Why can’t you ever give me a break?”
How many of us have ever said to ourselves in the darkest hour of the
soul, “I wish I had never been born!” or, “I can’t ever do anything right.”
Perhaps when we read Psalm 51 the words in the early verses
drive those thoughts home for us – either thoughts about ourselves, or thoughts
about those other folks – the ones who mess up all the time.
There has to be a middle way – some way that leads us
between thinking it’s always some other person – some other group – that needs
to repent – that needs to change direction in their lives, or our own complete
wretchedness – that somehow we are not worthy of love – that we are not worthy
to stand before God as our own Eucharistic Prayer B declares – “You have made
us worthy to stand before you!”
What we don’t often realize is that the harsher verses of Psalm
51 were never meant to be an ontological statement about humanity – they were never
meant to be seen as a doctrinal statement about human worth. The psalm we recite every Ash Wednesday was
meant as a personal confession of King David – whether he actually wrote it or
not.
David, having committed adultery and orchestrated the death
of the woman’s husband, believes the death of their child is due to his
grievous sin. In sackcloth and ashes
David confesses his guilt, saying what many of us have felt from time to time
when we have blown it big-time. We even
make movies about it, don’t we? Who
among us hasn’t seen Jimmy Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life” – a story about a
man who thinks the world, and everyone in it, would be better off if he had
never been born?
There has to be a middle way, because those two options –
it’s always somebody else, or it’s always me and I’m worthless – those two
options will drive us crazy, drive others away from us, or simple drive us to
the grave.
Author Jamie Sams,
tells us that we must be “willing to acknowledge that we are spiritual beings
who happen to have human bodies,” and that we are connected in some unknown way
to the Great Mystery, who is God (Dancing
the Dream: the Seven Sacred Paths of Human Transformation, a study of
Native American Spirituality). Ash
Wednesday and Lent are meant, in part, to remind us that we are not God – thank
goodness, that would be scary, wouldn’t it? (Although there certainly are some
in this world who might think they are!)
The turning point on the
first path of human transformation occurs when we sense that our lives have
purpose – sense that we are here for a reason we may not yet fully understand. That sense of purpose unfolds “when we
finally turn and face the Creator, the Great Mystery, God, and acknowledge that
our life cannot be lived fully without [being connected] to the Divine Presence
that made all life” (ibid).
Theologian Walter Brueggemann suggests that the texts for
today are a call for us “to be
reconciled, to overcome [the] alienations [in our lives].” He points out that the texts for Ash
Wednesday as a whole are “buoyant and hope-filled. Psalm 51, the most familiar
of all psalmic confessions,” he remarks, “does not grovel in guilt. [Despite the wretchedness of verse 6,] by
verse 10 it eagerly petitions for a new life and never doubts that God will
give it. The cluster of imperatives in [verses]10-12
anticipates God’s ready capacity for restoration and sustenance, and a new
heart and spirit—in short, a life fully in sync with God’s good purposes” (Walter
Brueggemann, Preaching the Word ,
Sojourners Online, 2/10/2016).
Brueggemann
concludes, “The placement of Ash Wednesday as a pivot between Epiphany and Lent
focuses our attention on reconciliation to God that empowers our reconciling
work in the world. A Lenten people [are] not to hunker down in remorse or in
self-preoccupation, but to approach the world where God has put us afresh, with
the transformative work of [the] ‘new fast’” (ibid) [called for by God in
Isaiah 58 which we just heard read – a new fast that proclaims] “the recovery
of neighborliness alongside the oppressed, the hungry, the naked, and the
homeless poor” (ibid).
The true prayer of
Ash Wednesday and Lent is for God to “Create in [us] a clean heart…and renew a
right spirit within [us],” to “open [our] lips…[that our mouths might proclaim
God’s praise],” and then to live as a people forgiven, welcomed, and beloved of
God – partners in reconciling the world for God.
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