Ash Wednesday: a love feast

Ash Wednesday 2018

    For weeks now, my colleagues and I have been joking around on facebook about Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day this year.  There have been all sorts of odd Valentine’s with pictures of ash crosses, as well as pictures of Ashes in the shape of hearts.  I promise, that will not happen today.

    All of this got me thinking about what I wanted to say about Ash Wednesday this year, and I decided, that I wanted to speak of today as a feast of love… the kind of love that exists between the God of mercy and God’s people who are always in need of mercy.

    It is good for us to remember this day as we enter this holy season, to remember who we are.  We are mortal, sinful, frail people, who are always in need of God’s grace and love; it’s important for us to remember that because when we look around us, the world would have us believe that if we work hard and can pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, all will be well.  And, sometimes it is; but the difference between the world around us and God’s kingdom, is that our own efforts do not necessarily mean that things are well, or that we are somehow better than others; in God’s kingdom, our own efforts do not mean that God loves us more; in God’s kingdom, all are loved equally regardless of their position and status in society.  In God’s kingdom, we are all broken, we are all vulnerable, we are all sinful, and we are all in need of mercy.

    But here’s where I think the love comes in - As we acknowledge our sinfulness and our vulnerabilities, what we do today reminds us that God loves us and will continue to do so, no matter what we get ourselves into.  What we do today reminds us that God’s love, God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness are always offered to us, even when we think we don’t deserve them… because we don’t deserve them; God gives us these things because God loves us and because God can; you and I are created in God’s image, which is love, and mercy and forgiveness.  As difficult as it is to hear the words I will say to you tonight, ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”, what we do today reminds us that Jesus doesn’t leave us to be afraid or alone.  Returning to the dust, is returning to the earth that God has brought into creation in love; and we shall return to it… but, we know that our death is not the end of the story; Easter joy reaches back towards us, even today to proclaim that Jesus is Risen from the dead and that death can never have the last word… even today, as we contemplate our own mortality and the difficulties that we have, God’s love will be victorious… even today…  Today, we acknowledge our sinfulness and even our death, not to feel bad or to feel hopeless; rather, when we acknowledge who we are in the face of our God, we are filled with the hope and joy that only reconcilliation to God can bring… and it is brought to us through the life of Jesus.

    But we don’t just stand by idle, either, waiting for something to happen.  I think, before we can fast and pray during this holy season, we have to contemplate our own vulnerability because that’s where our relationship with God is at its strongest.   For myself, I will say that I love me some Jesus, and I am certain that my relationship with him is not only life giving, but life saving; but I have to tell you, that vulnerability is not my favorite thing; I have had to come to terms with my own mortality and frailty more often than I care to think of in the last while; having an autoimmune disorder that some days limits my abilities, and that could shorten my life, is not something I am fond of thinking about; but I do know this; that I never have to face those fears alone:  Jesus knows… Jesus has been vulnerable and afraid, and because he has, you and I do not need to fear, because fear and death do not have the last word; but rather, they can be powerful motivators for mission and ministry.  What kind of sacrifice is God asking you to engage in over these 40 Days?  Giving up our favorite food or beverage is a good thing; for myself, I am pretty sure that my family doesn’t need me to give up coffee; it’s just not a sacrifice that they need to make; but, maybe, Jesus is asking each us to go further; maybe, we are all asked to participate in a different kind of fast this year; a fast that takes place in the heart, that one cannot necessarily feel… our lesson from Isaiah says it well:  

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

And that, beloved, is how we participate in this feast of Love on this Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s day mashup.  We fast in our hearts, by doing the holy work that God has given us all to do; When we hear others cry for help, we respond by helping; we share our food, our clothing and our resources so that none of God’s beloved shall go hungry; we cut out the busyness of our lives so that we might give time to real relationships with those God has put in our paths; and we love, we forgive, we show mercy, we become peacemakers… it is the best kind of fast, and perhaps the hardest, because we are called to notice and to act, so that perhaps others might be less vulnerable.

Today we are reminded that we are dust; but it is out of dust that God has created God’s most beloved of all.  We are reminded of our vulnerability and death; but we are also to remember that our most holy relationships are borne from our vulnerability, and today, as in all days, death shall not have the last word.  

I want to leave you with a prayer from a Franciscan Friar, Padre Pio, that speaks of the deep love that God has for each of us, and our never ending desire for that love:

“Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have you present so that I do not forget you. You know how easily I abandon you. Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak, and I need your strength, so that I may not fall so often. Stay with me, Lord, for you are my life, and without you, I am without fervor. Stay with me, Lord, for you are my light, and without you, I am in darkness. Stay with me, Lord, to show me your will. Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear your voice and follow you. Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love you very much, and always be in your company. Stay with me, Lord, if you wish me to be faithful to you. Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for you, a nest of love. Amen.” ~ St. Pio of Pietrelcina

Peter's temptation

2 Lent Year B

February 25, 2018

    I sometimes get asked if I am ever tempted to drink alcohol after all this time.  It’s been a little over 29 years since I got sober, and I can truthfully say, that yes, every once in  awhile, the temptation is real.  It becomes real when I don’t want to deal with whatever it is that I am having to deal with. I imagine that most of us can relate to that, right?  Sometimes meeting life head on is not nearly as fun as it sounds… adulting, some days is beyond difficult.  There are days when I think that the whole becoming an adult thing is WAY overrated, and nothing more than a trap.  At least that’s what I tell my teenager.  Alcohol used to be the way I avoided parts of my life… fortunately, I have gotten better at dealing with what life throws at me; I don’t think God gives me more than I can handle either; I just think that God gives me what I need to handle what’s in front of me.  It’s a lot more effective than being drunk all the time.  

When I thought about today’s gospel reading, I thought that maybe since last week we heard about Jesus’ temptations in the desert, that maybe this week’s story should be called “Peter’s temptation”.   As soon as Jesus starts talking about the future and how difficult it’s going to be, Peter starts to back peddle.  He can’t seem to deal with what Jesus is saying to him and to the others.  It’s too hard.  But here’s another interesting piece I hadn’t noticed before… Jesus rebukes Peter, just as Peter has just done to Jesus… they are both harshly disapproving of each other’s actions and words; but here’s what I find interesting as well… Jesus, having just been in the desert tempted by Satan, calls Peter out, and calls him Satan.   As I thought about that, I thought that perhaps that’s no accident.  I actually thought that as Jesus said this to Peter, there must have been some real pain in the rebuke for him; Peter’s temptation to put  aside the horrible future that awaited Jesus must’ve have been at least a little tempting to Jesus.  Calling Peter Satan brings the time in the desert into the present; all of the hunger, fear, exhaustion… and he knew that that was only a taste of what was waiting for him at the hands of the empire.  How incredibly painful it must’ve been to realize that even though he brought a message of love, that there would be those who couldn’t accept it; that profit was worth more to them than the perfect love that God was offering.  It seems to me, that in this exchange with Peter, Jesus is feeling the weight of what is in front of him, and that maybe he once again was tempted to just run away from it all.  Who could blame him?  If he is fully human as we are, then running away from his responsibilities must have been attractive at least some of the time.  I think what was so difficult for me reading it this time, was the pain and anger I imagine that he felt.  I can almost hear him saying, “Peter, grow up.  Can’t you see what’s at stake here?  This isn’t about you… it’s about all of us.”  So maybe today’s lesson is the temptation of Jesus, part 2...

It is about all of us… Peter, James, John, Judas… and you and me.  It’s about Jesus showing us how to say no to the things that tempt all of us… and I don’t mean that extra helping of chocolate cake… I mean the big things, the things that are soul crushing and spirit killing.  Those things make us less human, less loving, less like the God in whose image we are created in.  Gaining the whole world, gaining profit and fame and status is nothing but a path to self destruction if we don’t have Jesus as the center of all that we do.    There are those other things that others may not see that are just as spirit killing, things that we cannot bring ourselves to give up… addiction, unresolved anger, self centeredness, abusive behavior…. I’m sure there are others… these are every bit as dangerous as the greed that Satan tried to get Jesus to succumb to in the desert.  All of these kinds of things keep us separated from God and from each other, because it places the material world and our own perceived needs in place of God; these behaviors keep us focused on the world of the empire, rather than the kingdom of God.  They are death dealing rather than life giving… God came to earth in the person of Jesus so that we might give up all of the death dealing behaviors of our lives and instead gain back our lives and truly learn how to live….

As we continue this journey through Lent, I encourage all of us to see how the things we have given up or taken on are helping us to gain our lives; how are the temptations to go back to our pre-Lenten behaviors helping us to see what we truly need in our lives?  Are we growing closer to Jesus, even though his way is difficult?  

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.