A lot has been happening in my world which I will post about at a later time. For now, let's just stick to the transition into the Season of Lent. Too often, I have found that people (especially clergy) make this a season that is just dismal. After taking some time to read through Matthew's perennial Gospel lesson again, I think I figured out why everyone dreads this season so much.
It's not all the busyness that comes with it. Or that Holy Week and Easter put all those in the church, especially clergy, to the test of their physical limits.
It's the change.
Text: Matthew 6: 1-616-21
+++
As we’ve been approaching this Ash Wednesday… and the start of the
Holy Season of Lent… I’ve been pondering about this time… this season of “penitence
and fasting.”
“Penitence and fasting” doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun.
It’s almost like the Debbie Downer of our Liturgical Calendar.
Our joyful proclamations of the “A” word disappear from the worship
service.
The bright shiny silver paten and the chalices are replaced by
wooden ones.
And the sweet oil of the baptismal chrism becomes the burnt palms
of ash on our foreheads.
It’s as if the church really wants this day and this season to be
one lengthy time of depression, drudgery, and dreariness.
But that’s not what Lent is about.
In fact… if we pay close attention to our Gospel lesson from
Matthew… Jesus seems to be ribbing the dour and serious religiosity of the
self-proclaimed penitent fasters from fun.
Believe it or not… our beloved one is a funny guy.
Our Gospel reading from Matthew comes from a portion of the Sermon
on the Mount.
Yes…even in a sermon… humor is OK.
It’s especially OK here… because he’s just finished telling his
disciples…and us… that we are to love our enemies…and refrain from resentment
and anger.
This instruction is tough for most people to hear… especially a
people under the thumb of bullies and tyrants.
Jesus’ counter-cultural logic is not easy to absorb… even if it is
ultimately the path to right relationship with God.
So… perhaps to lift some of that heavy load… Jesus pokes fun at
those who take their practices of religion too seriously.
To rephrase his language a little bit… he’s saying to his
ragamuffin followers…
“You see those guys giving lots of money to this cause and that
charity and wanting a plaque with their name on it to show how much they’ve
given? Yeahhh….they got their reward!”
“Oh, and this group over here with their bullhorns screaming at
everyone to Repent or Die as if they’re the holier than thou?
Uh-huh, they’ve got their reward!”
“And doncha see how that person is fasting?
I mean look at how they’ve got such a dismal face and they’re
telling you how they haven’t eaten all day!
I mean, they’re so pathetic… even than the way your cat looks at
you from their food bowl.
Good for them! They’ve got they’re reward!”
The reward all of them have earned is attention… and the spotlight
on them.
They’re getting noticed! Whoo-hoo! Good for them!
But what happens when the bulb in the spotlight burns out?
Suddenly that reward starts to crumble and fall apart… because it
was tied to something fleeting… a show of piety that no longer gains the
applause.
They haven’t really changed. At all.
And that’s what Lent is about: it’s about a period of change.
The word itself means “Spring” as in the season of blooming flowers
and trees. We know it here as the “Yellow Season” when everything is coated in
pollen!
Seeds that had been underground and, in the dark, begin to come out
of the ground and into the light.
The days start to get progressively longer.
We can put away our jackets and pull out our sandals.
Spring means change is in the air.
And perhaps that’s why Lent can feel like such a daunting season.
Change means things won’t always be the way they were before.
Change means we can’t predict what’s going to happen next.
Change means we can’t be comfortable doing things in our lives like
we’ve always done them.
Change means we become different than we were before.
The late science fiction writer Octavia Butler called change “the
ongoing reality of the universe, an inescapable truth and the basic clay of our
lives.” She says that “in order to live constructive lives, we must learn to
shape change when we can, and yield to it when we must.”
We can’t stop change from happening.
But we can let it form us… and grow us… and teach us.
Lent can serve as a time…where we push aside the barriers we’ve
placed between us and God…and allow the Holy One to come closer to us and walk
with us through this time of change.
God is already present.
God is just waiting for us to step through the door to begin the
changes we need to make during this season.
This is the start of putting aside those behaviors… and thought-patterns
and habits that keep us trapped in our old selves.
Our old… smaller… ego-centric selves… which find ways to sabotage
our relationship to God… and keep us from seeing the Christ in ourselves as
well as other people.
Tonight is the time to do that spring clean-up and to change.
If change makes us anxious… sit with that anxiety… breathe into it
and know that in every breath… God is there.
Inhale the love… exhale the anxiety.
If change makes us afraid… sit with the fear. Even Jesus was
anxious in the Garden of Gethsemane knowing that there were authorities of Rome
out searching for him and to do him harm.
Again…
Inhale the love… exhale the anxiety.
Change is an inescapable truth…and it can lead us to greater
growth… more empowerment… and a chance to live more fully into tomorrow.
We need change.
Just one night of watching the evening news can show us that there
is a lot in this world that needs to change.
And it has to start with us.
The greater the change in us… the more we might change this world
into God’s dream rather than God’s perpetual nightmare.
May God lead us through these next forty days and grant us our
reward of a deeper…and truer relationship with God.
In the name of God… F/S/HS.
No comments:
Post a Comment