![Picture](/uploads/5/3/1/4/53145165/published/ashes.jpg?1552921263)
Peter J B Carman
March 6, 2019
GOD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
~Isaiah 58:11-12
We all bring different baggage to the journey of Lent. In a healthy spirit of renunciation, I suggest we confess the baggage! Give it to God and move on! To set a good example, let me make a small confession. About attitude. Religious attitude.
As someone from the “free church” tradition, my childhood was laced with a generous unhealthy dose of suspicion about Lent. It wasn’t a season we observed in my family, at all. And…there was our protestant fear of anything resembling penance! My parents aren't to blame, but I picked it up someplace. I had a bad attitude toward Lent.
That attitude has changed, improved over the years, thanks to friendships with seminarians, a few extraordinary priests, monks, nuns, and praise God, a year or two living with the Roman Catholic laity, in a Catholic Worker House.
Tonight, I publicly renounce my earlier seasonal prejudice! I get it that Lenten disciplines are not about personal justification or even purity! The journey of Lent is about what some call sanctification, what Kierkegaard might have called Training in Christianity. I call it being intentional about being disciples. These days I look forward to Lent! It’s a good time to relearn down-to-earth simplicity; get real about priorities; focus on what it means to be a companion of Christ in an often-merciless world.
The book of Isaiah reminds us that the highest purpose of any season of penitence is to become just and more merciful, offer hospitality to the stranger, and be in solidarity with the most vulnerable. Writes the prophet (chapter 58)… 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?
This teaching is at the heart of the message of Jesus. Faith isn’t about “getting saved” personally. It is about living into a new and very earthly reality that God wants for all of us.
On Ash Wednesday we begin the journey again, remembering from whence we come and to whom we return. On Ash Wednesday we tune in to simplicity again: unity of prayer and action; matching our intentions with real results; singleness of means and ends—the ends do not justify any old means! The Beloved Community, the central message of Jesus, tells us how to live right now.
Simplicity isn’t easy. Pete Seeger said once: “Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.” To make even one life simple is not easy. That’s why we need Lent—a good solid communal reminder to get with the program, the simplicity program.
One reason to simplify our lives is because we have limited time, of uncertain measure—from dust we come and to dust…. We need to pick out the few things that really matter! But there is another reason to simplify our lives.
We need less baggage, need to travel lighter, the better to live the justice and love of Christ. We need to keep it simple: live what we proclaim, in the little things as much as the big ones. Hear Isaiah again: If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
In the tradition of the prophets, Jesus calls us to simplicity in prayer. Jesus invites us to turn prayers into action and action into prayer, lives centered in love. Love from and toward God! Love for our neighbors. And yes—the one we keep forgetting to preach—Love for our selves.
Tonight, let’s open our hearts and minds to start over. Let’s embrace our mortal life as a swift fragile lovely gift. Let’s strive for simpler, clearer lives-- embrace each other, embrace our neighbors—even our enemies—and live the same truth we speak of. As we come forward for ashes, we enter a forty-day journey that is joyfully serious, and seriously joyful. Let’s seek out simplicity that is joyful; fasting that unfastens the yoke, snaps the shackles and melts the bars.
May this Ash Wednesday be a first step on the next stage of a lovely pilgrimage of discovery. We are children of the dust, for all of us are mortal. And we are children of the wind—the holy wind of God.
March 6, 2019
GOD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
~Isaiah 58:11-12
We all bring different baggage to the journey of Lent. In a healthy spirit of renunciation, I suggest we confess the baggage! Give it to God and move on! To set a good example, let me make a small confession. About attitude. Religious attitude.
As someone from the “free church” tradition, my childhood was laced with a generous unhealthy dose of suspicion about Lent. It wasn’t a season we observed in my family, at all. And…there was our protestant fear of anything resembling penance! My parents aren't to blame, but I picked it up someplace. I had a bad attitude toward Lent.
That attitude has changed, improved over the years, thanks to friendships with seminarians, a few extraordinary priests, monks, nuns, and praise God, a year or two living with the Roman Catholic laity, in a Catholic Worker House.
Tonight, I publicly renounce my earlier seasonal prejudice! I get it that Lenten disciplines are not about personal justification or even purity! The journey of Lent is about what some call sanctification, what Kierkegaard might have called Training in Christianity. I call it being intentional about being disciples. These days I look forward to Lent! It’s a good time to relearn down-to-earth simplicity; get real about priorities; focus on what it means to be a companion of Christ in an often-merciless world.
The book of Isaiah reminds us that the highest purpose of any season of penitence is to become just and more merciful, offer hospitality to the stranger, and be in solidarity with the most vulnerable. Writes the prophet (chapter 58)… 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?
This teaching is at the heart of the message of Jesus. Faith isn’t about “getting saved” personally. It is about living into a new and very earthly reality that God wants for all of us.
On Ash Wednesday we begin the journey again, remembering from whence we come and to whom we return. On Ash Wednesday we tune in to simplicity again: unity of prayer and action; matching our intentions with real results; singleness of means and ends—the ends do not justify any old means! The Beloved Community, the central message of Jesus, tells us how to live right now.
Simplicity isn’t easy. Pete Seeger said once: “Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.” To make even one life simple is not easy. That’s why we need Lent—a good solid communal reminder to get with the program, the simplicity program.
One reason to simplify our lives is because we have limited time, of uncertain measure—from dust we come and to dust…. We need to pick out the few things that really matter! But there is another reason to simplify our lives.
We need less baggage, need to travel lighter, the better to live the justice and love of Christ. We need to keep it simple: live what we proclaim, in the little things as much as the big ones. Hear Isaiah again: If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
In the tradition of the prophets, Jesus calls us to simplicity in prayer. Jesus invites us to turn prayers into action and action into prayer, lives centered in love. Love from and toward God! Love for our neighbors. And yes—the one we keep forgetting to preach—Love for our selves.
Tonight, let’s open our hearts and minds to start over. Let’s embrace our mortal life as a swift fragile lovely gift. Let’s strive for simpler, clearer lives-- embrace each other, embrace our neighbors—even our enemies—and live the same truth we speak of. As we come forward for ashes, we enter a forty-day journey that is joyfully serious, and seriously joyful. Let’s seek out simplicity that is joyful; fasting that unfastens the yoke, snaps the shackles and melts the bars.
May this Ash Wednesday be a first step on the next stage of a lovely pilgrimage of discovery. We are children of the dust, for all of us are mortal. And we are children of the wind—the holy wind of God.