The Day of the Lord is Coming

Isaiah 58
Mathew 6
Increasingly as Presbyterian Christians we are adopting religious traditions that are unfamiliar. Growing up in the church, we celebrated Lent by gathering on Wednesdays for Potluck suppers, with a sing along or the showing of a movie; as a Preacher's kid, I can recite all seventeen verses of She'll be comin round the mountain when she comes; however since the Reformation we had not celebrated Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or Pascal Saturday with worship, as these were considered Catholic. It seemed enough that we worshipped on Sunday mornings and had communion four times a year. No one ever questioned that on Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem and people shouted Hosanna; and the following Sunday on Easter he rose from the dead. Tonight we blow a Kosher Shofar, we burn palms, we impose ashes and share communion.

And suitably, the Old Testament passage from Isaiah describes if you are doing religious traditions just for the sake of it being religious, what is the point! Faith must have integrity! So when a couple marry, we have them take one another's hand and look at it, recognizing the trust our partner places in us by placing their lives in our hands... when a child or new believer is baptized, the point is not only a symbolic washing away of sin but also a physical claiming and naming of our commitment as the community of faith... And when we die, it is not a time for weeping and mourning, so much as lifting up their memory, sifting through a lifetime for what matters and what does not. I recall a Memorial several years ago, where one pall bearer said to another on the way down the aisle “He didn't even mention that fact that the deceased spent time in prison for killing his partner”, because that is not what we want to lift up before God for all eternity.

The Book of Leviticus, is one of the first five books of the Old Testament, identified as the Torah, or Books of Law. According to Leviticus, for six days of every week people do what people need to do for themselves... work at a job, cook a meal, pick up their toys, go to a Lacrosse match, or SU game. But the seventh day is intended for us to re-prioritize our lives to God. So also after every six weeks and every six months and after every six years, and after seven sets of seven years. The point as described in both Isaiah and Matthew is not to make people suffer. The point is not to make Sunday a Sabbath, because historically the Sabbath was Friday at Sundown to Saturday at Sundown, and we have celebrated worship on Sunday mornings instead as the beginning of something new with God. The point is that we intentionally make time in our lives, for re-prioritizing. The Book of Leviticus and the Prophet Isaiah each describe that we begin this season with the blowing of a kosher horn, a shofar. It is a mournful sound, to call us to a time of REFLECTIVE ATONEMENT.

Recently a great deal has been said by our leadership of how we have entered into wars without a plan for ending; that we have bought and mortgaged more and more without a plan for ever paying off; we lived as if the day would never come but finally NOW IS THE TIME. The point of a Lenten Season is not a time for Suffering, 40 Days for doing without Chocolate, 40 nights of dieting. That is what Jesus warned against, as being self-serving. The point of Lent is for us to enter into a period of reflection, to confess what it is that matters to us, to confess our faith in God, to confess and correct what is wrong in life, to be assured of the Love of God, and to be prepared for the coming of the Day of the Lord.

Some believe the day of the Lord is a Day of Glory when everything and everyone comes together in joy. Some believe the Day of the Lord will be a Day of Suffering. Perhaps it is both, depending on who we are. The question of knowing the Day of the Lord is Coming, and has been for over 2000 years is whether we do anything to prepare.

At Christmas someone gave me a book, Our Iceberg is Melting, describing a colony of penguins who have lived on an immense iceberg for thousands of years. Yet one penguin notices, that the iceberg is melting and refreezing, which if you have watched the iceberg on our lake, you realize causes cracks and instability, until one day everything sinks. As the story goes, the one who recognizes the problems seeks out the woman who gets things done, she forms a committee to investigate and create awareness. Among their committee they make certain is Buddy whom everyone trusts; The Professor who understands problems, the Executive who is the official power, and NONO who is always the first to say NONO. What you realize reading the book is that whatever we are part of, be it a church or village, or business, or colony of penguins, especially when the concern is long range and threatening, like the Coming of the Day of the Lord, there are always going to be the Buddys and the Professors, the Woman who Gets it done and the Executive who is Official Power, and of course the one who says NONO. We probably have them here.

I would confess to you, a people in whom I place great trust. I am a fixer. When I see a problem, my immediate response is to try to make corrections, to fix and to repair. But, there are times, when the point is not to fix too quickly. When the toilet is flooding or the lightbulb burned out, of course we need to step in and respond, when someone is in the hospital or in need; but there are times when if we step in too quickly we do not allow the circumstance time and space to confess, to grow, to heal.

This night, we burned the palms of a year ago at Palm Sunday, and we mark one another's forehead with the sign of the cross in ashes. We do so, not because it is a religious thing to do, and before you go to bed you wash it off! But rather to name and claim that it terms of our priority as the center of our world, and our being an integral element of God's Creation, we are ASH like the dust and dirt of the earth, we are Water like the waters of Chaos and our Baptism, and we are Spirit, filled with the Breath of God. We celebrate Communion, not with fancy sounding words, but simply claiming that this is Christ's body and blood. As we have wounded one another, as we have broken trust to do what we desire, we have done so to God. Yet God does not leave us there. Whenever we are ready to receive, truly ready, he has already offered a new covenant for us sealed in Christ's own life.