Avoiding Mystery, Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Isaiah 58
Matthew 6
The Bulletin's description of this passage from Matthew, was limited by how many letters you can fit across a page, so instead of saying “Beware of Practicing Your Piety Before Others SO as To be Noticed” it read “Beware of Practicing Piety”, which actually is more like what we do. We are so afraid of being perceived to be different, of being thought to be overly zealous, that we AVOID MYSTERY, we refrain from practicing faith at all. We equate faith in God with Worship Sunday morning, ignoring that the Early Christian Church and the time of the Reformation also practiced Prayer and Bible Study, and Fasting and doing Mission, and Pilgrimages or the Walking of the Labyrinth, as equal to Worship.

Within our lifetimes, churches around the world have lost membership and decreased in worship attendance. Actually, our church, this church has increased in membership each year for the last 15, in spite of periodically cleaning roles; though our definitions of membership and our attendance patterns have decreased dramatically from the 1950s. In the 1950s Maime and Dwight Eisenhower were Presbyterians, who made a point every week of being seen going to worship at a Presbyterian Church, and wanting be like Ike, everyone went to Worship on Sunday morning. We as human beings tend to follow a herd mentality, that wherever is popular must be the best, rather than questioning and thinking for ourselves: What brings us joy? What fills us? Where are we needed?

Speaking with retired colleagues, they describe Sunday mornings when there was nothing else to do, and everyone went to church. In truth, I would rather be in this time, when people are in worship because they are concerned about their children, and their parents, and their spouse, and their marriage and their cancer, in short because our faith questions and fears are real, not because church is popular.

I would also confess to a certain joy and challenge of serving this congregation, for we do have members who were the inventors of CocoaPuffs, and Underoo Training Pants with Superheroes, who were responsible for making the ethical decision to pull Tylenol from the shelves when it was discovered there had been tampering (that for thirty years became the standard for businesses making moral and ethical decisions), we do have the grandchildren of the Neibuhrs, and of Karl Barth. Barth in the 1920s wrote the dogmatics of what we as Christians believe. Among these was a phrase he enjoyed using that our Theology (our faith in What we believe) is our Prayers, and our Prayers are our Theology.

We live in a world of soundbytes, as if it is assumed we cannot remember ideas, we cannot follow an argument, we only recall phrases taken out of context, which is why commercials bombard us with the same words over and over. “It's HUGE!”, “Mmm Good”, “Just Do It”, “The Real Thing”, “This is Jeopardy”.
We recall each separate phrase of the Lord's Prayer individually, rather than hearing the whole, within the context of the Gospel. Luke's Gospel and Matthew's report the setting of the Lord's Prayer differently. Not the distinction between Debts and Trespasses, not whether to end Forever or Forever and ever, but the setting.

Luke was preaching to first generation non-believer Gentiles who had become Christian converts, and the Lord's Prayer comes in response to the disciples asking Jesus How to Pray? We know how to fish, we know how to cook, in order to believe in God teach us to pray.
Matthew's Gospel is different. Matthew was preaching to those who like the first Disciples had been Jewish, those like ourselves who were trying to figure out what it meant not simply to be born in a culture that claims to believe, but personally, sincerely to believe.

LENT is an experiment for us. For less than two months to try something different. Not to go through the motions of each day, following routine of what is expected, but intentionally choosing each day to do something because of your faith.
Last evening for many of us, gave us a challenge: What would it be to live a day without electricity? What would it be for a day, to fast, that is avoiding all food, so that when we eat we do so because we want and desire, rather than out of the routine of the clock.
What would it be for a day to stop and pray seven times throughout the day, not to be distracted, not to be listening to music, but to pray naming to ourselves and God what is important, what we need, what we fear, what are our temptations, what are we thankful for having in our lives.
Rather than seeing how long you can go without food, or without chocolate, or creating a resolution for the new year, each and every day resolve to live faithfully, resolve to live differently.
Go for a walk in the woods in the snow.
Walk out on the Lake, realizing you are able to walk on water.
Instead of avoiding the Mystery, instead of Being wary of Practicing Piety, intentionally acting in Faith, but not so others will see, do it because it matters to you.

While we each do, consider these three questions:
What is there in what I do that brings Joy, to myself or to others?

Does it Fill us and Feed our soul, or does it simply satisfy for the moment, occupy time, or even suck the joy from others?

Where Are we Needed? Years ago, I remember listening to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Catholic Bishop Rembert Weakland, as they described where we are needed. They described, trying to help others to fulfill their calling, trying to work in partnership to include others, but when no one else is willing, when there is a Calling that must be done, realize you are needed and do it.