Ash Wednesday 2012

Isaiah 58
2 Corinthians 5:16-6:10

Fifteen years ago, I received an urgent call from one of our High School Students, saying that in her Global History Class they had been discussing the Protestant Reformation and when they got to Calvinist Presbyterians the class went crazy. As the Presbyterian Pastor in town could I come to class the next day to explain what Presbyterians believe and put their questions into perspective? Be careful anytime you invite the questions of others, not knowing their motivation or where the questions are leading! The following day I was prepared, as if back at Ordination Exams: describing Calvin's explanation of the Mystery of Communion, the Church's position on Homosexuality, the Priesthood of All Believers, the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, the Ordination of Women, as well as the historical development from Catholicism and rise of Luther with his 95 Theses, to King Henry VIII, to the Scots Confession and John Knox. What I was not prepared for, was the most basic question of faith: “Why are we sinners?” or more specifically “How come the church identifies us as sinners?” Strict Calvinist interpretations about dancing, drinking and card playing, did not help. They knew themselves, their parents, our community to be filled with honorable, decent, loving people, so why are they/we judged to be sinful?

I have a friend who is a Credit Counselor who describes one person who came to her with a three year stack of unopened Credit Card Bills. When the Counselor asked why the bills had not been opened, the person in debt responded “I didn't want to feel guilty. I thought it would make me a loser.”
A couple I had married a few months before, came to see me, looking extremely guilty. When I asked what had happened they described how wonderful their wedding had been, how supported they felt by the church, how happy their parents and friends were. And now as they were encountering a rocky patch in their marriage, they felt guilty for letting everyone else down by having trouble.

I have gotten old enough to realize that I have recurrent phrases, not so old that I am telling the same stories over and over, at least not that I remember, but one of the phrases I know I believe and share with others is that “As a pastor, I am not concerned with GUILT. Repentance, Redemption, Reconciliation, Absolutely, but Guilt only allows us to wallow in the past. We need help to change for the future.”

The season of Lent is a 40 day season of redemption, repentance and reconciliation in preparation for Easter, as the only pathway to the resurrection. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, begins with our sin.
All of the great philosophers of the Enlightenment begin with a premise, that either the world is inherently GOOD, or the world is inherently EVIL. In either case, those trying to explain human life and society have to deal with the reality that there is GOOD and there is EVIL. Sin, Evil, Guilt are real. In the Presbyterian Church we do not have a book of sins, listing what is and what is not, but rather anything which cause you to be broken from God, hiding from God and one another and yourself what you have done what you feel shame for, this is sin. We as human creatures, when given the choice of acting for our own interests and desires, or acting on behalf of unknown others, if given opportunity to get ahead by getting around the system, We Will. That there are forces and circumstances set up against us, I have known to be real. The question is not if there is evil, if we sin, or if we feel guilt, we do!

But what then will we do to repent, to be reconciled to one another and to God? I have seen many of you at the Y since the first of the year. For me it was not a New Year's resolution, not only a desire to lose a few pounds. As a Christmas present, my child wrote me a heartfelt letter, describing that several of his friends had lost their fathers in recent years, and that he had hopes for me in his future, so in addition or even eventually instead of medication why not work to lower my blood pressure and cholesterol? No I have not gotten to the point where I enjoy exercise, 'though oddly, I find myself actually craving vegetables. But I have made a routine of going 3 or 4 times a week. Which made me wonder, if we can adopt these new and different behaviors, even eating vegetables and exercising repeatedly during each week, why not a change regarding our relationship with the world, with ourselves, with God?

Several years ago, I recall studying the Book of Hosea, and realizing in addition to Hosea's relationship with his wife Gomer being a metaphor for God's relationship with Israel, Hosea taking responsibility for his spouse identifies the feelings and faith issues of any of when taking responsibility for someone else. The great difficulty of that action, is how do we seek reconciliation? How do we become partners again. In the Letter to the Corinthians, Paul has several important phrases, the first of which is “At An Acceptable Time.” In the moment it makes no sense, but at an acceptable time, a future time, we can begin again to learn to trust. Recently, my wife and I saw the film THE VOW, which if you have not seen it, I would encourage you to do so. The great heartache of the story, is that a couple who had fallen in love in a once in a lifetime love at first sight head-over-heels love affair, suddenly experience a car accident, where she loses all memory of him. And the question is now at a different time, and different circumstances can she, would she want to fall in love like that again, and how?

In Seminary, Presbyterian Pastors learn both Greek and Hebrew, not so we can impress our congregations with our poor pronunciations, but so we can help to interpret and apply what the Apostle Paul meant in 2nd Corinthians by including a compound verb that is both passive and imperative: katallagete meaning to allow yourselves to be reconciled to God, allow yourself to be forgiven. The problems of Good and Evil, of human sinfulness, are not something we ourselves could ever correct. We needed one who could atone for us, who could reconcile us to God. However, the first step, like the debtor coming to the Credit Counselor with their stack of bills, was admitting we are not perfect and we need to be repaired. Or like the couple recognizing that every day would not feel like their wedding day, and still they could grow in love... This is the first step, because by accepting the demand, that we permit ourselves to not be in charge,... by the imperative that we be passive for Christ to redeem us and reconcile us to God, we then claim a new relationship and new identity.

If anything, the letter to the Corinthians is about INTEGRITY. It is one thing to live honorably when life goes well, what Paul describes is continuing to live honorably, true and respected, when insulted, persecuted, dishonored, even when the world believes you are hopeless and dead. Years ago, we took a group of kids on a mission trip, to a remote town at the end of a railway spur in West Virginia. We had tried to go several different places, but many of the kids were too young for insurance policies. The parents of several were glad to have them go somewhere for a week so as to stay out of trouble. What once had been a small town living at subsistence, now only had those who were too poor to more away. On the hill overlooking what had been the town was an old Baptist Church with 12 members. Our task was to repaint the church inside and and out because the members could not do so for themselves. We found a local farmer had an unused scaffolding we could borrow. In the end, I think the kids got more paint on each other than on the walls, but the end result was fresh and clean and bright. Yet the most amazing thing, had been that day after day, people from the surrounding country-side would come to see what was going on at the church. On Sunday morning, the youth who had worked all week, cooked for themselves and bathed in the local creek, led worship. As I recall one played “Guns and Roses” which on Piano without words is actually quite pretty. They each had a role, as some had written prayers, others led singing, still others reflected on what it had meant to them to come to wash the windows and paint the walls of this lovely old white clapboard church. As Presbyterians we are unfamiliar with Altar Calls, it is a time in every worship service in many churches for people to come to the altar to be baptized and begin anew. That morning, this dead church, in a town at the end of an abandoned railway spur, because of the presence of a group of Presbyterian kids who had never gone on a mission trip before, grew from 12 to 36.

The point of this worship service is not so you can be seen having soot on your forehead, but that we would reflect upon the last year, and the last many years. What do we want to confess? What separations do we want to be forgiven?