February 18, 2015
Sermon at Christ Church, Exeter
The invitation that follows the Sermon on Ash Wednesday lays
out the history and purpose of this season that ends with Holy Week and Easter.
I recall my favorite line from the C.S. Lewis Narnia series:
When it was always winter, and never Christmas. Winter has a grip on us, yet it
will give way to spring.
The Epistles of late have been the focus of my recent sermon reflections. I have been drawn to Paul’s words to a community in Corinth that is wrestling with a whole host of issues. Power, authority, ritual cleanliness.
The passage from 2 Corinthians is read today on Ash
Wednesday, this day to begin the Lenten season with the imposition as ashes and
the reminder of our mortality. “Remember
that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” are perhaps the most haunting,
challenging and honest words we hear in the course of coming to the altar rail
week upon week. It is God’s way of
saying to us: know your roots, your beginnings because in time we all end up
from the same created moment. Scientists
might tell us that we are collection of carbon molecules and other properties. God simply reminds us that we are God’s
making and imagining.
A few sentences stand out for me in the passage to today,
beginning with:
Chapter 5: v. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is
making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled
to God.
Reconciliation means a whole lot of the things to different people. It is the goal after the hard work of truth telling, naming the pain caused by another or by our own actions, and the granting and receiving of forgiveness. Over the past month a number of us have been reading and talking about Archbishop Tutu’s The Book of Forgiveness that he co-wrote with his daughter. From the moment we learn the Lord’s Prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, we know that forgiveness is high up on the Jesus agenda. What Tutu suggests is that we need a manual or a primer on how to forgive another person, receive it ourselves, re-establish relationships and perhaps most important, learn how and why it is so essential to forgive one’s self.
Reconciliation is a central theme for Lent. It fits in
nicely into the wilderness time frame: Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness
facing temptation and 40 days of Lent (not including Sundays which are feast
days) for us to look at our world, our relationships, our inner lives and the
desires of our hearts. This time of
intentional soul-searching and reflection should prompt the questions: with
whom do I need to be reconciled? Where are the wounds and holes in our lives
that will not be healed or filled until the inner hard work of forgiveness is tackled?
Yet as important as the relationship around us matter – loved ones, friends, colleagues – we should see them in the light of a larger relationship.
Our path to reconciliation is not simply to will it.
For Christians, it begins with understanding how Christ
makes it happen.
Christ reconciles us to God.
2 Corinthians 5:19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling
the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and
entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
Yet Paul offers us these contrasting images:
6: 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in
every way: v. 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we
are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making
many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
As created piles of holy dust, each one us are more than we will ever know. We are certainly more complex, layered, flawed, and contradictory than we project outward.
Much ink has spilled with commentary on the fall from grace
of Brian Williams at NBC news. Accused
of stretching or bending the truth, not an easy thing to overcome in the news
business. The judgment has been
fierce.
The whole drama reminded me of what I have heard described as
“Pretender or Impostor syndrome.”
When people ask themselves: do I really know what I’m doing? When will people find out?
This is especially true when someone starts a new job, gets
a promotion or is given more responsibilities.
Even is one is a fairly confident person, self-doubt pours in.
We must be fooling people, right?
I believe Paul speaks to this: We are treated as impostors, and yet are
true; as unknown, and yet are well known.
So here is my suggestion for today: Ash Wednesday and the
beginning of another Lent.
If we ever, even for a moment, feel like we are fooling others
or our ourselves -- how strong we are, how good, unafraid or certain, how
faithful, loyal we are… this yearly
reminder of our mortality reminds us, reassures us, we are human. We are but
dust.
In our mortality, imperfection, complexity, we become ambassadors for Christ. And Lent begins...
No comments:
Post a Comment