Lent for All of Us

 Sunday was the first Sunday of Lent.  Lent is not something that you will find in the bible.  There is no Lenten observance in the bible.  It was not and is not part of the Jewish religion, so it was not something that Jesus observed or even the first Christians who were all Jews. It is one of the seasons in the church year like Advent or Pentecost or Christmas or Easter.  Advent and Lent are similar in that they are times of preparation.  Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas and in the same way Lent is preparation for Easter. 

Lent began last Wednesday, and we marked it with the Ash Wednesday observances.  If you were at the Ash Wednesday service here or other places you would have received a cross in ashes on your forehead.  The ashes were produced by burning the palm crosses from last Easter. 

When the priest marks you with the cross, he or she states, ‘remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.’  It is a reminder that we are mortal and our time on earth is limited.  We must consider how we use that time.  We know that we do not always live the life God intends for us.  That is one way of looking at sin.  We sin when we separate ourselves from God and do not live God intends us to live. 

So, we are now in a time of preparation for Easter.   We have forty days in total to reflect on our lives, to repent those things that keep us from being in relationship with God.  We do this in two ways.  First we acknowledge that we have done things we should not have done and commit to not do them.  Second, we acknowledge those things we have not done that we should have done and commit to doing them.  We know that being human and imperfect we will not succeed all the time but we have the intention of making the effort to do just that.  Often in Lent we focus on giving up something as a sacrifice.  We will forego something that we desire as a way of following God.  We can give up a favourite food or some activity we enjoy as a symbol of our need to change our lives.  You could call this the way of negation.  You can also take the way of affirmation by doing something that you have not been doing previously.  This could be contributing time, energy, and financial resources assist those in need. 

Lent is, in its essence, a Christian practice.  However, it can be helpful for non-Christians.  Here is a quote from a Christian source, Anne Germond, the acting Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, which can be applied to everyone’s life in this time:

But what if we thought of Lent as a God-given time of disruption the normal flow of our lives, inviting us to re-examine them, laying bare and shining the spotlight on all that is wrong – the pathological unease or “disease” in our world?  In the context of global warming, greed, violence abroad and at home, and of our inability to seek peace with our neighbours…

 

I found the following on the internet which addresses both ways – giving up things i.e. fasting and doing something new i.e. feasting or feeding our souls:

Fast from fear; Feast on Faith
Fast from despair; Feed on hope.
Fast from depressing news; Feed on prayer.
Fast from discontent; Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger and worry; Feed on patience.
Fast from negative thinking; Feast on positive thinking.
Fast from bitterness; Feed on love and forgiveness.
Fast from words that wound; Feast on words that heal.
Fast from gravity; Feast on joy and humour.

May we all find ways to fast and feast in this season of Lent. 

There’s No Fool Like and Old Fool

 Sunday, I preached at the Nairn Mennonite Church on the subject, From Scarcity to Abundance.  Here is an excerpt of that sermon which deals with being an old fool as I now qualify in both my age and my status as an April Fool. 

Let’s take a trip – let’s get into the way back machine to channel an old cartoon -- and go back – not far - just a few days.  Friday was April 1^st – April Fools’ Day.  I will tell you something about myself.  I am an April Fool.  I was born on April 1^st, 1949.  I have secretly – or not so secretly - enjoyed being an April Fool.  The day of my birth is significant in Canadian history – or almost was.  It is a little-known fact that NFLD was going to join Confederation on my birthday – April 1, 1949. 

But then Joey Smallwood – who led the country of NFLD into Confederation and became its first premier, realized that NFLD would become a perpetual April Fool’s joke and moved the day back to March 31^st. 

Now you might be asking what this has to do with today’s subject of scarcity and abundance.  Well, don’t worry I will get to that.  Because of my birthright of being and April Fool, I have always been fascinated with the concept of the fool.  Being a fool or foolish has generally had a bad reputation.  There is the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.  The foolish ones did not have oil in their lamps when the bridegroom arrived and missed out while they were away buying oil.  However, there is another way of looking at a fool.  One of my favourite bible passages is 1 Corinthians 4:10, “We are fools for the sake of Christ.”  I actually have a blog with the title, Another Fool for Christ.  The full passage gives a more complete picture of what Paul is saying:

We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

To be followers of Jesus we are going to do things that are foolish in the sight of the world.  We are going to live in ways that are counter intuitive – we are going to bless those that revile us, we are going to speak kindly to those who slander us.  We are in effect going to love our neighbours and even our enemies.

Richard Rohr wrote about this way of being recently:

For Paul, the code words for nondual thinking, or true wisdom, are “foolishness” and “folly.” He says, in effect, “My thinking is foolishness to you, isn’t it?” Admittedly, it does not make sense unless we have confronted the mystery of the cross. Suffering, the “folly of the cross,” breaks down the dualistic mind. Why? Because on the cross, God took the worst thing, the killing of the God-human, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world. The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus “saved by the cross”! Does that now make ultimate sense?

The fool is someone who can give us a different perspective on the world. The fool is the one who is going to show us the world as the way it should be.  The fool is the one who will tell us the truth.  In ancient times the king’s court had a fool who would tell the king the truth.  He would whisper in the king’s ear – figuratively - that he was mortal and would one day meet his maker. 

He has a secular version of Ash Wednesday – remember you are dust and dust you shall return.  In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the fool was the only wise man left with King Lear on the heath.  Carl Jung identified the archetype of the Fool who Jung describes as being a “potential future,” meaning that, through various attempts and failures, the Fool gains experience. As the Fool gains experience, he builds his character and eventually develops into the archetype of the Sage or Savior.

So, what can the fool or the Fool bring to our understanding of scarcity and abundance?   The fool is the one who speaks the truth.  So. What is the truth about abundance and scarcity.  Let me explore another part of psychology to see the truth of this.  The ego is that part of us that enables us to get on in the world.  It is the I that is who we are in the world for better or worse.  I consider the ego to be the greatest gift of God but it is also the greatest curse or perhaps challenge would be a better way of putting it.  The ego wants to be in charge, to be in control – the great danger to the ego is change.  It believes that if it has possession, material things that make it feel in control, then more possession are even better.  One of the symbols of the ego is the dragon who sits at the mouth of its cave and hoards its wealth – the precious jewels it has acquired by hook or by crook throughout its life.  It will breathe fire and burn up anything that threatens to take any of its wealth.  The ego is the basis for the prosperity Gospel which believes if you are successful in terms of money and material goods and power it is a sign God is on your side or God is pleased with you.  The Fool on the other hand can show us a different truth – the truth of being a Fool for Christ.

May you have the blessing of the Fool on your journey.   

 

Sermon Ash Wednesday 2014: Rend Your Heart Not Your Clothes

Lent – repent - it even rhymes.  That is usually what we think of - when we happen to think about Lent. Well perhaps not repenting but of giving up something for Lent.  The idea being that we must give up - sacrifice something that we enjoy to observe a Holy Lent.  It doesn’t mean much if we give up something that we don’t enjoy anyway does it.

 

There is value in giving up something.  It focuses us on the important things in life that are not connected with the pleasures of life.  It focuses on the spiritual things.  Aren’t the spiritual things supposed to be serious and sombre and .. well… not really very much fun? 

 

If that is true, what kind of a God is it that would create in us the capacity for joy and happiness and then tell us – no you cannot enjoy life.  You must sacrifice and give up and lead a completely boring life.

I believe that is what Joel was getting at in the OT readings.  As noted by a Roman Catholic Theologian I discovered on-line, the scripture for the opening of Lent, Joel 2:12-18, takes us back to a time of great danger in Israel. The land has been ravaged by locusts, the crops are failing. The very life of the population is in question. The prophet Joel, convinced that the people have brought the disaster upon themselves by virtue of their unfaithfulness, summons the House of Israel to repent its ways. But, interestingly enough, he does not call them to attend penance services in the synagogue. He does not require them to make animal sacrifices in the temple. He does not talk about public displays of remorse, the time-honored tearing of garments to demonstrate grief. No, Joel says instead, "Rend your hearts and not your clothing."

Lent – and particularly Ash Wednesday - is a call to weep for what we could have been and are not. Lent is the grace to grieve for what we should have done and did not do. Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not. Lent is not about penance. Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now.

I believe that what we need to look at in Lent - what we need to observe a Holy Lent is to seek and see – to identify those things which separate us from the love of God.  Another way of saying that is to see what is sinful.  That can take the form of denial – giving up something that takes our attention and energy and attraction away from God – something that encourages us to believe that the material things in life are the most important. 

However, even more it is to rend your heart - finding that place in your heart where that connection to God is most clear and is most precious.  It is to begin to peel away those things – one at a time – that separate us for the love of God.  It is to find those things that we truly cherish about ourselves and others – those things that God has created in us that are most precious and that connect us most clearly and dearly to God.  Find those things and strengthen them – cherish them.  And observe a holy Lent.

We Are Dust and to Dust We Shall Return

I have just returned after being in Toronto for a week. Lorna is still there with her mother who broke her leg at the hip and had it operated on but is not doing very well at present. While we were with her in hospital the frailty of human life was very evident. One of the many thoughts that came to mind was a poem ‘The Deacon’s One Horse Shay’ which I heard when I was in school. Although I had heard it only once and my memory of when exactly I heard it – I think I was in grade five of six but I wouldn’t swear to it – it stuck in my memory. You may not be familiar with it – Lorna wasn’t – so here is a synopsis of the plot. The deacon believes that things wear out because of a weakness in one of the components. This weakness – the fatal flaw - leads to strain on other part and causes it to break down. The deacon decides to deal with this by building every part of a shay (carriage) using the finest of materials for every component. He does this and his theory seems to be born out as time passes and there is no sign of aging. This goes on until the century mark when the riding along the deacon finds himself on the ground with nothing but a mound of dust around him. Looking it up on the internet I find that it was written by none other than Oliver Wendell Homes.

It made an impression on me at the time and I remember it after all these years. As I age and see what the ravages of time can do to people I wonder why God didn’t make people – his greatest creation - in the same way as the one horse shay? It seems like a more human way of return to the dust from which we came. I’m sure those slings and arrows of outrageous insult our bodies give us as we age have a positive aspect but right now it escapes me. However, this seems to be an appropriate memory for Lent and Ash Wednesday not too long passed.