Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Reflection for Ash Wednesday



A Reflection for Ash Wednesday                              All Saints Church, Southern Shores, NC February18, 2015                                                  Thomas E Wilson, Rector



2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10                                Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21



This is Ash Wednesday and the Gospel lesson for Matthew has the warning about making a relationship.  Jesus seems to strike a sad note as he sees religious people make a display of their religiosity as they miss the point and waste their energy. Life is too short to waste on that temptation. T.S. Eliot in his play, Murder in the Cathedral at the end of the 1st Act has his protagonist, Becket; say after being tempted by four temptations:



Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:



Temptation shall not come in this kind again.



The last temptation is the greatest treason:



To do the right deed for the wrong reason.







The question, or the temptation, to ask is how are we planning to keep a holy Lent? We have choices on how to observe Lent. The way I was taught when I was growing up was that Lent was the time to strengthen one’s will power to follow Christ; therefore I should give up something so that I might make a sacrifice - as Jesus fasted for forty days in the wilderness so we were to fast with something like chocolate, or meat. It was a time of separation from a sensual pleasure so that I might prove worthy of God’s love and to prove that I was ready for duty as a Christian soldier in Christ’s army. I grew up during the time of the Cold War in which my area of very conservative Upstate New York saw itself in a spiritual battle for “Christian” values, like Free Market Capitalism, against Godless Communism. It was a time in which there was always an enemy out there somewhere as well as an enemy that was in our soul. Lent was all about making me into a “good American” Christian. It was a path of moral self-improvement. Every day during Lent I longed for chocolate or meat or, later, liquor. I saw Lent as a kill joy time and resented God for putting me through it, figuring God owed me Big Time.




Later on I started to learn another way of building my soul and that was to engage in behavior that would help me to learn how to die to myself by reminding myself what a sinner I was  I would go through a practice of making new resolution for living a better life and humble myself by remembering my sins. It turned into a way of mentally beating me up so that I would have already paid for my sins. It was a path of self-mortification




Later on I learned there was another way of observing Lent and it was a purging of my appetites and life to a simpler lifestyle. I would look at all my luxuries and excesses compared to the poverty of others. I would fast in order to set aside money to feed, clothe and house the less fortunate. The motto was to “live simply so that others may simply live.” It was about the saving of my soul by helping my neighbor. It was a path of societal self-improvement. The problem with that was that I kept looking at others who were not following that path and I became very judgmental. It was not an increase in love but in estrangement.




There was another way of building my soul and this was not to give up something but to take on. This meant that instead of watching movies during Lent I would do more reading of religious materials like the Bible, theologians and mystics. Lent was about me being a more devout Christian.  It was a path of Spiritual self-improvement. 




There is nothing wrong with any of these paths, with the possible exception that it was all about me; I was the center of my Lent.  The lesson for Matthew has the warning about making a relationship with God all about one’s self as if God were a an ATM Machine that dispenses gold stars is you put in the right password.




This weekend, if the roads clear, Pat and I have some friends who are coming for a visit and part of what we will do is clean up the place a bit. The purpose is not to impress them with how good and neat we are but to help them to feel more at home in our home. Feeling at “home” we can relax and catch up on what is going on in our lives and we spent time listening to each other without being distracted by so many things. They have known us for years and have come to accept us as we are, not as we want to be - but as we are. It is called love. I have come to the point of my life where Lent is about cleaning up my spiritual; home so the Divine and I can truly listen to each other and I am not so easily distracted, 




So here are some of our choices for Lent: 
1) Make a sacrifice for discipline, 
2) Become aware of  and repent of sins in life, 
3) Practice simplicity, 
4) Take on a regimen of deeper study,
 5) Slow down and become more aware of the presence of God in the space between yourself and all of God’s creation.




Actually, looking at that list, maybe if we can turn the spotlight off our own wants and desires to look good in our religion, maybe these are the choices we need to do all the time and not just in Lent. Maybe we could use the season of Lent as an excuse to start as a thanksgiving for all we have received.




So what are you doing for Lent?  

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