Lent is Not Self-Help

I'm spectacularly bad at giving things up for Lent.

Truthfully, I'm pretty bad at any sort of regular Lenten discipline at all, except going to Wednesday evening services, which is required because I am the pastor.  I keep thinking that it would be good if we got one of those cardboard banks for Lent and practiced giving a special offering for a particular cause, but I haven't gotten around to doing it.  One of these years...

But I digress.  Mostly, this is about my inability to give something up for Lent.  Partly this is a failure of imagination:  as Lent draws hear,  I think:  what would be a good thing for me to give up this year?  And most of the time, I can't come up with anything that I would consider interesting.  There was one year that I gave up buying books for Lent, which turned out to be excruciating, which means it was a good idea.  Right?

I also remember one Wednesday morning early when I was taking the garbage out to the curb.  It was a snowy, icy, cold morning in Minnesota, and suddenly I realized that it was Ash Wednesday (which I did actually know) and that I did not know what I was going to give up for Lent.  And I thought, what if I get rid of one thing a day for forty days?  That was a really good idea, theologically, I had to admit.  But logistically, it was not as easy as it sounded.  Bags of things accumulated before I got them to the thrift store.

Most of the time though, I don't manage giving something up for Lent.  It was not a part of my practice growing up.  I don't automatically think of it.  I don't think it's a bad idea, though.  I like the idea of finding some special way to mark the forty days before Easter.

I think that one of my problems is that when I think about what I should give up, it's usually something bad for me.  Like sugary treats, or potato chips, or soda (although I don't drink soda, so there's that.)  Then I start thinking of Lent as some sort of self-improvement project, a way to lose weight, or change a bad habit, at least temporarily.

Don't get me wrong:  I think changing bad habits is a good idea.  I think becoming healthier is a great idea.

I just don't think that's what Lent is for.

I think that Lent is more about failure than success.  Maybe the point about giving things up (if you do) is not to be so good at it.  Maybe the point is to come face to face with the grace of God, the grace that only failures need.  All of you who can make it on your own need not apply.

Lent is about getting ready for Easter, getting ready for not only Jesus' resurrection, but our own.  I am not sure what is the best way to get ready for that, except living and paying attention, and being honest.

Marked

I was going to wear my good alb for Ash Wednesday worship, except that it's not my good alb any more.

I bought this one a few years ago, just before I traveled to South Dakota for one of my congregations' 100th Anniversary.  It seemed like a good occasion to splurge, to show my congregation that I had come up in the world, even just a little.  I had made do for many years with the least expensive robe I could find.  It had velcro at the top, and fastened with velcro too.  The new one had buttons!  and two pockets.  I had saved up a little money, so I bought it.

A couple of weeks ago I brought my robe to a wedding where I would be officiating.  It was an outdoor wedding, and I was undecided about whether I would wear it or not.  I decided I would not.  But when I got home, it looked wrinkled, and I thought I would put it in the wash.  And in the dryer.

When I came out, I discovered that I had left a ballpoint pen in the pocket.

This was a terrible mistake.

There were great big blotches of ink all over the robe.  I mean ALL OVER.  I sprayed and put the robe in the wash again.  I soaked it for a week, and sprayed it again.  And washed it again.  Some of the spots have become a little lighter.

But not much.

I briefly considered wearing the alb anyway, on Ash Wednesday.  If you see it, you might see why.  It is a great (or terrible, depending on your point of view) visual aid of the presence and persistence of sin in our lives.  We are all marked.  And we can't get the stains out, no matter how hard we try.

I briefly considered wearing the alb anyway, but I just couldn't.  I decided that it was just too embarrassing.  I just couldn't stand up there with all those ink spots, and imagining everyone looking at me, thinking, "What HAPPENED?" or "How dumb could she BE?"

There are times when I wonder, too, about wearing the ashes, on Ash Wednesday.  I wonder about it because I always read the gospel of Matthew, which tells me not to practice my piety in front of others, so that they will say, "Good job!  You're so religious!"  And I have thought of the ashes as an act of piety.

But today I think that the ashes are more like that stained alb that I won't wear, because it's too embarrassing.  To wear the ashes is to admit my fault, my sin, my failure.  To wear the ashes is to confess my impiety.  I am in the company of those who have failed.  I am in the company of those who have done stupendously dumb things, like wash clothes with a pen in the pocket.  I am in the company of those who have done mean things, and ignorant things, who have majored in minors, and not paid attention to the most important things.

So, I will not wear the robe tonight.  I'll wear the older one.  That one has a tear in the pocket, and some other flaws you might notice if you look closely.

Most of the time we don't want people to look too closely.  But on Ash Wednesday, some of us dare to stand together, marked, and tell each other the truth about our sad and beautiful lives.  There is power in that.  God can change us then.  Into what, I only have a vague idea, except that he promised that we would be transformed from one degree of glory into another.

A Sin Problem

"We Don't Have a Gun Problem.  We have a Sin Problem."

I saw this on social media the other day, in reference, I am sure, to the shooting at the community college in Umqua, Oregon.

We have a Sin Problem.

Well.

 I'm a pastor.  It's hard to argue with that.  We do have a sin problem.  We also have a gun problem, which is not to say that I believe that all that we have to do is get rid of all of the guns, if we could even do that.  But yes, we have a sin problem, and yes, I also think that we have a gun problem as well, which is to say, that our sin problem has, at least in part, to do with guns.

Since sin is one of my specialties, let's talk about the sin problem.  I am not sure, but I suspect that when  some people say "we have a sin problem" (rather than a gun problem), they are talking about the individuals who do evil with guns, that the problem is not with guns themselves, but guns in the hands of evil, disturbed people.  It is a problem of individual sin.

But what do you do about that?  There have always been sinners; there will always be sinners.  The increase in these random acts of violence reveal something else about us, not just as individuals, but as a culture.

And then there is our inability to take some sort of action -- not to eliminate evil -- we can never totally eliminate evil.  But our inability to do something, anything, to take any steps, to even talk about what might work, to protect the vulnerable against acts of evil -- this also is sin.

We have a sin problem.

My fear is that somehow saying this will seem like enough, that someone will say, "we have a sin problem" and "let's pray about it", without realizing that the next step, after praying about it, might be to listen, really listen to what God wants us to do about it.  The next step is to repent, to change our mind, to change our ways, to change ANYTHING.

We have a sin problem.

Using GPS

Since moving here, I have become more and more thankful for an innovation known as "GPS."  I have some form of this in my phone.  I downloaded it last year and learned how to "start navigation" just in time to be lost on the way home from a book store in a strange city.

Now I use it almost all the time.  I use it and I follow the directions slavishly.  I put in the address where I am going, and I put in my address again when I am on the way home.  That voice has to know more than I do, doesn't it?  Because I don't know anything about the area where I have moved.  I have a map, it is true, and I have even stared at the map, on occasion, but it is by driving around and listening to the voice saying, "in 1,000 feet", turn left, that I have begun to get my bearings.

Not that there haven't been some rough spots.  The GPS knows much more than I do, it is true.  But it doesn't know when a road is under construction.  On the rare occasion we have had to disobey instructions because, well, the road GPS was telling me to take was CLOSED.  I thought the voice sounded rather insistent and perturbed then ("take a U turn"  "get back on that road!") before giving up and re-routing us.  And a couple of times I have been traveling a route that I have sort of gotten to know when the GPS will give me an unexpected direction.

Once it (she?) told me to get off the freeway several exits before I usually do.  Another time she instructed me to turn right instead of left.

This created a trust dilemma.  Should I obey?  Should I take a different road?  Or should I disobey and go the way I have been accustomed to traveling?

So far I have been too timid to obey.  I have stuck to the route I know.  Last night, I did take a very short GPS-inspired detour, it's true, but it wasn't much of a risk, at that point.

Too timid to obey.  It's one thing to admit that I do not entirely trust the mysterious voice of the woman who gives me directions from my phone.  It is another thing to admit that I do not entirely trust the mysterious voice of God, that this trust is a work-in-progress, that I would rather stay on the tried and true route even when part of me senses that God might be calling me to choose an unknown pathway.

Too timid to obey.  That is where I am, a lot of the time.  It is a failure to trust.

It occurs to me that there are many ways to speak of 'sin' in our world, and a lot of them have to do with morality.  A lot of them come down to behaviors:  the things you do, the things you don't do.   But what if at its very core, a definition of sin is:  a failure of trust.  Then we're all in it, a work in progress, trusting in one moment and not trusting the next.

Too timid to take another road home.  Too timid to say something I have never said before, even though I suspect that God wants me to say it.  Too timid to jump, when God says, "I'll catch you."

One of these days I will turn at an unexpected intersection, just to see where it leads.  And I will trust that the mysterious Voice, though perhaps alarmed at first, will still show me the way home.