when love comes to town

The readings for Ash Wednesday are simultaneously unique and ordinary: 

Unique in that they are focused in an uncanny way on our desire to please God:

·         Create in me a clean heart, O God

·         Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding… Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

And ordinary in that we know through experience how easily we are distracted, yes?  That is one of the humbling truths about Ash Wednesday:  it keeps coming back to us, year after year, reminding us that every year we start today with deep convictions and hopes only to find ourselves at Good Friday aware of the gap between our intentions and our actions. 

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

They call this the human condition – one of the facts of life – which we know what would be good and true and just, we can think it and will it, but we can’t do it consistently. 

·         Do you know what I’m talking about?

·         Can you think of an example of this in your life?

One of the blessings of being in a faith community is that we all acknowledge this fact of life to be true:  we don’t have to like it, but spiritual depth and maturity begins in accepting the fact that we are unable to be consistently good and compassionate no matter how hard we try.  To fight this is both arrogant and naïve – to deny it is foolish – and to just throw up your hands in resignation is lazy.  For, you see, there is another way:  to learn about humility from our failures.

·         Humility – to be of the earth – hummus – that is one of the blessings of Ash Wednesday:  it calls attention to our arrogant, lazy, naïve and foolish ways with the promise of an alternative.

·         Not automatically, but slowly and with deliberate attention, we are invited into grace.

But here’s the thing:  to grow into grace means we have to give up our illusions of being boldly independent – and that is tough business especially for Americans.  But here’s another truth: “We are by our very nature, dependent beings.”  Brother Kevin Hackett at St. John’s Anglican Monastery in Cambridge, MA writes:

We come into this world utterly dependent on the care of others. We travel through this life dependent on engagement with others, however limited, for the basic necessities of life and well-being. And, we will leave this life, still dependent, and if we are lucky, in the care of others.

So much of the authentic Christian faith challenges the cultural status quo of popular American culture and politics – and yet the culture warriors keep attacking as if their narrow and punitive vision of the Lord was the fullness of God’s grace.  Or their American jingoism could honestly resonate with the sacred song of the Holy Trinity.

Our human vocation to live in communion and mutuality is rooted in our creation in God’s image and likeness. The very being of God is community; the Father, Son and Spirit are One in reciprocal self-giving and love. The mystery of God as Trinity is one that only those living in personal communion can understand by experience. Through our common life we can begin to grasp that there is a transcendent unity that allows mutual affirmation of our distinctness as persons.

Last weekend Rick Santorum called President Obama’s vision of the world a “flawed theology.”  I understand that from a doctrinaire Roman Catholic sense they are the one true church.  But that was not Santorum’s point – he was questioning Obama’s commitment to eco-justice – by quoting John 3:16! “For God so loved the world – the cosmos – not simply human kind, but the totality of creation.” And then there is the hyperbole of both Newt Gingrich and the American Roman Catholic Bishops who charge that the President has become the most dangerous President in his opposition to religious freedom in recent history. Or Franklin Graham’s smear campaign that Obama is not a true believer?  Didn’t St. Paul admonish people of faith in Romans 12 to practice seeing one another as Christ?

If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant.

Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody. Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."

Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

The attacks by these conservative religious leaders prove the point Niebuhr made about “moral man and immoral society” when he noted:  by grace and practice individuals can sometimes live into the call of agape love; but never in groups where competing self-interest rules like the law of jungle.  All the more reason, on Ash Wednesday, to spend time with Christ’s call to repentance in community:

We were created to be yoked to one another, literally dependent on one another, because we need each other. We were created by God to be interdependent not independent creatures. There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. There is no such thing as self-sufficiency. These are illusions, posing as ideals, false ideals that actually draw us aware from the very thing that I believe we desire most deeply and for which we were created and that is love. And love imposes limitations which fly in the face of our so-called independence. The limitations imposed by love, however, provide the medium for true freedom. This is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching, I believe. Jesus calls us to become our truest selves, and the key is humility—which has never been a virtue to which the American spirit has ever aspired, nor frankly, has it been one which comes easily to any Christian. For one thing, humility reminds us that we are creatures made from the red clay of the earth, the humus of decaying organic matter, the soil and dust from which we came and to which we shall all one day return 

Humility, unlike independence, reminds us that we come from a common source, and however we might seek to differentiate ourselves by use of the gifts that we are given by God, we all share and common end and purpose. If there is one true thing we can say of every living man, woman, and child, it is that we will all one day die. St. Francis of Assisi was said to have possessed the gift of humility, and it is also said that he is the most admired and least imitated of all the saints. There is a reason for this: humility reads more appealingly than it plays. Humility puts us on our knees washing the feet of others. Humility willingly rides a donkey to a stallion. Humility willingly shares the burdens of others. Humility willingly accepts limitations—our own and others. Humility offers us freedom from the need to distinguish ourselves, whether it be through the accumulation of wealth, the acquisition of prestige, education, social standing, prowess, or power. (Brother Kevin Hackett, The Community of St. John)

And so the prayer appointed for today says:

Most holy and merciful God; we confess to you and to one another – and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth – that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word and deed; by what we have done and by what we have left undone.  We have not loved you with all our heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven.  Have mercy on us, have mercy.