Introduction
Lent is a journey
into gratitude: it is both a choice to
be made and a commitment to be practiced.
So if we want this season to fill us with grace – if we seek to “renew a
commitment to Christ grown dull by lives marked more by routine than by
reflection” – then we must make time
for the Lord. (Chittister, p. 111, The
Liturgical Year)
Specifically, we
must take time to trust the
Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Because you see, trusting God takes practice;
it is not automatic but requires some rehearsal. Especially in a culture like our own where
spontaneity is celebrated and making it all by ourselves through personal
initiative have become the hallmarks of successful living. Even jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis note
that all good improvisation is born of serious and vigorous practice.
So listen to this –
it is so sobering: there seems to be a
consensus developing among palliative care nurses who attend to those in the last
12 weeks of life. When they ask their
patients, “If you had it to do over again, what would be different?” five
common regrets emerge:
First,
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others
expected of me. Second, I wish I had not
worked so hard. Third, I wish I’d had
the courage to express my true feelings.
Fourth, I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends. And fifth, I wish
I’d let myself experience more happiness.
Now I don’t know
about you, but what I hear being articulated in this chorus of regrets is heart
breaking: it tells me that countless
people feel they’ve wasted too much of their lives on things that don’t really
matter. No wonder St. Paul told those
early believers in Rome who wanted to live in the way of Christ that they “must
not be conformed to the ways of the world – squeezed into a mold of social conformity – but rather be
transformed by the renewing of you mind into a living sacrifice for the Lord.”
(Romans 12) Let your heart, soul, mind
and body practice the habits of gratitude and love and you will learn to trust
the Lord God in all things.
Insights
So let’s talk a
little bit about trust – and taking the time to playfully practice it. And I want to do this by asking our youngest
people a few questions because I think you can help us all, ok?
· First, do you know anything about making a
promise? What kind of promises do you
make in your life?
· Anyone play sports – what kind of promises do
you make here? Do you make promises in
your family – like what? Anybody
involved in scouting? Are their promises
you make to be a good scout?
The first story in
the Bible today talks about God’s promises and learning to trust them – but it
is a weird story. The two main
characters are Abram and Sarai – they are both close to 100 years old – and God
has promised that they will have a baby but it hasn’t happened yet. So both of them are getting worried that
maybe God isn’t going to keep this promise – and that’s frightening to them
because they left their old home for a new country and everything on the way to
their home seems upsetting.
· So God tells Abram to go outside and look at the
stars – have you ever done that?
· Have you ever tried to count all the stars in
the night sky? Impossible, right?
And that’s the first way God asks Abram and
Sarai to practice trusting in the Lord’s promises: look at the stars – I will give you more
children than all of these
stars – and today we are the evidence!
Did you know that? We are part of
the proof that God’s promises can be trusted because our Christian faith comes
from Jesus – who was a distant relative of Abram and Sarai – and there are
millions of Christians and Jews all over the world.
Do you know anybody
that goes to another church in town?
What’s the name of that church?
· How about somebody that goes to a
synagogue: do you know the name of that
house of worship?
· Can you see the map we’re using during
Lent? Do you know the names of some
countries where there are Christians and Jews?
Sometimes it is
hard to practice trusting God’s promises all by ourselves so we need to look
for some clues and evidence – we need some help – and the first truth for today is that the stars in the heavens and each
and all of you are part of the proof.
You are signs that God keeps God’s promises – and as a reminder, would
you put a star sticker on your hand?
The second way God helps us practice
trusting the Lord’s promises is through our ceremonies and times of worship. In today’s story about Abram and Sarai when
Abram was still worried, God created a ritual to help show just how serious the
Lord was about keeping this sacred promise.
· Have you and a friend ever said something like,
“Cross my heart and hope to die?” Those
are serious words, aren’t they?
· So why do people say them?
Sometimes we use serious words and
actions to make the point that we really mean what we say – and that’s what God
did to show Abram that the Lord could be trusted. Now I know it sounds rather strange and maybe
even a little creepy to us, but do you remember what took place in the ceremony
God asked Abram to perform in our reading?
Abram had to take some animals – a cow, a goat, a ram, a turtle dove and
a pigeon – and what did Abram have to do with them? He had to slaughter them,
cut them in half and put one side of their body over here and the other side of
their body over there and wait.
· Now why in the world would God ask his friend
Abram to do something like that? Well,
back in the day it seems that people who lived out in the desert would
sometimes make a deal and seal it with a similar kind of ceremony – something
that was a little frightening – and very serious.
· And once they had cut the sacrificial animal in
two – and put part of it here and the other over there – they would walk
in-between the bodies. And when they
both got to the middle they would something like, “If I break my promise to
you, may something like this happen to me.”
Back in those times this was called
“cutting a covenant” – later that become “cutting a deal” that we say today –
because this ceremony was another way God showed Abram just how serious God was
about the promises. And it is important
to note that only God walked between the sacrifices – Abram was asleep or
having a vision and didn’t walk through the middle – it was God alone who
brought all the commitment to the ceremony.
· Are you still with me? A pretty wild ceremony, yes? Very, very serious, too – but we still have
serious ceremonies today that help us remember God’s promises, don’t we?
· Can you name some? Ash Wednesday – Maundy Thursday – Good Friday
- funerals… there is always a serious part to a wedding ceremony, right? And even baptisms and Sunday morning Holy
Communion have serious parts to them.
So religious rituals and ceremonies
can be another way to help us take time to practice trusting God and loving the
Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – and what are some of the
practices we do every week in worship that help us rehearse God’s
promises? Can you name some of the parts
of our worship celebration that we do every week?
· We sing hymns – old and new – and what messages
are in these hymns?
· We say prayers:
and what type of prayers do we say?
We greet one another with Christ’s peace… we say the Lord’s Prayer in unison… we read scripture… have a conversation about the meaning of the Bible for our time… the choir sings as we take up an offering… and all of these things have meanings beyond just doing them.
Conclusion
One of the practices we share every week includes reading the gospel – part of the story of the life of Jesus – and why is that important and valuable? It has something to do with what Jesus shows us about God’s nature and love; it has something to do with practicing trusting the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. You see, as Christians we believe that Jesus shows us as much of God’s love as we can possible comprehend. So if we want to trust the Lord, we believe we need to spend more time with Christ.
If you have ever loved someone you could not
protect, then you understand the depth of Christ’s lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable
posture in the world – wings spread, breast exposed – but if you mean what you
say, then this is how you stand.
Jesus could have chosen any other animal in the Bible to help us think about the Lord – the mighty eagle of the Exodus or the proud lion of Judah - but he spoke of a mother hen who brings a deep mercy and a fierce loyalty mixed with her vulnerability. “And that is so typical of Jesus… he is always turning things upside down…”
… so that children and peasants wind up on
top while kings and scholars land on the bottom. He is always wrecking our
expectations of how things should turn out by giving prizes to the losers and
paying the last first. No wonder he
chooses a chicken, which is about as far from a fox as you can get, that way
our options become very clear: you can
live by licking your chops or you can die protecting the chicks. Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or
any other story. He will be a mother hen
– like the Lord – who stand between the chicks and those who mean to do them
harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no
rippling muscles. All she has is her
willingness to shield her babies with her own body. (Barbara Brown Taylor)
And so we read the gospel every week
to help us grasp the depth of God’s love.
· We gather every week in community to take some
time from the busyness to practice loving the Lord. We give a portion of our day to the Lord in
ceremony and story, in silence and the breaking of bread so that we might know
the Lord’s love – and then make it flesh in our own time.
· We meet to experience, practice and rehearse God’s
mercy – to be nourished by God’s grace from the inside out – and let it change
us. But like that momma hen, it is
always an invitation – a promise – and we have to receive it and make time for
the Lord lest we discover that all we have at the end is bitter regrets…
This is the second Sunday of Lent – 10
days into the journey towards the Cross – take a moment in the quiet of this place to see if you are using it well...
credits:
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2 comments:
"Lent is a journey into gratitude".
In a nuthsell, my man.
Yes it is... thanks.
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