February 14, 2018 - Ash Wednesday

Lectionary Readings; Psalm 51

In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            St. Anselm once wrote, “You have not considered the weight of sin.” Obviously, we were not the audience he had in mind, but the shoe fits. Ash Wednesday is a day on which we, more intently than we usually do, focus on sin. One of the questions that I often get as a priest is “What does it mean to sin?” The question behind the question is often “So, I did this thing, how bad is it?” If we are going to consider sin today, we need to have a working definition to start from.

March 1, 2017 - Ash Wednesday

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Those are the words with which I will impose ashes on your foreheads in just a few moments. That’s an inconvenient truth one if I’ve ever heard one. And yet, outside of Christmas and Easter, Ash Wednesday is typically one of the most well attended days in the Church year. People who don’t regularly come on Sundays come out to have a priest put a cross of ashes on their forehead and remind them that they are dust. How is this Gospel? How is this Good News? Or is it?

Ash Wednesday - February 10, 2016

Lectionary Readings

In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            “Have mercy, Lord, for we are sinners in your sight.” That line comes from Eucharistic Prayer C, which we used over the past several Sundays. It had been a while since I had used Prayer C, and I’ll confess that I was uncomfortable with that line from it. There is a particular brand of Christianity that focuses on sin and buys into the theological concept of “total depravity,” believing that humans are wretched creatures who are overrun with sin. Those ideas though have never resonated with me; in fact, that’s the opposite of what I believe.

March 5, 2014 - Ash Wednesday

Lectionary Readings

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies’ sake. Amen.

 I begin today’s sermon with that prayer, which comes from our funeral service, because Ash Wednesday is a day in which we are presented with our own mortality. Later in the service, you will come forward, towards the cross, which is itself an instrument of death, to have ashes put on your forehead. You will be reminded that “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Death will come for us all, there is no avoiding that. But how we face that reality will make all the difference.

Ash Wednesday

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

            The refrain found in Psalm 103 today is “bless the Lord.” Today, I’d like to consider what it means to bless the Lord. It is often assumed that God is the one who blesses us. Blessings are usually seen as signs of divine favor and providence towards us, so why are we being told to bless the Lord? The word “bless” in Hebrew is very closely related to the word for “knee.” So the Hebrew people would be on their knees in prayer, and the word for that action became bless. Blessing is not something we just do with our words, not a few thoughts throughout the day, but blessing is taking time to be with God, it is something physical. So when we hear “bless the Lord”, it is not that God needs our approval, but rather that we offer ourselves to God. A fitting message for Lent- bless the lord.

            Our theme at St. Francis this season of Lent is practices of faith, or perhaps in the words of the Psalmist, our theme is blessing the Lord. Practices of faith though are not something that our culture often makes time for or appreciates. Practices of faith are not productive in the sense that there is no tangible product with which to sell and market. Practices of faith are not about us, something difficult for the narcissist in us all to deal with. In his book Religious Literacy, Stephen Prothero traces our cultural history of religion and practices. He notes that families used to take seriously practices of faith and teaching their children about faith. And they had to because ministers would only come by their village on horseback every few months. But over the years, people moved from the country into cities and they found regular clergy. Then in the early 20^th century, the Sunday School movement began and we essentially “outsourced” the Christian formation of our youth to the Church. Instead of families taking ownership for faith, we relegated it to one hour a week. And our lives started became inflated with busyness and slowly the disciples of faith were squeezed out, or were at least made a lot harder to maintain.

            I bring this up because there is some research that suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a true master in a particular field. So to be the world’s top golfer would take 10,000 hours of practice. But even if we discount that research and go with a much lower figure, say 5,000 hours, it is a substantial amount of time. Or perhaps being a master isn’t our goal, but just being competent is what we can live with. In that case, at the rate of one hour a week spent in Sunday School, it would take 96 years to get to 5,000 hours of practice. The point is that we don’t have time to fit discipleship into our schedule, you just can’t do it. But we can live a life of practices in which we do other things. But practices must come first.

            When I was a young boy I fell in love with baseball, and I dreamed of being the greatest baseball player ever. One of my idols was Greg Maddux who pitched for the Atlanta Braves. I had his jersey, I used the same equipment that he did, and I tried to mimic his pitching style. But none of those things made me the next Greg Maddux; in fact, I was terrible at pitching. The problem is that it doesn’t work to just copy someone. And in our discipleship, we have confused following Jesus with copying him. It’s part of the reason why I think the What Would Jesus Do? movement is so harmful to Christianity. It doesn’t really matter what Jesus would do in a given situation, but what does matter is what we do as his followers. And the only way to follow Jesus is to practice.

            In the Episcopal Church, we often say lex orandi, lex credendi, which is often paraphrased as meaning “praying shapes believing.” The prayers that we offer in our worship shape what we believe about God. If we pray that God is loving, compassionate, and caring, then we will likely believe in a loving God. But if we pray to a vindictive and vengeful God, then we will likely believe in a God of wrath. St. Paul in his letter the Thessalonians tells them to “pray without ceasing,” meaning that all of our life is a prayer. What is prayer if not relationship with God? And don’t we say that God is always with us? So then, all of our life is a prayer. How we respond to being cut off in traffic or given a compliment at work is a prayer. What we do when we are alone is a prayer as much as what we do when we come to church. So the question then is- what are you praying? In our practices of faith, or lack thereof, what are we communicating to God?

            In fact, practicing our faith is the assumption of Jesus. Note that in our Gospel reading today, Jesus doesn’t say “if you pray, if you fast, if you give alms” but instead he says “when you pray, when you fast, and when you give alms.” When, not if.  The idea of being religious or spiritual without daily practices of faith would have made no sense to Jesus’ audience. Jesus also condemns the hypocrites. The meaning of the word “hypocrite” is a “stage actor.” A hypocrite is someone who pretends to be something they are not. A hypocrite is someone who does not practice what they preach. Jesus is placing a lot of emphasis on keeping genuine practices of faith.

And consider the words of St. Paul in our reading from 2 Corinthians, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” One theologian has astutely remarked that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, and what we are doing at this moment, in this hour, is what we are doing with our lives. And so it is. How many of us though turn around to look at what has happened in the past and wonder “where did the time go?” “Whatever happened to putting more emphasis on God and coming to church?”

            Lent is the season of the Church year that falls between Ash Wednesday and Easter, and it comes from the root word meaning “lengthen” because the days are getting longer this time of year. But I would suggest that this root meaning also encourages us to lengthen, or deepen, our practices of faith. To decide each day to practice our faith so that we might spend our life being closer to God and God’s love and transformative power.

            Joe Anybody was the only Protestant to move into a large Catholic neighborhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill. Meanwhile, all of his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for dinner. This went on each Friday of Lent. On the last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood got together and decided that something had to be done about Joe. He was tempting them to eat meat each Friday of Lent, and they couldn't take it anymore. They decided to try and convert Joe to become Catholic.

So they went over and talked to him and were so happy that he decided to join all of his neighbors and become Catholic. They took him to church, and the priest sprinkled some water over him, and said, “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, and now you are Catholic.” They were so relieved, now their biggest Lenten temptation was resolved.

A year later, the first Friday of Lent came, and just at dinner time, when the neighborhood was setting down to their tuna fish dinner, the smell of steak cooking on a grill filled the air. The neighbors could not believe their noses! What was going on? They called each other up and decided to meet over in Joe's yard to see if he had forgotten it was the first Friday of Lent. The group arrived just in time to see Joe standing over his grill with a small pitcher of water. He was sprinkling some water over his steak on the grill, saying, “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish.”

Transformation happens not with words, or even with the best of intentions. That piece of beef wasn’t a fish at its core. And we will not be transformed either unless we are changed at our core. The word “heart” shows up both in our reading from Joel and Matthew. Joel talks about “rending our hearts and not our clothing.” The custom was the tear your garments as an outward sign of penitence, but Joel challenges people to instead go inwards and examine their inner life. And Jesus, in the same way, challenges our outward actions that we do for others, and exhorts us to go deeper into our practices of faith. He says that “where your heart is, there also will your treasure be.” The word heart, both in the Hebrew of Joel and the Greek of Matthew, means a lot more than the organ which pumps blood throughout the body. Instead, the heart was the core of your being, it was your will, your inner life, your being. The heart is who you are at your core, it is what you practice.

And so I hope thus far that I’ve made a compelling case for the importance of practicing our faith. But you might ask, how do I do that? Practice is a great word because it has two meanings. On the one hand, when we practice something we are trying to perfect our skills, so we practice our performances before they happen. And on the other hand, practice also means something that you do. So lawyers practice law, doctors practice medicine, pacifists practice peace. So on this second meaning of “practice,” I would suggest that we practice our faith by making it a priority in our lives.

This will be a sacrifice in our busy lives. It will take discipline and endurance to daily practice our faith so that instead of it being something we do, it becomes who we are.  After spending several hours in prayer in a chapel, someone once asked Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “you’re one of the most sought after speakers in the world, you’ve written several books, and are so involved with the work of the Church, how can you afford to spend so much time in the chapel each morning?” And he said in response, “I can only do those things because I spend so much time in prayer.”

And towards the first definition of practice, I would invite you to our Wednesday night Lenten program. We’ll meet at 6 pm for 5 weeks starting next Wednesday. We’ll have a simple Lenten dinner together and then we’ll explore different practices of faith such as prayer, reading the Bible, discernment, and evangelism. These are important practices of faith, but recent studies have shown that they are very loaded words and that many people have trouble defining them. And if you struggle to define what prayer is, it’s awfully hard to actually do it. So on Wednesdays we’ll start with the basics of practicing our faith, working toward building a strong foundation for holy living.

The other practice that I commend to you all is taking the Bible Challenge. Starting today, and going for the next 365 days, we will be reading the Bible. I invite and encourage all of you to join us. We will read two chapters of the Old Testament, one Psalm, and one chapter of the New Testament a day. And while it will take some intentionality to keep up this practice, it is manageable to spend 15 or 20 minutes a day reading the Bible. The Bible is our story, it is God’s story. The Bible is the one book that has transformed our world and billions of lives like no other work. Whether you believe that the Bible is the literal words ordained by God, or if you believe that it’s a collection of humanity’s best efforts to capture their experiences of the divine in writing, you are welcome to join us. Surveys have shown that Americans simply don’t read the Bible, one reporter even suggested that our Bibles must be the most valuable thing that we own, because we keep it in pristine, unused condition. Those who follow Jesus ought to read the Bible because through it, we find our place in God’s unfolding drama. And so at St. Francis, we are taking the Bible Challenge. If you haven’t already emailed me to tell me that you’re signing up for it, I anticipate getting an email from you later today. You can pick up a reading schedule in the back of the church on your way out.

I invite you therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent. I invite you to consider how we are spending our lives. What are we practicing? Are we being transformed by God? Do we know our story of faith? How do we bless the Lord? I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent, a Lent full of practicing and living our faith, that it might take deep roots within our souls and enable us to be instruments of God’s love, redemption, and peace in the world. I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent, that this Lent might be another step in the journey towards living a holy life. Amen.

February 22 - Ash Wednesday

Almighty God, may you guide us to seek the truth- come whence it may, cost what it will, lead where it might. Amen.

            Why? Why do we come for Ash Wednesday? Why do we celebrate Lent? Don’t we already have enough guilt, enough to do? Isn’t there enough doom and gloom in the world? Politicians fighting in Washington, Israel and Iran in a Cold War that is getting hotter every day, rampant poverty and famine around the world, dictators in Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, a global debt crisis, not to mention all the stress and anxiety that we all carry around from our personal lives. It seems that instead of a season where we are more intentional, we need a vacation from it all. So again I ask, why Ash Wednesday?

            Why is the most important of all the questions, as it gets to the purpose and end of things. Why is the language of inspiration, of core values, of meaning. The other questions: how, what, where, when, and who are just the details. What was interesting about Rosa Parks wasn’t how she sat at the front of the bus, it was why she did it. The Wright brothers were the first in flight, even though others had better financing and better tools, the answer to why they were first is a story of ingenuity and inspiration. Where or when Jesus was crucified doesn’t change much about our lives, but the why certainly does. Why is also the hardest question to answer. We’re all busy, we have a lot to do. Turn the news on, and they’ll give you all the details in about 20 seconds, but they don’t speak to the why. Why is also a subversive question, as it challenges our motives and assumptions. Many of us I’m have been stumped by a child who asks that piercing question- why? And “because I said so” isn’t a good enough answer. Why did my dog die? Why do people fight? Why doesn’t that man on the corner have a house to live in? Why is a tough question.

            And why is the reason for Lent. Lent has always been a season of preparation. In the early Church, the process for Baptism took at least a year, and Baptism only happened on Easter. So the 40 days leading up to Easter were a time for focus, for preparation, for answering why. Why do you want to be baptized? Why do you want to be a Christian, knowing that the Roman empire could very well kill you for this?

            This season of Lent, we need to examine the why, because that is where meaning comes from, because that is the question our hearts yearn to have an answer for. So let’s walk through the traditional Lenten disciplines and consider both the modern problem and the why.

            We’ll begin with prayer. The problem with prayer is that most of us don’t do it. Surveys suggest that 58% of Americans pray daily while 83% identify as being religious. And the survey didn’t get into how people define prayer. Now I’m going to make some generalizations in this sermon, realizing that for some of us, these generalizations do not apply, but they speak to cultural truths. A lot of people don’t fully understand prayer. Prayers such as “please don’t let me get pulled over for speeding,” “please let me get this job,” “please be with my sick uncle” are certainly prayers, but that’s not the sort of prayer that Jesus is commending to us.

            Throughout the reading from Matthew, Jesus challenges our assumptions about acts of religious piety. People often prayed in public to be seen, so Jesus encourages them to pray in secret; that is, have a relationship not with others and your ego, but with God. This is the why of prayer. Prayer is about relationship building with God, and others through being mindful of them; and prayer is also about working with God. Why do we pray? To be in touch with the divine. This doesn’t really happen though when we do all the talking, when we do it in a few short sentences of petition. I’m not dismissing intercessory prayer, but rather highlighting the fact that it’s only one aspect of prayer. And in the same way, if your prayer life only consists of walks in nature or doing yoga, then you aren’t getting it all either. And let us not forget about the Bible in prayer. The Bible isn’t just that book that sits on the coffee table so that others know of its importance to you. The Bible is a good book to read. I can only imagine how the world might look if every Christian read from the Bible daily. At St. Francis this Lent, let’s not have to wonder. Let’s ground ourselves in prayer, in Scripture, in getting to the why- having a robust relationship with God. And hopefully we’ll be transformed, and people will ask us, “why?” and we’ll have a good answer.

            Fasting is another traditional Lenten discipline. The problem here, to put it bluntly, is that we are gluttons. America has many industries that are built on the assumption that we will consume that which is bad for us. For the most part, the diet, pornography, cosmetic, and self-help industries all assume that we will fill ourselves with empty calories which only satisfy us in the short term and leave us hungry in the long term. These are all multi-billion dollar industries, and there is something deeply wrong with the culture that leads to their thriving.

            So the answer to “why fast?” is rather simple- gluttony leads to death. Death of relationships, death of self-confidence, death of our bodies. In Lent, we are invited to fast, to give things up. In seminary, I spent a month in the Dominican Republic and I was struck by both the simplicity in people’s lives, but also the great joy. I went to a church service that lasted for several hours and was held in what our parish hall might look like if you dropped a few bombs on it. It was a three-walled concrete structure with a tin roof. And yet, that worship service was one of the most joyous and festive I’ve ever seen. No one thought about a capital campaign to add a fourth wall or some stained glass windows. Why? Because they had what was necessary and they lacked nothing which they truly needed. This is a lesson we could learn. I didn’t talk finances with the priest there, but I’m guessing they had a very small maintenance budget. Gluttony not only takes us away from what is healthy and important, but it also costs us a lot. This Lent, let’s focus on why we do what we do, and leave off the stuff that we can’t come up with a good answer to “why do we do this?”

            Lent is also a season where we highlight almsgiving, not because the church budget is tight, but because money says a lot about our priorities. The problem is rather easy to identify- we live in a world in which money is the tool to value time and goods. If churches and charities had greater financial resources, the ripples of their ministry would extend further and further.

            So why should we give? I would suggest to you that we give not for tax purposes, not even because it’s right thing to do, but rather we give because if we don’t, we become slaves to our own money. I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, if you want to know if you have control over your money, then try to give it away. If you can’t, then your money controls you. And I’m not talking about throwing $5 in the offering plate, that’s not a test. Try giving to the point where you have to rethink your budget. I’m not suggesting almsgiving to the point of losing your house or not feeding your children, but I am talking about significant giving. There is no magic percentage or dollar amount, you have to do the soul searching on your own on this one. Why give? For one, it changes the world, but perhaps more importantly, it changes you.

            And finally, I’d like to consider one other Lenten disciple- that of introspection. The problem is that most of us don’t take the time to stop and think; we don’t see spiritual directors or therapists to debrief. Far too many people have very little sense of self-awareness. That’s one reason why we put ashes on our foreheads today with the words “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We’re all going to die, each and every one of us, even Jesus did it. There is a book written in the 1970s called The Denial of Death, and it address the fact that most people live their entire lives in the fear of death, instead of embracing the reality of life.

            Consider what an apology sounds like today- “I’m sorry if you were offended by my comments,” which insinuates that we did nothing wrong, but that you’re the problem. No one ever says “I’m sorry for being offensive.” If we can’t understand ourselves, if we can’t objectively look at our faults alongside our gifts, then we are just zombies walking around, going through the motions of life. Socrates said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” A paraphrase might be “a life without the why isn’t a life at all.” Without introspection, without asking and contemplating the why, life passes us by without us understanding it. And if we can’t understand the why, then we can’t be responsible.

Look at what has been happening in the Roman Catholic Church with the sex-abuse scandal, or what happened at Penn State. No one took responsibility. There was no introspection. Everyone knew the details, what who did to whom and where. And they all knew what would happen if this got out, so they kept it quiet. No one answered the question “why are we covering this up,” “why are we protecting the abusers at the cost of the victims?” Answering the why can make us see the things we try so hard to forget but need to deal with. This season of Lent, let us be introspective by considering the whys in our daily lives.

So we’re back to the first why. Why now? Why Lent? Well, as Joel and Paul say, “blow your trumpet…the day of the Lord is near…now is the acceptable time.” There is no time like the present to wake up to the reality of the why. Why is about conversion. And we live in a place and time that needs some transformation. We are hungry for depth. We are hungry for love. Our world needs more followers of Jesus and less admirers of him. A lot of people like see Jesus as a great moral teacher, as a wonderful man, as someone to admire. But then there are those who follow Jesus, who follow him to the cross and the grave because they know the why of God’s love, of God’s transformative power.

This season of Lent, let us ask ourselves why. You don’t always have to come up with the answer alone. We can answer it together in community, God can help you to answer it. May we explore the why through prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and introspection.

Let us pray- Almighty God, as we embark on our Lenten journey, may you give us the honesty, strength, and courage to ask why. Guide us in our answers, that in all we do we might answer faithfully and to your glory. And through asking why, may we come into a deeper understanding of your Truth and Love. This we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.