Year C
\u00a0Joel 2:1-2,12-17
\u00a0Psalm 103:8-14
\u00a02 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
\u00a0Matthew 6:1-6,16-21<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are all going to die\u2026 it’s not really\u2026 ever\u2026 a pleasant fact\u2026 but it is a fact of life\u2026 that the other end of birth\u2026 is death\u2026 and the vast majority of us humans\u2026 do one of two things\u2026 we either take our lives for granted\u2026 without appreciating the gifts from God that they are\u2026 or we spend a lot of time and money denying the reality of death\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I wonder\u2026 if we didn’t take our lives so for granted\u2026 and by we\u2026 I mean the vast majority of people in every nook and cranny where people live\u2026 if we didn’t approach so many things as though we deserved them\u2026 then maybe biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann wouldn’t have noticed\u2026 that the Gospel has gotten all tangled up in a white western sense of entitlement\u2026 I mean\u2026 I bristle almost every time I hear that voice on TV tell me how much I deserve a new luxury SUV\u2026 or two\u2026 and it makes me wonder whether we really deserve all we say we do\u2026 it makes me wonder what we really do deserve\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it makes me wonder\u2026 if the majority of us carried a deeply reverential awareness for the gift of life\u2026 how would our collective behavior change\u2026 maybe we would treat each other more gently\u2026 maybe we would do everything possible to honor that sanctity and that gift\u2026 maybe we really would love our neighbors as ourselves\u2026 and maybe we wouldn’t resist\u2026 or fear death so much\u2026 because we’d be too busy living\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We heard just two Sundays ago\u2026 about how the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable\u2026 and one analogy\u2026 is that it’s like turning in an old beater of a VW Beetle\u2026 one that’s really on its last leg\u2026 and getting a polished and brand new Rolls Royce in return\u2026 for free\u2026 and so when we surrender our perishable bodies\u2026 we get an imperishable one in return\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we have some difficulty imagining how that happens\u2026 what that will look like\u2026 what it will feel like\u2026 but we also know from our own experience\u2026 and from scripture\u2026 that a seed must die so that it can grow into a tree which bears much fruit\u2026 and the seed doesn’t resist its purpose\u2026 it yields itself to what is greater than itself\u2026 and is transformed\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was fourteen\u2026 I accompanied my grandfather on a business trip to Texas\u2026 my grandmother\u2026 who often went with him… died earlier that year\u2026 so to keep him from being alone\u2026 and to have an adventure of my own\u2026 my parents allowed me to fly out west with him\u2026 and in the Braniff Airline’s in-flight magazine\u2026 there was a short science-fiction story\u2026 about a kind of transformation like this\u2026 it made quite an impression on me\u2026 and over the decades since then\u2026 I’ve made many attempts to try and find it\u2026 with very little to go on\u2026 but as I sat down to write a few days ago\u2026 I thought it would be so helpful an illustration\u2026 that I made another attempt\u2026 and found it\u2026 it’s a 1944 piece\u2026 [by Clifford Simik]\u2026 called Desertion\u2026 and I offer up now\u2026 the briefest Cliff Notes summary of it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A survey team on Jupiter\u2026 is sending men out from its reinforced domed enclosures\u2026 to explore the planet’s resources\u2026 and determine its eligibility for colonization\u2026 but there are dangers\u2026 crushing atmospheric pressure\u2026 alkaline rains\u2026 miles of choking gases in the atmosphere\u2026 and two hundred mile-per-hour howling gales that sweep across the planet\u2026 ] though none of this seems to bother the speechless local inhabitants called Lopers\u2026 but somehow\u2026 as these stories go\u2026 Earth’s scientists have developed a machine\u2026 called a Converter\u2026 which will change a man into one of these Lopers\u2026 five men have been transformed\u2026 and have proceeded out of Dome #3 and into the Jovian atmosphere\u2026 they had their instructions\u2026 but they never returned\u2026 and now\u2026 the head of the Jovian Survey Commission\u2026 knew he could sacrifice no others\u2026 so he underwent the process himself\u2026 and when he left the dome\u2026 he could never have really expected\u2026 that the lashing downpour would be reduced to a drifting purple mist which moved like fleeting shadows over an expanse of red and purple grasses\u2026 or that a two-hundred-mile an hour gale\u2026 laden with what would previously have been deadly gases\u2026 just brushed against him with what seemed like gentle fingers… and that the scent of lavender\u2026 was more than just a smell which inhabited his nasal cavity\u2026 but seeped deep into his whole being\u2026 and he could know things just by wanting to know them\u2026 ] no wonder none of the other five returned\u2026 ] and while this may be fiction\u2026 it hints at how we will experience our imperishable bodies compared to these perishable ones\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is great subtly in this evening’s Gospel reading\u2026 and I wonder\u2026 how do we practice our piety so that we gain God’s reward\u2026 and not the world’s\u2026 how do we know ourselves so well\u2026 that we can avoid any motivations which serve us more\u2026 than they serve God and our neighbors\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kimberly van Driel\u2026 Pastor of Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Naugatuck, CT\u2026 writes\u2026 for those who follow Jesus\u2026 acts of devotion are not done for praise\u2026 visibility\u2026 or the building up of wealth and reputation\u2026 instead\u2026 the focus is to be God alone\u2026 hypocrisy consists of undertaking pious action in hope of earthly rewards\u2026 rewards that come from human beings instead of from God\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This principle of doing acts of piety\u2026 without concern for being seen\u2026 flies in the face of too-many-to-count subtle\u2026 and not so subtle temptations\u2026 shaped by social pressures\u2026 ] our post-modern culture is characterized by image and style\u2026 which is made worse by the effect that various kinds of media exert in our lives\u2026 ] remaining unaffected by it all\u2026 is almost as difficult as trying to swim straight up Niagara Falls\u2026 or it may be as challenging as unpacking our family of origin baggage\u2026 which may feed our false sense of self…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fr. John Meulendyk, OFC\u2026 writes that\u2026 Lent is the church\u2019s attempt to allow us time to turn our “false sense-of-self” into ashes. Arrogance, self-centeredness, bias, deception\u2026 and even our illusion of independence and freedom is on the line here\u2026 our \u2018true-self\u2019 is found only when we rely completely on God\u2026<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fire of Lent\u2026 <\/em>he said\u2026 is like the fire in a steel mill\u2026 whose job is to expose impurities and allow them to rise to the surface\u2026 so that they can be burned away\u2026 and the disciplines of Lent\u2026 fasting\u2026 alms giving\u2026 and prayer\u2026 act like matches that ignite that fire\u2026 no discipline\u2026 no fire\u2026<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So we must not neglect the promised qualities of life in Christ\u2026\u00a0 whose words\u2026\u00a0 through the cross and resurrection\u2026\u00a0 defeated the power of sin and death\u2026 and through whose grace\u2026\u00a0 forgiveness is available\u2026\u00a0 and it is this forgiveness which transforms us into God-centered people\u2026\u00a0 this forgiveness transforms us into creatures who can walk head on into the social gales of conformity which now brush against us like gentle fingers\u2026\u00a0 and when this happens\u2026\u00a0 our Lenten disciplines can help us become more aware of God’s presence in our lives and in our world\u2026\u00a0 a gifted presence which flows from God\u2026\u00a0 through us\u2026\u00a0 and to others\u2026\u00a0 and the greater gift\u2026\u00a0 is when our fear of death lessens\u2026\u00a0 because we know that in God’s time\u2026\u00a0 we will trade in perishable bodies\u2026\u00a0 for imperishable ones\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n