Ash Wednesday<\/p>\n
Year A
\nIsaiah 58:1-12
\nPsalm 103:8-14
\n2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
\nMatthew 6:1-6,16-21<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a movie from 2007\u2026 which tells a tale of friendship\u2026 betrayal\u2026 secrets\u2026 redemption\u2026 and reconciliation\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and woven into the soundtrack\u2026 is a song called Supplication\u2026 whose lyrics I believe\u2026 reflect the penitence of Lent\u2026 I\u2019ve referred to them before\u2026 so they may sound familiar\u2026 and you may remember the movie in which the song is performed\u2026 it was based on the best-selling novel The Kite Runner\u2026 and the Lenten truth\u2026 that the song contains is this\u2026<\/p>\n O God\u2026 my sins\u2026 are like the highest mountain\u2026 my good deeds are very few\u2026 they’re like a small pebble\u2026 I turn to you\u2026 my heart full of shame\u2026 my eyes full of tears\u2026 bestow your forgiveness and mercy upon me<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n So I talk to you this evening about hopeful repentance\u2026 and changing perspectives\u2026 as most of you know\u2026 when I was growing up\u2026 we celebrated Rosh Hashanah<\/i>\u2026 the Jewish New Year\u2026 and soon thereafter\u2026 Yom Kippur<\/i>\u2026 the Day of Atonement\u2026 Yom Kippur<\/i> was like a condensed Lent\u2026 forty days compressed into just one\u2026 it was one concentrated day of fasting\u2026 and prayer\u2026 and asking God to forgive us our sins\u2026 and to be reconciled with God\u2026<\/p>\n Yom Kippur can also be called the Day of at-one-ment\u2026 the day on which Jews become re-united with God\u2026 because in spite of our best intentions\u2026 we often go astray or fall short of the mark\u2026 so we ask God to forgive us our sins and set things right\u2026 we know we’ll go astray again\u2026 and ask God’s forgiveness again\u2026 and being the good God that God is\u2026 God will\u2026 that is the hopeful repentance\u2026<\/p>\n But that hopeful repentance must be accompanied by a changing perspective\u2026 a perspective that shifts from street corners\u2026 to humility\u2026 from self-interest\u2026 to the interests of others\u2026 from seeing what we want to see\u2026 to seeing what God wants us to see\u2026 and seeing God\u2026<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reading from the Book of Numbers\u2026 that some of you will remember too\u2026 it\u2019s about the Israelite\u2019s time in the wilderness\u2026 when the people went astray\u2026 and became impatient\u2026 and complained and spoke against Moses\u2026 and against God\u2026 and so God sent poisonous serpents among them\u2026 and they bit people\u2026 and many of them died\u2026 in Hebrew\u2026 the word for “serpents” are the hag-hasheem<\/i>\u2026 and they\u2019re members of an angelic order of fiery Seraphim\u2026 and as the people became aware of their sins\u2026 God instructed Moses to make a poisonous serpent out of bronze\u2026 and mount it on a wooden pole\u2026 and then\u2026 when the people were bitten\u2026 when they repented\u2026 they would look at the poisonous metal serpent and live\u2026.<\/p>\n According to John Sturdy\u2026 the former Dean at Caius College in Cambridge\u2026 this story was probably developed to explain the origin of the bronze serpent\u2026 which probably dates back to pre-Israelite times\u2026 and which stood in the Temple up until the time of King Hezekiah\u2026 the righteous Hezekiah ruled from about 715 until 686 BCE\u2026 and he had the bronze serpent destroyed\u2026 as recorded in 2 Kings 18:4\u2026 because up until then\u2026 the people made offerings to it\u2026 and during that time frame\u2026 the image of the serpent shifted from a fertility context\u2026 to a sign of God\u2019s protective power\u2026 and that\u2019s also partly where we get the medical symbols of the caduceus (ca-doo-see-us)\u2026 one or two serpents wrapped around a staff or pole\u2026<\/p>\n So I don’t think that simply looking at a metal reptile is what healed the Israelites\u2026 I believe that what happened was a shift in perspective\u2026 I believe that what healed them\u2026 is that they looked past the serpent\u2026 and let their gaze rest on God\u2026 it’s like saying\u2026 when you’re out in the world\u2026 in our wilderness\u2026 and you’re stung or bitten or infected by the evil in the world\u2026 change your perspective\u2026 look to God\u2026 a God who places before us\u2026 life and death\u2026 and asks us to choose life so that we can be if not cured\u2026 then at least healed\u2026 and made whole\u2026<\/p>\n In spite of what society tells us about needing to do it on our own\u2026 we are all connected\u2026 and God has wired us to need each other\u2026 to share our strength\u2026 and to seek help in our weakness\u2026 how much better then\u2026 especially in Lent\u2026 to acknowledge our offenses and sins\u2026 at least to ourselves\u2026 because God already knows them\u2026 because God came as one of us to effect atonement and reconciliation\u2026 and because God’s invitation into relationship is always there\u2026 it’s we who need to accept it\u2026<\/p>\n But this kind of prayer can be difficult\u2026 because so many of us avoid the silence of the wilderness\u2026 because in the wilderness there\u2019s nothing to distract us from our issues or our addictions\u2026 ] and to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves\u2026 as step four of AA\u2019s Twelve-Step Program invites us\u2026 is infamously the most “scary” one\u2026 because then we come face to face with ourselves\u2026 and our brokenness\u2026 and our underlying spiritual dis-eases\u2026 but doing this\u2026 is probably the most crucial step towards effective and lasting healing\u2026<\/p>\n And so we have to ask ourselves\u2026 were the Israelites in the wilderness just big whiners\u2026 or were they just human\u2026 were they afraid of what the wilderness uncovered about them\u2026 ] and so\u2026 to shift the focus\u2026 they pointed fingers\u2026 I mean\u2026 they did leave Egypt and all that they knew\u2026 and entered the unknown\u2026 as many of us have done\u2026 maybe they were afraid\u2026 maybe they did lose faith\u2026 and so maybe the story says less about their shortcomings\u2026 and more about our need to keep shifting our focus back to God\u2026<\/p>\n For a long time\u2026 I didn’t feel worthy of God’s love\u2026 I thought I was broken beyond repair\u2026 my yoke felt hard and my burden felt heavy\u2026 but I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity\u2026 I came to believe that I could turn over to God what was too much for me to bear\u2026 that God would meet me where I was\u2026 and that we could journey ahead together from there\u2026 and I still hold on to that belief\u2026<\/p>\n So during Lent\u2026 let’s shift our focus and our attention back to God\u2026 as many times as it takes\u2026 to look past the bronze serpents\u2026 and the golden calves\u2026 and all the idols of this world\u2026 and fix our gaze on the one who was raised from the tomb to overcome death\u2026 because there is no one who is outside the reach of God’s love\u2026<\/p>\n And as we are marked with ashes\u2026 let\u2019s remember that we were also marked in our baptisms\u2026 with consecrated oil\u2026 called chrism\u2026 we were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ\u2019s own forever\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>few of us are particularly militant\u2026 but to be baptized is a sign of rebellion\u2026 to die to self and be reborn as members of the body of Christ\u2026 is to reject the values of the world\u2026 and to display the mark of ashes\u2026 as a sign of our mortality\u2026 is both brave\u2026 and counter-cultural\u2026 it is a sign of resistance\u2026 because when we wear ashes\u2026 we acknowledge that we are wearing that of which we are made\u2026 and the stardust of which we are made\u2026 comes from nowhere else\u2026 but God\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ash Wednesday Year A Isaiah 58:1-12 Psalm 103:8-14 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6,16-21 There\u2019s a movie from 2007\u2026 which tells a tale of friendship\u2026 betrayal\u2026 secrets\u2026 redemption\u2026 and reconciliation\u2026\u00a0 and woven into the soundtrack\u2026 is a song called Supplication\u2026 whose lyrics I believe\u2026 reflect the penitence of Lent\u2026 I\u2019ve referred to them before\u2026 so they may sound familiar\u2026 and you may remember the movie in which the song is performed\u2026 it was based on the best-selling novel The Kite Runner\u2026 and the Lenten truth\u2026 that the song contains is this\u2026 O God\u2026 my sins\u2026 are like the highest mountain\u2026 my good deeds are very few\u2026 they’re like a small pebble\u2026 I turn to you\u2026 my heart full of shame\u2026 my eyes full of tears\u2026 bestow your forgiveness and mercy upon me\u2026 So I talk to you this evening about hopeful repentance\u2026 and changing perspectives\u2026 as most of you know\u2026 when I was growing up\u2026 we celebrated Rosh Hashanah\u2026 the Jewish New Year\u2026 and soon thereafter\u2026 Yom Kippur\u2026 the Day of Atonement\u2026 Yom Kippur was like a condensed Lent\u2026 forty days compressed into just one\u2026 it was one concentrated day of fasting\u2026 and prayer\u2026 and asking God to forgive us our sins\u2026 and to be reconciled with God\u2026 Yom Kippur can also be called the Day of at-one-ment\u2026 the day on which Jews become re-united with God\u2026 because in spite of our best intentions\u2026 we often go astray or fall short of the mark\u2026 so we ask God to forgive us our sins and set things right\u2026 we know we’ll go astray again\u2026 and ask God’s forgiveness again\u2026 and being the good God that God is\u2026 God will\u2026 that is the hopeful repentance\u2026 But that hopeful repentance must be accompanied by a changing perspective\u2026 a perspective that shifts from street corners\u2026 to humility\u2026 from self-interest\u2026 to the interests of others\u2026 from seeing what we want to see\u2026 to seeing what God wants us to see\u2026 and seeing God\u2026 There\u2019s a reading from the Book of Numbers\u2026 that some of you will remember too\u2026 it\u2019s about the Israelite\u2019s time in the wilderness\u2026 when the people went astray\u2026 and became impatient\u2026 and complained and spoke against Moses\u2026 and against God\u2026 and so God sent poisonous serpents among them\u2026 and they bit people\u2026 and many of them died\u2026 in Hebrew\u2026 the word for “serpents” are the hag-hasheem\u2026 and they\u2019re members of an angelic order of fiery Seraphim\u2026 and as the people became aware of their sins\u2026 God instructed Moses to make a poisonous serpent out of bronze\u2026 and mount it on a wooden pole\u2026 and then\u2026 when the people were bitten\u2026 when they repented\u2026 they would look at the poisonous metal serpent and live\u2026. According to John Sturdy\u2026 the former Dean at Caius College in Cambridge\u2026 this story was probably developed to explain the origin of the bronze serpent\u2026 which probably dates back to pre-Israelite times\u2026 and which stood in the Temple up until the time of King Hezekiah\u2026 the righteous Hezekiah ruled from about 715 until 686 BCE\u2026 and he had the bronze serpent destroyed\u2026 as recorded in 2 Kings 18:4\u2026 because up until then\u2026 the people made offerings to it\u2026 and during that time frame\u2026 the image of the serpent shifted from a fertility context\u2026 to a sign of God\u2019s protective power\u2026 and that\u2019s also partly where we get the medical symbols of the caduceus (ca-doo-see-us)\u2026 one or two serpents wrapped around a staff or pole\u2026 So I don’t think that simply looking at a metal reptile is what healed the Israelites\u2026 I believe that what happened was a shift in perspective\u2026 I believe that what healed them\u2026 is that they looked past the serpent\u2026 and let their gaze rest on God\u2026 it’s like saying\u2026 when you’re out in the world\u2026 in our wilderness\u2026 and you’re stung or bitten or infected by the evil in the world\u2026 change your perspective\u2026 look to God\u2026 a God who places before us\u2026 life and death\u2026 and asks us to choose life so that we can be if not cured\u2026 then at least healed\u2026 and made whole\u2026 In spite of what society tells us about needing to do it on our own\u2026 we are all connected\u2026 and God has wired us to need each other\u2026 to share our strength\u2026 and to seek help in our weakness\u2026 how much better then\u2026 especially in Lent\u2026 to acknowledge our offenses and sins\u2026 at least to ourselves\u2026 because God already knows them\u2026 because God came as one of us to effect atonement and reconciliation\u2026 and because God’s invitation into relationship is always there\u2026 it’s we who need to accept it\u2026 But this kind of prayer can be difficult\u2026 because so many of us avoid the silence of the wilderness\u2026 because in the wilderness there\u2019s nothing to distract us from our issues or our addictions\u2026 ] and to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves\u2026 as step four of AA\u2019s Twelve-Step Program invites us\u2026 is infamously the most “scary” one\u2026 because then we come face to face with ourselves\u2026 and our brokenness\u2026 and our underlying spiritual dis-eases\u2026 but doing this\u2026 is probably the most crucial step towards effective and lasting healing\u2026 And so we have to ask ourselves\u2026 were the Israelites in the wilderness just big whiners\u2026 or were they just human\u2026 were they afraid of what the wilderness uncovered about them\u2026 ] and so\u2026 to shift the focus\u2026 they pointed fingers\u2026 I mean\u2026 they did leave Egypt and all that they knew\u2026 and entered the unknown\u2026 as many of us have done\u2026 maybe they were afraid\u2026 maybe they did lose faith\u2026 and so maybe the story says less about their shortcomings\u2026 and more about our need to keep shifting our focus back to God\u2026 For a long time\u2026 I didn’t feel worthy of God’s love\u2026 I thought I was broken beyond repair\u2026 my yoke felt hard and my burden felt heavy\u2026 but I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity\u2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}