Tag Archives: Lent

Mother Hens and Smoking Fire-Pots: A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, 2013

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One of the interesting aspects of the season of Lent for me is that my earliest and in some deepest encounters with Lent came not through the liturgical cycle of contemporary Christianity, Episcopal or otherwise, but rather because I was trained as a historian of Christianity. Lent’s roots grow deep in the Christian tradition, dating back to the practices of early Christianity. In the fourth century, and perhaps earlier, it was common practice for baptism to occur primarily at the great Vigil of Easter, the wonderful celebration of Christ’s resurrection that begins in darkness on Saturday night, and traditionally ended at the first light of Easter Day. In preparation for baptism, those who had committed themselves to undertake initiation prepared by a season of fasting and learning. Continue reading →

A Smoking Fire Pot and a Flaming Torch: Lectionary Reflections on Lent 2, Year C

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This week’s readings are here.

One of my most memorable worship experiences is connected with this story from Genesis. I was still a layperson at the time, member of an Episcopal Church.  I remember looking around the congregation and as the description of the covenant ceremony was being read, catching the eyes of a parishioner on the other side of the church. Her eyes grew wider and wider, a look of puzzlement on her face. She wanted to know something about this strange story. The reading ended. The service continued, and the preacher got up and had nothing to say about it, or as I recall, any of the other lessons read that day. That experience cemented for me the conviction that one of the preacher’s greatest obligations is to engage directly the hard questions raised in or by a text.

The story tells of the covenant Yahweh made with Abram. It’s a promise by God to give Abram a son, to make of his descendants a mighty nation, and also to give to them the promised land. Although covenant is a key theme in scripture, it’s almost as strange a notion to moderns as the subsequent description of the ceremony. We might think of it as a treaty, for in many cases, biblical covenants share a great deal with ancient treaties that have been discovered. At its heart is God’s promise. As we see in this text, Abram has a hard time trusting in that promise. He wants to work out his descendants on his own (here in c. 15, later with Ishmael, too). Here, Yahweh shows him the stars in the sky, and says, “So shall your descendants be.” And in that powerful verse used later by Paul, “Abram believed, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

Then comes the ceremony. Abram splits animals in half, lays them out, and “a smoking fire pot and a torch passed between these pieces.” In ancient covenant ceremonies, parties to the treaty passed between similarly-killed animals and promised that if they broke the covenant, the offender would be destroyed as these animals were killed.

In this eerie story, we encounter both the otherness of the text and the otherness of God. Various details contribute to its spookiness–Abraham falls into deep sleep, there’s a terrifying darkness. The story’s ambiguity contributes to its strangeness. Does this take place in a dream, a vision?

In spite of all of that strangeness and other-ness, relics of a far distant age, there is also reassurance. There is God’s promise, and those wonderful words, Abram believed, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Here “righteousness” doesn’t have to do with holiness, but rather with being in right relationship with God. Whatever his doubts now or in the future,  Yahweh’s promise to Abram will remain true, and Abram will know that God is with him, and he with God.

It’s a reassuring message in Lent as well. Invited to reflect on our lives, we are also encouraged to encounter and experience God’s promise to us of salvation, and the grace that is offered us in Jesus Christ.

 

 

A word of forgiveness in Lent

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I had one of those encounters yesterday that brought me up short. A homeless guy was hanging around the church after the early service and said he wanted to talk with me. There was something concrete I could help him with, but then he began telling me his story, telling me what burdened him. Many years ago, he had done something terrible to another human being and for all that time, his actions and what resulted from them preyed on him. He told me that he had asked God for forgiveness many times over the years, but that he couldn’t be sure he had been forgiven. We talked and prayed, and at the end of our meeting, I said the words of absolution while laying my hands on him:

Almighty God, have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, keep you in eternal life. Amen.

As I said them, I prayed that he might hear those words as words of consolation and forgiveness, words of assurance of God’s love for him. I hoped they could be words of comfort in the midst of a difficult life and at the end of a long road. As I said them, I thought of the Great Litany that we had recited earlier that morning. I thought too of Ash Wednesday with its litany of penitence. Ash Wednesday and Lent are times when we are encouraged to reflect on ourselves, our sins and shortcomings, repent of them, and seek God’s forgiveness. All of that can be hard work. It’s difficult to be honest with oneself, to admit one’s humanity, weaknesses, and faults. It’s difficult to repent of them—to say, yes, I’m sorry I’m that way, or that I’ve done those things. I’m sorry I continue to do them. It’s hard to lay oneself bare before oneself or before God.

But it’s also hard to ask for and accept God’s forgiveness. Sometimes that word of forgiveness is lost in the midst of our own pain and self-loathing. Sometimes the grace of forgiveness seems overwhelmed by our own suffering and the suffering we have inflicted on others. Sometimes, God’s forgiveness seems impossible. Sometimes we resist the amazing grace offered by God. Do the words of absolution, the offer of God’s forgiveness come as words of good news and grace in the midst of our lives? When we resist them, how can we open ourselves to the possibility that through God’s grace and love, we might experience new life in Christ?

The message of Ash Wednesday and Lent can be hard indeed, but harder still for us to hear and receive may be the message of God’s forgiveness. Lent should also be a time when our goal should be to experience that message fully. It should be a time when we open ourselves to the joy of God’s grace.

He was tempted in every way as we are–A Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, 2013

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I often wonder what visitors think when they visit an Episcopal church like Grace on the First Sunday of Lent. Actually, I often wonder what most members or regular attenders think when they come to Grace today. We have endured the oldest piece of liturgy written in the English language—the Great Litany, with its comprehensive list of petitions on behalf of everything and everyone under the sun. We have chanted and prayed at length, listened to readings, and now finally you’re settling in for a few minutes of respite from what will be six weeks of relentless reminders of our humanity, sinfulness, and need for repentance. Is it any wonder some people give up church for Lent? Continue reading →

The food stamp challenge and the faces of the hungry in Madison

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I participated in a press event organized by Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice. They are encouraging faith communities to participate in the Food Stamp Challenge. I was invited because Grace Church has had a pantry since 1979.

Here’s what I had to say:

In 1979, visionary members of Grace responded to the growing need in our community by starting a food pantry. Those founders aren’t around anymore but I’ll bet if they were, they would tell me that they had no idea that the pantry they founded would still be in operation nearly 35 years later.

I see them every afternoon lining up before our pantry opens its doors. White, African-American, Hispanic, Asian; old and young, parents or grandparents with children, occasionally even college students. I see the diversity that is twenty-first century America, the diversity that is hunger and poverty in our great nation on display within sight of the State Capitol. Their stories are as diverse as their ages and the color of their skin—the elderly or disabled on fixed incomes who are trying to scrape by until the next check comes, unemployed or underemployed people trying to supplement the pay from a job that doesn’t provide a living wage; college students who can’t afford to pay tuition, room and board; homeless people, too. On Saturday mornings, our guests are mostly employed, but their low-pay jobs don’t pay them enough to make ends meet. I’ve handed food out to people who had absolutely nothing to feed their children that afternoon; I’ve given formula to a grandmother whose baby grandchild had been abandoned by her mother and she had come to us in desperation.

These are the faces of the hungry in America. The SNAP program, what we used to call food stamps is intended to supplement, not provide, food for people who have nowhere else to turn except to food pantries and meal programs, people who are supposed to be able to feed themselves. And the amount that’s provided is barely enough to ensure adequate nutrition—the equivalent of $29 and change every week per person.

Those of us with homes, jobs, adequate clothing, and adequate food have no idea what it’s like to live without those things. As the gap between rich and poor continues to widen in our country, and we’ve learned that the US has the greatest income disparity of any of the world’s developed nations, the gap of comprehension of what it’s like to live without is growing as well. Most of us never see those lines waiting outside the pantry, or later in the evening, the line of men waiting to enter the Men’s Shelter at Grace. If by chance we encounter it, we avert our eyes or cross to the other side of the street. To experience that world, the world of want and deprivation is a greater shock than traveling to another country. To experience it, even in something so simple as the Food Stamp Challenge, is to begin to comprehend the struggles faced by so many in our society, struggles faced day after day, year after year.

As we approach the Christian season of Lent, traditionally a season of fasting and repentance in preparation for the remembrance of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, it’s appropriate for us to imitate the one who we believe became like us, by walking in the footsteps of our brothers and sisters who live in poverty and want.