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Foundry United Rev. |
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Ash Wednesday Wednesday, March 1,
2006 |
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Epiphany,
which ended yesterday, is the season of light. Easter, which is 40 days away,
bursts into the world like the sun dawning after a cold, dank winter. We
greet Easter, some of us, with sunrise services. Right
in the middle of these seasons of light, falls Lent: the season of shadows. This is
the season more than any other, even Advent, when we look into the shadowy
places where the light doesn’t shine so brightly. Lent especially focuses on
the shadowy places within our own souls – the shadows that are hardest to
face and live with…the shadows within our own selves. Something
within us can not stand too much light. Something within us can not stand too
much joy or too much truth. Maybe most of all, something within us can not
stand too much love. So we
turn away from the light, from joy, from truth, from love, and create shadowy
places where we can hold on to our despair, our denials, and our anger and resentments.
Light,
joy, truth and love all require that we live. “I have come that they might
have life and have it abundantly,” Jesus is quoted as saying in one of my
personal golden texts – John 10:10. But
abundant life is demanding. It requires that we give ourselves to God and to
one another and to the beauty of the earth. So we turn our backs on abundant
life and make shadows where despair, denial, anger and resentment can dwell
undisturbed, and this shields us against love and freedom and joy…against
abundant life. The
idea, originally, of giving something up for Lent was to share experientially
in the sufferings of Christ. There was a time in my life that I read a lot
about religion and eating. One of the little factoids I discovered was that
in medieval times, monks gave up butter and lard and fat in general for Lent.
They had an Ash Wednesday ceremony called “Burying the Fat” in which they
would put butter in a casket, hold a funeral service, and bury the casket. They
gave up butter, lard and fat, because this made them constipated, and this –
they felt – was their way of sharing in the sufferings of Christ. I shared
this in staff devotions this morning and someone said, “I guess.” But
there is another meaning to giving up something for Lent. This is the idea of
giving up something that keeps us from facing the shadowy places in our souls.
This is
part of the rationale for giving up some kinds of food or alcohol or caffeine
for those of us who use food or alcohol or Pepsi to distract ourselves from
facing the painful shadowy places in our souls. I’ve
been brooding for some time what I would do for Lent this year – if I would
give anything up. I’ve decided to give up sit-coms. Because sit-coms –
especially Seinfeld reruns, and if I am absolutely honest, even Friends
reruns, and Jane thinks I have seen every episode of Cheers at least 3 or 4
times. Sit-coms are a way for me of not feeling bad or sad when I do, but
don’t want to. They are a way of me avoiding my shadows: a path to
mindlessness and unself-awareness. One of
the themes of Lent is turning and returning: Letting love shine into the
shadowy places within us so that God might heal us. Another
theme of Lent is remembering that we are dust and to dust we will return. All
we have finally that matters is our own self. Our clothes are dust. Our bank
accounts are dust. The awards on our walls are dust. We’d
better figure out how to live with our own souls, our own selves, because
there is nothing else finally. If we
cannot let the light shine on our own souls, if we cannot face the shadowy
places within our own selves, there is nothing else ultimately. So during
Lent we go inward to the shadowy places. We try to find quiet time and space
to face our own selves. We turn down the volume and slow down the pace so
that we might know ourselves and be reconciled to ourselves and then to one
another and to God. During Lent we face our despair, our denial, our anger
and resentments…what else? Our delusions, our pretenses, our cherished pain. We turn and return so that the light of God’s love might shine into
the shadowy places of our souls…because our souls and selves are all we have
that is not dust. We’d better figure out how to live with our own selves.
We’d better learn to live in peace with our own souls. www.foundryumc.org |
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