Friends,
Last week’s worship services were, in my mind, an uplifting blend of celebration and discipleship. We sang songs of joy and we expressed our thanks for the prodigal abundance of creation. We offered ourselves in prayer and we marveled at the story of the Transfiguration. We even acknowledged the hoopla of an event that we make out of the Super Bowl, as we far surpassed our collections of goods and donations for the Souper Bowl of Sharing. What a joyous weekend it was, with costumes and masks adorning our praise and worship.
Then, on Wednesday, our Ash Wednesday service was meaningful in a very different way. We approached the chancel three times. First, we remembered our baptism, after hearing the story of how the Christ stepped into the waters of baptism as a way of “fulfilling all righteousness.” Marvel about this: Jesus “fulfilled all righteousness” by being in solidarity with those of us who need repentance and transformation. Second, we experience the real presence of Christ in our collective spirits by celebrating the Lord’s Supper. We remember that grim occasion, when Jesus forthrightly says that one of the twelve would betray him, Simon would deny him, and all of them would abandon him. Even so, Jesus broke the bread and poured the cup and shared it with them saying, “This is my body, broken for you; this is my blood, shed for the forgiveness of many.” Finally, we acknowledged our mortality through receiving the imposition of ashes. From dust we have come, to dust we will go. I’ve always been struck as how I cannot see my own ashes, but when I see the ashes on my friends, when we wear those smudges together, I become more aware of my own mortality.
“Celebration” is one voice of worship, but there are others. Lenten worship is often seen as “sad” or “morbid,” but I prefer to think of it as a season to be serious and reflective about the very thing we celebrate. The disciples came down from their bedazzling mountaintop experience that we celebrated last weekend, hearing about Jesus’ forthcoming death and resurrection. Likewise, we spend the season of Lent looking at what it means to follow the Christ who was celebrated but also betrayed, who was followed but also crucified, who taught and healed but was also killed and buried. The original twelve Apostles were all on board when Jesus was healing and liberating and feeding the crowds, but when Jesus began to speak about his forthcoming trial, they faltered.
That’s the part of discipleship that we consider expressly during Lent. When we follow the one whose death was demanded by the crowds, who was stripped bare, and executed by the Empire, we are following one whose way of changing the world is not through popularity, wealth, or coercion. This shadow of the cross is what makes Jesus’ sermons different from a Ted Talk – it is a call to think differently, act differently, and be part of God’s Reign, based on an ethic of love and service. It can be liberating for those of us who are bound by the machinations of popularity, wealth, and coercion. But it can also be difficult to accept when we have been coopted by the machinations of popularity, wealth, and coercion.
However you observe Lent – whether you shed a habit, take on a new practice, join some of our ongoing opportunities to live reflectively, or simply stop to look up with wonder each day – I pray that you will experience a deep sense of grace. Our Lenten practices do not manufacture grace, they offer us opportunities to recognize that grace that fills our lives.
Mark of St. Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment