Ash Wednesday

[cappie]

  Lent moves us in quite a different direction from our culture. For most of the year we Christians follow our culture, listen to the same news, watch the same movies, read the same bestsellers. But when we come to Lent, we come to a cultural parting in the road. The Lenten journey asks a different question of us than does our pop culture. Culture asks us, "How do you look today? How do you feel today? Not too good? Well, we can change that. So, thanks to Viagra, tummy tucks, health clubs, Clairol, tax-free investments, retirement, and of course, by using Garlic tablets, we hang on to our eternity just a bit longer. 

But Lent, on the other hand, just sits there like some monk, chanting Psalm 50. Asks us quite a different question: Is it well with your soul? Feeling and looking good is important. But Lent reminds us that beneath the cosmetics, the hair colouring, the nice threads, our job, salary, family, and cat, there is a soul that needs grooming and care. That beneath all the layers of our activities and commitments, and leisure and work is a soul that has been damaged by sin. The chanting in Psalm 50 this morning asks us point blank, "How is it with your soul?"

   I appreciate this psalm because it is honest. Gut level honest. No beating around the bush. No gentle segues that lead us to the discovery that in some small way we might be sinners. Just gut level honesty. If we want to enter conversation with Psalm 50, we must also be honest. Honest to ourselves. Honest to God. So, Psalm 50 keeps our halos ajar, tilted downward toward the earth. It has our name on it.

The first thing that strikes me is a confession--the uses that three-letter word, "sin." Calls it a lot of things, iniquity, sin, transgressions, doing what he calls "evil," and death. In the Hebrew language and thought our three-letter word required eight or nine Hebrew words to completely describe it.  

To sin, was to miss the bull’s eye of an archery target. King David had several Annie Oakley kinds of archers who it was said, "could fling a stone within a hair-breath of the bull’s eye, and not miss." That image came to describe what sin was like: to miss the bull’s eye of God’s will for our lives. To fail to live up to the fullest intent of God’s plan. 

Another Hebrew word for sin described it as not doing what we should’ve and doing what we should’ve. We call such sins in church language the sins of omission and the sins of commission. Such sins, it was believed, poisoned the soul, and could infect the entire community.  

Yet another Hebrew word describes sin as being unfaithful to the covenant between neighbour and God. All life is upheld by covenant; when we attend a wedding, we are watching covenant making in action. When we worship on a Sunday morning, there is an unwritten covenant between God and us that we honour. To break covenant is to sin. Every time we come to that part in the Lord’s Prayer where we say, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” we’re praying for forgiveness of this kind of sin, for breaking our promises to God and neighbour.

Finally, the ancients had a word to describe the kind of sin that gets front-page coverage in the newspaper--deeds that are so violent, senseless, destructive, and evil and we cringe and draw back.

What’s behind all these words that describe sin? Behind all the types of sin was the belief that sin poisoned the soul from within and led to its complete destruction. Sin is chaos that mars and destroys God image within us--our soul. It threatens the order and parameters of our community and nation. And it’s lethal! The opposite of sin is contained in what we call Chicken Soup for the Soul. The belief that good actions and words will lead to good results. The power of Chicken Soup for the Soul is in the stories of warm-hearted, brave, self-giving people who, by their actions, set in motion good results. Someone is loved and that person, in turn, expresses that love to the next person.  

There are three things that we can do that will empower us to nourish our soul rather than starve and fragment the soul. First, be honest to God. Remember the ashes of Lent that remind us that we are all of us sinners and in need of repair. 

Secondly, remember what ashes stand for -- from dust we came and to dust we shall return. So, what are we doing with our lives between the dust? Look at your life from the standpoint of dust! From the standpoint of eternity. Take a friend of mine. This person lived a tough life no doubt. Made some bad choices. Five years go, he started listening to that strange chant of Psalm 50 and now he is a Christian. A Christian who is aware of dust. He recently was given less than a year of life. So, what does he do? He enrols in college; wants to learn how to preach the gospel. Wants to give the hours that remain in his life to sharing God’s good news with others. Sometimes he makes it sometimes he’s too ill, but he reminds me of what Psalm 50 and the season of Lent says, from dust we’ve come and to dust we’ll return. So be sure that you’re spending your energies in the right places, with the right people, doing the right kinds of things. 

Thirdly, Psalm 50 and the ashes of Lent remind us not only that we are sinners, that we are from and return to dust, but also that we are God’s property. God is the healer who begins to change us from the inside when any sick soul cries out for help. The Gospel doesn’t guarantee your physical well-being, or slow the aging process, but it does something much more. Our confessions and God’s forgiveness begins the healing process in our soul. Ashes in the form of the cross remind us that we’re God’s property. 

So, this week take a piece of Psalm 51 -- say the part where the psalmist says, "Create in me a Clean Heart O God. And pray that again and again. Make it a soaking prayer that permeates your being. Then begin to walk in newness of life that has begun. Amen. 

 

[little2add]