Ash Wednesday Joel 2:1-2a, 12-17
February 25, 2009 Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18
Duane Shank

Ash Wednesday and Lent — the forty days of preparing for Easter — were not part of my church experience growing up. We were a non-liturgical church and didn’t observe all of those special days and seasons others did, except for Christmas and Easter. I do have vague memories from grade school of classmates coming to school with dark smudges on their foreheads and wondering why. I presume I asked them (or my parents), but I don’t really remember.

As an ecumenical community, there are also others of us here this evening who are from traditions where Lent is not observed, and there are those of us from traditions where it is. And for all of us who now do observe Lent, there are various points of emphasis and significance — as the Book of Common Prayer notes — penitence, fasting, self-denial, self-examination, reading the Word. In the early church, it was the time of preparation for baptism. Each one of us probably has a different way of thinking about Lent, different disciplines we follow.

In thinking about this service, I was reflecting on the theme suggested for our booklet of Lenten reflections – change. It’s a word we’ve heard a lot over the last year or so in relation to our political life. But for Lent, let us think about it in relation to our spiritual life. How can we seek the changes we need in our lives this Lent? Let me share a few thoughts on the reading from the book of Joel – the problem, the solution, and the result.

The problem – sin, falling short

I suspect that many of us grew up thinking that sin was about the bad things we did, however our various traditions defined those. But I’ve learned that just as important, if not more, is that we have not always done the right things. Another definition of sin is falling short. Many times what we have failed to do is as important as what we do.

We were reminded Sunday that Lent marks the beginning of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, to the cross, and were challenged to look at what keeps us from following. I know that I, and I suspect all of us, have things we could do better, things we should change, that would make us better followers of Jesus.

I was also struck in preparing the liturgy by something I hadn’t really noticed when we’ve used it before. In the Penitential Rite we will soon pray, all of the pronouns are plural — We have done this, or not done that. It reminded me of the central prayer of Yom Kippur, which is also all plural. Most Christians, the way most of us were taught, think of sin as individual, and it is certainly true that each of us as individuals should reflect on that. But our reaction to these prayers is — not me, I haven’t done that. Yet both traditions remind us that sin is also collective. As part of a community, we are all responsible for the actions or inactions of that community.

And, we need at times, a “collective repentance.” There is a connection between the spiritual responsibilities of an individual and those of a community. That is true of our community of believers and it is also true of our community as a nation. Abraham Heschel, speaking of the war in Vietnam, reminded us that while “Some are guilty, all are responsible.” We could say the same about many things in our country and world today. So when we recite the penitential litany, I encourage us to think both individually and collectively.

The solution — Change — repent

Joel tells us the solution to our individual and collective shortcomings, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God.”

The idea of returning to God is a common one, central to the prophets. The word means to turn, return, restore. It’s used 950 times in the Hebrew Bible, and is described in Jewish theology as “a divine-human turning-toward each other,” an “ever-renewing, ever-rejuvenating power.” It is similar to the word repent, and the two are often used interchangeably. The related Greek word in the New Testament also has the meaning of changing for the better. In Matthew and Mark, it is the first thing Jesus says in his public ministry — repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.

Too often Christians think of repentance as synonymous with conversion, as something that happens in the emotion of a revival meeting, an event where we are sorry for our sins, they are forgiven and then we get on with life. But Ash Wednesday and Lent remind us that repentance, turning back to God, is not a one-time event. It is a constant part of our walk with God as we seek God’s kingdom. As humans, when we fall short, we need to change, to return to God.

The result — forgiveness

God’s response when we return is a statement that first appears in the Bible in Exodus, at the second giving of the Ten Commandments. Following God’s anger at the worship of the golden calf and Moses’ successful intervention to prevent the destruction of his people, he asks God, “If I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you …”

God responds by calling him up the mountain again and while he is hidden in a crack in the rocks, God passes before him and proclaims: “The Lord, The Lord. A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love…” That phrase is repeated six additional times in the Hebrew Bible — in the Psalms and in the prophets. It is the dominant phrase in the Yom Kippur liturgy, coming after the prayers of repentance. And it is in the reading the lectionary gives us for Ash Wednesday.

It is those attributes that are the ways of God. And it is the promise of God when we repent and return.

During this season of Lent, as we examine ourselves, let all of us observe “a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance … by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word,” by repenting and returning to God. And to do so, knowing that God is always waiting, gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.