This past
week I had company while I burned the palm branches from last year’s Palm
Sunday worship service to create ashes for tonight’s service. Susan Olp, Religion editor for the Billings
Gazette, and a photographer, wanted a picture and a conversation around this
Christian ritual for Saturday’s Faith & Values page. I
mentioned to Susan that the imposition of the ashes was a “blessing.”
She paused. I knew what she was thinking.
Who wants to hear the words, “For dust you are and to dust you shall
return?”
In fact, for many years I’ve avoided
the reference to dust in the Ash Wednesday worship services I led. I don’t want to upset people. So I switched to the words “Repent and
Receive the gospel.” As if we’re not a
little alarmed by the word REPENT, which means CHANGE! Who wants to do that? Change is very, very hard.
Embracing
our limited life span is difficult as well.
But the subject comes up in the scriptures. I’m mindful of the author of the 103rd
Psalm who writes:
“15As for
mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
16for the
wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.”
And Psalm 23:
“And even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”
And Psalm 39:4
“Lord, let me know my end,
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.”
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.”
Did you catch that last reference? It almost sounds like a prayer. “Lord, Let me know my end; how fleeting my
life is.” As I repeat this phrase over
and over, I realize that the author of Psalm 39 isn’t seeking head knowledge,
but HEART knowledge. The author isn’t
asking for a death date to be circled on the calendar, the author is asking for
a spiritual boundary marker. “Let me EXPERIENCE how fleeting my life is…so
that I can experience how stable your heart is.”
The understanding of the psalmist’s finality is about
information to be sure, but the information isn’t going to be used to plan a
funeral but to shape a life; direct a life; support a life.
Things are looking up!!!
This past
Sunday the weekly magazine tucked into the Sunday Billings Gazette sported a
cover picture of the actress Julianne Moore who nominated for an Oscar for the
movie Still Alice. It’s her fifth
nomination. The movie is about a fictional
character named Dr. Alice Howland, a 50-year-old linguistics professor and a
mother of three who is afflicted with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Quoting the article by Spencer who
interviewed the actress, Moore says “It‘s a movie about mortality and
being. You’re never closer to loving
life than when you’re close to loss.”
“You’re
never closer to loving life than when you’re close to loss.”
What I hear in her comment about mortality and being
is that when we are in touch with our mortality a sense of alertness; a
heightened attentiveness develops. What
Moore is describing is an energy—a
POSITIVE energy. Our days on earth
are numbered. What comes to me is
“respect them.” As a Christian I would
add, “And respect who numbers them—respect the source of our numbered
days—respect God.” How do we respect
God? We live for God, we live for love.
I am reminded of a story in the gospel of Luke
concerning Jesus and a few unidentified persons. These unidentified persons have heard stories
about two tragedies and they are trying to make sense of them. We read:
Unless You Turn to God
13 1-5 About that
time some people came up and told him about the Galileans Pilate had killed
while they were at worship, mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices
on the altar. Jesus responded, “Do you think those murdered Galileans were
worse sinners than all other Galileans? Not at all. Unless you turn to God,
you, too, will die. And those eighteen in Jerusalem the other day, the ones
crushed and killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you
think they were worse citizens than all other Jerusalemites? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you, too, will die.”
These
persons want Jesus to make sense of a tragedy, and Jesus insists, instead, that
a “tragedy makes sense of us.” What can
any of us do with our limited days and our limited senses? J
Well,
according to Jesus and the psalmist and actress Julianne Moore, we can “wake
up.” How we live our life matters.
This past
summer I picked up a little book by a monk from the 6th century named St.
Benedict. St. Benedict founded twelve
monasteries in Europe, and his book, The
Rule of St. Benedict, is his two-fold instruction on how to live a Christ-centered life and how to run the
monastery. I do not feel called to live in a monastery, but I do feel called to
live a Christ-centered life. I want to
live for God. Isn’t that what all of us
said at our baptisms? We want to live
for God, like Jesus.
I don’t know
about you, but sometimes my call to be a Christian gets a little stale and I
need some help to keep moving forward, a mentor. “Rome,” we are told, “wasn’t
built in a day.” I’ve come to understand
that a Christian isn’t built in a day, either.
Have you ever watched someone paint a
piece of furniture, or a house? One layer doesn’t do
the trick. The paint goes on in layers,
which are called coats. Depending on the
project, it might be necessary to add some fifteen coats to the object before
its true beauty is revealed.
Becoming Christ-like is the result of
layering, or coating,
in order for our true beauty to be
exposed; for CHRIST to be exposed.
The Christian reads scripture
not ONCE, but over a life-time, each exposure a coat of paint. The Christian prays not once, or simply at the whim of their emotions, but
regularly, honoring appointments with God, each appointment a layer of
paint. The Christian works in community, serving their
neighbor in love, each act of love a layer of paint. The Christian worships, entering into the dialogue offered through the songs and
prayers and sermon and the passing of the peace, each conversation a layer of
paint. The Christian forgives endlessly, each act of
forgiveness a layer of paint. The
Christian experiences beauty in many
forms be it the ballet or the beach or the flight of a bird, and each
experience of beauty is a layer of paint.
Faith, as I understand it, is trust
in God’s help. To quote the author of Psalm 27 “I believe I will see God’s goodness in the
land of the living. ” However, I had
for many years thought that God’s goodness existed in my life to answer to my
will. “I want this and I’d like that,”
I’d pray, “Reward this and punish that and please don’t let me live without
this, that, and the other.” This type of
prayer makes ME quite LARGE; it makes ME SMART, it makes ME the LEADER.
When I came to my senses through many
faults of my own, I had to laugh. What in the world
did I really know about what was good, and right, and necessary for anyone,
including myself? Thank GOD for NOT
answering all of my prayers.
Why? Because
only God knows. Jesus teaches us the
better prayer life, “For I came not to do
my own will, but the will of God who sent me.” This is the proper perspective. This type of prayer makes GOD quite LARGE; it
makes GOD SMART, it makes GOD the Leader.
But would I
follow? Would I abandon the longings in
my own heart and let God make me over…into compassion…into God’s image…into
God’s heart? Now we are sneaking up on humility as I understand it. Faith
asks “Does God exist?” Humility asks,
“Am I willing to listen?”
Well, who
knows best, God or me?
St. Benedict, in his instructions to
his monks, to persons who long to stay in dialogue with God continually (to
pray without ceasing) that they may indeed act purely for God, understands that we are more apt to stay motivated to live for God if we “keep death
daily before our eyes.” We have to
remember the real race we are running.
It’s not success, it’s transformation—becoming ALL God. We are all running the race of transformation
until death—death being the great consummation of our self IN GOD.
So in the 4th
chapter of St. Benedict’s Rule for beginners, the chapter given over to
Instruments of Good Works, #47: “Keep
death daily before our eyes.”
Well, you
know, the first time I read that, I shuddered. There’s the death thing again—so foreign to a
society that thinks it is going to live forever. We drink green drinks loaded with ginger and
kale, and replace body parts, and book flights to Hawaii on our cell phones
from the hospital.
For St. Benedict, monastic
spirituality is a spirituality of the heart; it is entirely directed to helping
the monk discover his own inner source of spiritual vitality and living in
harmony with it.
By
instructing a monk to “keep death daily before our eyes” Benedict is reminding
his student in pursuit of Christ that there is an urgency. Life is short, but it matters, don’t give in
to complacency. Today might be the only
day you have to abandon your heart to God; indeed, it might be the only hour. There’s an urgency in the story I shared from
Luke’s gospel about the tragic deaths and Jesus’ invitation to focus on our own
inner renewal and not the faults of our neighbors. “You might perish just as easily as they
did.”
To miss the transformation from
living for the love of ME to living for the love of God is, according to Jesus,
is the real tragedy.
Many, many
years ago a friend told me the story of how his family hated him. Since he was a pastor, he told me the story
of how his church didn’t like him very much, either.
“I was in a
constant state of anxiety, depression, and rage,” he confessed. “Since I wanted to keep both my family and my
congregation, I sought help. But I
didn’t seek help from a counseling agency, I learned how to seek help from the
Holy Spirit of God. God put me back
together again; turned my thinking around…emptied me of the illusion of control
and filled me humility…so God could fill me with grace.”
My family
loves me…
My church
loves me…
I love me…
My life
truly began when I learned how to get out of the way of the One who’s way was
INSIDE of me.
And as St. Benedict
would add, “Towards the ONE (GOD) all of us are moving.”
I’ve noticed
it’s at an alarming speed.
Isn’t this a
good thing—to be, in the end, totally absorbed in the goodness of God?
Prayer:
I
DON’T KNOW ABOUT TOMORROW
I don't know about
tomorrowI just live from day to day
I don't borrow from its sunshine
For its skies may turn to gray
I don't worry o'er the future
For I know what Jesus said
And today I'll walk beside Him
For He knows what is ahead
Chorus:
Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand
(This sermon was preached on Ash Wednesday--February 18, 2015--by Reverend Dana Keener at Central Christian Church in Billings, MT.)
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