First Sunday in
Lent
Coventry
Feb. 24, 2002
A Restoration Project
By Leslie Kennard
Since 9/11, there’s been a lot of
information around about Islam. Folks
who are familiar with the teachings of Mohammed, who have read and studied the Koran,
know that Islam is a religion of peace and human rights. I received a pamphlet about Islam from my
seminary recently and I’d like to share part of it with you, because it relates
to our own observance of Len, specifically the emphasis on our prayer life.
This is by Charles Mabee. He says, “The
focus of Islam, like Judaism, is on what one does, not on what one believes....
The Qur’an prescribes...praying five times per day as a way of creating greater
God consciousness.... the prayers occur at various intervals in the day and
(each person pauses at these times) to evaluate their activities in order to
redirect and recommit those activities to God.”[1]
We see the parallel in our own faith in
Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians when he writes, “Pray without ceasing.” He doesn’t mean we should live on our knees,
but rather that with each thought, with each action, with each moment, we
should check in with God. We should
seek to increase our God consciousness.
Christian communities in the early church, and in many monasteries
today, begin the day at 6:00 with prayer and psalms, and every three hours
throughout the day they stop what they are doing and come together to pray,
much as the Muslims do, to bring their thoughts back to God, and to realign
their actions or their thoughts.
While the faith of Islam and Judaism is
rooted in one’s actions, Christianity is based not on what we do
but on what we believe. If
anyone thinks they can earn their way to heaven by doing good works, we
call that “works righteousness”, and to think that we can earn our salvation
misses the whole point of God’s grace.
EITHER Jesus died for our sins and they’ve been paid for (that’s the
free gift we read about in this morning’s passage from Romans)-- EITHER Jesus
has ALREADY PAID for our sins OR we have to pay for them ourselves. Which is it? Did Jesus die to pay for our sins, granting us the promise of
eternal life, or did he die for nothing?
So BELIEVING is the foundation of our faith.
Christians, and I think ONLY Christians (and not all Christians at
that) believe that God’s love is so complete that God forgives us as many times
as we sin. Seven, 70, 7000, 7 million. As often as we sin, God will forgive us. That is what we believe: Jesus died that we
might be forgiven.
Believing, or at least wanting to believe,
is a good beginning, but I think that too often we want that to be the whole
story, that we want to be able to say, “I believe” and have our profession of
faith be enough. But...I don’t think
that just believing is enough.
Anyone here ever been on a diet? Believing in the diet doesn’t take the
pounds off, does it? Anyone here ever
been on a budget? Believing in the
budget doesn’t pay off the balance on the Master Card. Believing in AA doesn’t stop the
drinking. Believing in charity doesn’t
feed the hungry, house the homeless, or provide medical care for the uninsured.
Believing is a powerful beginning, but believing isn’t the whole story.
Does anyone watch “This Old House” on
television? (You probably can’t live in
New England and not know that the best houses are old houses that have
been restored, houses with a history.
Now I’m not particularly handy, so I look at some of those old houses and
I think, “bring on the bulldozers.”
Sometimes they take off so many layers of wallpaper it looks as if the
walls were MADE of wallpaper. What they
do with those old houses is inconceivable to me. Each house they tackle, in the
beginning I think, “That’s a wreck.
They are NEVER going to be able to restore THIS house. They’re in over their heads this time!” And every time, they pull it off, and the
restoration is breath taking. HOW DO
THEY DO THAT?
They start with belief. They BELIEVE this old house can be
restored. And then they roll up their
sleeves and get to work. Of course,
most of us can’t produce the same results - we don’t have the expertise or the
money or the physical strength. We’d
need a LOT of help to restore an old house the way they do on television.
I think that’s a great metaphor to what we
as Christians do during Lent. We embark
on a restoration of our souls. Most of
us, if we took the time to look inside, would shake our heads and think, NOBODY
can restore this old soul. There’s no
amount of work that can loosen the chains of resentment. There is no hope for my child. Nobody can undo the deeds of my
adolescence.
But, in fact, restoration is not only possible: restoration is the
business that God is in. And restoration
of our souls, in partnership with God, is what we are about to take on for the
next 35 days. I want to emphasize that
God is our partner. God is the one with
the expertise and the strength and the power to get us through.
Lent is not a will-power contest. Often I’ve heard of folks (myself included)
giving something up for Lent. Bill’s
been cleaning our stove, inside and out: Brillo and elbow grease and lots of time. Friday he said he’s giving up cleaning the
stove for Lent. Most years I give up
chocolate. But, you know, giving up
chocolate for six weeks is really inconsequential. In the great cosmic order, who cares whether we give up
chocolate. Does my giving up chocolate
for six weeks make any difference in the world? Does giving up chocolate help the environment recover from what
we’ve done to it? Does giving up
chocolate help the people in Africa and Asia and South America who are in the
middle of never ending wars? Are people
healthier because I gave up chocolate?
Happier? Richer? No, of course not. When we think of Lent as a time to exert a little will power and
give up chocolate, we are not only trivializing God’s love, Jesus’ PASSION. We are missing a HOLY, a divine and God
inspired opportunity to make the world a better place - beginning right here,
in our own hearts. Lent is about letting
God change our lives. And I think
we avoid the Lenten disciplines because the reality is that if we COULD change
our lives, we WOULD. And we wouldn’t
wait for Lent to make those changes. I
mean, for those who are fighting the battle of the bulge, if losing 20 or 50 or
100 pounds only required will power, we’d all be thin! And how about all those fractured family
relationships. We read the self-help
books, and we watch Dr. Phil on “Oprah” and we talk to each other. We ACHE to heal our families: if mere will
power would do the trick, all our families would be whole!
Choosing to change, choosing to restore our souls, choosing
to transform our lives is not about will power. Choosing life is not about gritting our teeth and giving up all
that’s fun and good. To choose life is
first to believe, and then to ACT on our belief that God is our partner. Once
we choose, as believers, to bring about a change, we check in with God as often
as we need to - every hour, every minute, every second, and allow God to clean
the dark corners of our lives that mystify us, allow God to polish our
God-given gifts, to allow God to give us the strength we need to follow through
on plans to heal our relationships.
We Yankees really prefer to be independent, to do things by
ourselves. But there are some things we
truly can’t do alone. Wounds we can’t
heal, problems that are bigger than we are.
Lent is our opportunity to bring the big problems to God and say, “I
can’t fix this by myself. Lord, will
you help me?” Contrary to popular
belief, God does NOT help those who help themselves. God helps those who CAN’T help themselves.
Calling upon God to restore us is so
FUNDAMENTAL to our faith that we use a portion of Psalm 51 every single Sunday
as our call to Prayer! The Psalm says,
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit within me.”
Within these few words, we have the whole prescription for healing: a
confession that we need cleaning up in our very core, and a confession that God
is ready, willing and able to create something new in the depths of our hearts.
(Repeat) In this church, where we don’t
do anything the same on two consecutive Sundays except the Lord’s Prayer, we start
our communal prayer time with these words:”
“Create in me a clean heart” - what an incredible image. We pray this every week! And we pray this because we BELIEVE that God
CAN and WILL work in us and with us and beside us, to heal, and change, and transform.
So let’s begin our individual Lenten
journeys together, this morning. What
is the piece of life that comes up again and again and needs God’s touch? What relationship... what conversation...
what thought... repeatedly surfaces every time there is a quiet moment? What habit is like a chain that can’t be
shaken off? What memory is so painful
that even time won’t heal it? What fear
acts as a wall keeping life and joy out?
What did we do or say–or what did we NOT do or NOT say-- that so fills us
with shame we can’t even think about it, never mind bring it before God for
healing?
It’s hard, and painful to even contemplate
allowing ourselves to lift up these thoughts.
Why would we ever want to think about painful memories, ruined
relationships, unbreakable bad habits?
Because of Easter. You know, if
all we do is give up chocolate, then the best Easter has to offer is a
chocolate bunny. But if we give it all,
give over our whole soul to God, we choose LIFE. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and restore a right spirit
within me”? This is God’s Easter
promise!
Here’s a contemporary version of the Easter
story from The Power of Now.[2]
A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for
over thirty years. One day a stranger
walked by. “Spare some change?” mumbled
the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. “I have nothing to
give you,” said the stranger. Then he
asked, “What have you been sitting on?” “Nothing,” replied the beggar. “Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.” “Every looked inside?” asked the
stranger. “No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There’s nothing in there.”
“Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw the box was
filled with gold.
I am that stranger who has nothing to give
you and who is telling you to look inside.
Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside
yourself.
“But I am not a beggar,” I can hear you
say.
Those who have not found their true wealth,
which is the radiant joy of Being, and the deep, unshakable peace that comes
with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of
pleasure and fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a
treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely
greater than anything the world can offer.
We have taken the first step: we are here either because we believe or
because we want to believe. Now let’s
choose to make the journey to Easter with God by our sides. Whatever our sins-- pride, gluttony, envy,
anger, resentment, greed apathy; whatever our wounds -- betrayal, loss, poor
health, shame –let’s choose to give THESE up for Lent. Let us pray:
“Create in me a clean heart O God, and put
a new and right spirit within me. Cast
me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51, vs. 10-12 RSV)
AMEN