Ash Wednesday
Today is the beginning of a fresh new season. The church gives us the gift of Lent every year so that we can re-focus on the quality of our relationship with God and with our neighbors. The truth is, we all get distracted. We get busy with so many activities and concerns. It is easy to allow stress and complexity and the speed of life to make simply surviving the primary goal of our lives.
We can easily lapse into superficial relationships with God, with our neighbors, with ourselves. We can easily slip into decisions and a way of life which helps us get through each day, but does not reflect the deepest desires and values of our lives. We can become addicted to distractions, to unthinking busyness, to fitting in with the values and pace of our society.
Lent is God’s yearly invitation for us to come back to center, to get up on the balcony and look at the patterns of our lives and relationships, to ask for grace to begin again to make following Jesus the guiding center, the primary relationship, the greatest treasure of our lives.
The goal of Lent is to help us change and re-focus our lives in relationship with God, with our neighbors and with ourselves so that we embody more authentically the life style Jesus put us on earth to live. Notice, the goal is about relationships. As you and I begin this personal and corporate journey through Lent toward Good Friday and Easter, what changes is Jesus inviting us to make in this year?
All of us have lived through Lent before. Each year is different. We are at different stages in our lives each year. I beg you not to just do what you did last year for Lent. You are in a different situation this year. Given where you are in your life, given what is going on in the lives of people around you, what is God’s invitation to you?
Perhaps the most important element of this Lent may be your commitment to listen for God’s guidance in how God is inviting you to change your life so that your love for God, for your neighbor and yourself is expressed in fresh ways.
What is least helpful is unthinking repetition of a Lenten pattern which has not helped your relationship of love with God, with your neighbor and with yourself to grow in the past. Listen for God’s fresh invitation to you this year.
Down through the centuries, specific spiritual practices have proved helpful as people have sought to grow in their quality of love and relationships during Lent. We will be reminded of these practices in a few moments in the Invitation to a Holy Lent: self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting and self-denial; reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus points to the value of prayer, fasting and almsgiving as ways to develop the quality of our love and relationships. Which of these spiritual practices is Jesus inviting you to embrace during this Lenten season?
Over the years I have often heard people say to each other, what are you giving up for Lent? There is value and need for self-denial. But I hope you begin by focusing the fresh YES Jesus is inviting you to live. Begin by choosing life. God placed you on earth at this time for a purpose, for a mission. Your mission is to love God and your neighbor as yourself.
What changes is God inviting you to make during this Lent so that you are more fully alive and engaged in your life mission? First, catch a vision of the way of life Jesus is inviting you to live…the way of life you really desire to live. Then you can see what you need to let go of in order to live that compelling YES to the change you desire and that God is inviting you to make.
In our relationship with God, we can ask: how much time do I spend in conversation and communion with God each week? What is the quality of my prayer, my two-way connection with God? How often do I listen to God’s communication through the stories and wisdom of the Bible and allow these records of God’s involvement in the lives of people to shape my thinking and living? How could I show God my love and gratitude for our relationship during this Lent?
How might God want to open our eyes to see the needs of neighbors around us? When I visited New Orleans last year, people told me that before Katrina, they were blind to the overwhelming poverty in their city. We are often blind to the needs of people who we live with and work with. And God has placed us here to love our neighbors around the world.
When Rebecca and I were in Liberia and Ghana last month, we found that many Christian families take children who are orphaned or in need into their homes. What neighbors in need in our communities in our world might God be inviting us to adopt and care for? It’s one thing to send money. It’s much more costly to embrace a relationship with a neighbor in need.
What might God want us to let go of or fast from – so we can say Yes to greater love of God and neighbor?
Jesus’ last words in today’s gospel reading continue to echo in my mind and heart. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” This Lent what do you and I really treasure? What does our heart most desire to change in our relationship with God, with our neighbors, with ourselves?
I invite you to close your eyes for a moment…and in the silence of our hearts let us listen for what we might desire…and what God might desire for us to say YES to and let go of during this Lent…so that we can live more fully the loving relationships we want to live with God and our neighbors.