Lenten 2011 Sermon

In this passage we just read, God demands that the prophet Isaiah, "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins."

I just finished a retreat with the youth. And like most youth retreats there are late nights and early mornings. Well, early for teenagers. So, at 8:00a.m. in the morning my voice sounded like a trumpet to wake them up from their peaceful slumber.

These words given to Isaiah from God are a wake up call. The nation of Israel is slumbering. They are doing all that they are supposed to do, fasting and praying, keeping the sabbath, worshiping and being humble before their God. And yet, God seems farther than ever to them.

I know those of you in attendance tonight are faithful people of God. The kind of people who pray, read their Bibles, and go to church on Sundays. And maybe even some of you do other disciplines like fasting or meditation. These are all things that can get you closer to God; to know what God is doing in your life and how you are being transformed.

But sometimes we do these things because we think it is what we ought to do. Or perhaps we do these things because it is what we've always done or what someone else wants us to do.

Spiritual disciplines like these can often become like driving to us. We get into our cars and the destination is ahead of us. We know the way to where we are going because we go there every day; to the store, to work. We drive the same roads, it takes the same time, and the same predictable stoplights get in the way. This is good, we can relax, get absorbed in our thoughts, in the music, perhaps even sneak in a txt. Oh, none of you would ever do that! But I bet many of you have arrived at your destination without remembering the details of the drive.

I know I have. There have been many times where I've been so absorbed in other things that I don't remember the drive at all to work. Or worse, being too busy focusing on other things that I find myself stopping short to avoid an accident.

With our spiritual disciplines it can be the same thing. I don't know how many times I have started to read a chapter of the Bible and somewhere in the middle my brain has left the scene though my eyes keep reading the text. I get to the end and have to re-read. Have you ever read a sentence three or four times and it hasn't sunk in?

Now, just for clarification and before you diagnose me with Attention Deficit Disorder. I think this is quite normal human behavior for our thoughts to drift off into other spaces. We always seem to focus on the past or the future but hardly ever in the present. And so every once in awhile God needs to shout out to us, to wake us up from our slumber, to in a sense change things up for us, and the season of Lent is just such an opportunity.

This text of Isaiah calls us to be attentive to the ways in which we are honoring God. We fast, but do we fast and give the money to the poor? We read the Bible but do we practice what it says? Do we allow it to change our lives, making us kinder, more loving, more Christ-like? We pray, but are we willing to listen for answers? Are we willing to offer God more than our wish lists? We attend worship, but are we more focused on the music, the symbols, the decorations, the speakers, on what we like and dislike, than on our God whom we worship?

God calls us to attention this Lenten season. It is a time for us to ask ourselves how we will be more attentive to God, to each other, to the community. In a little while, we will receive ashes on our foreheads. Traditionally, these ashes come from burning the palm fronds used to celebrate Palm Sunday the previous year. It is so poignant to me how yesterday's means of praise becomes ash to us. Dead to us. So as you receive the ashes tonight I invite you to become quiet and introspective. Examine your spiritual life. What needs to be mourned and given up for ash? We will also be receiving communion tonight. With this sacred meal of resurrection we remember life. And so I also invite you to examine your spiritual life for what you might add to bring life? What needs to be born in you? What needs to be resurrected?

My daughter this week asked me what I was giving up for Lent. "Nothing," I said. "You're not giving up anything." "No," I said, "but I'm adding two or three things." Her eyes lit up. She asked, "Can you do that?" "Oh certainly, I said."

So this season, I give you the same freedom as my daughter, to let go of those things that are spiritually dead for you and embrace the things that make your spirit glow with the light of God.

Amen.