No Shame

Sermon Notes Lent 1, Feb. 21, 2021 In our celebration of Holy Eucharist this morning you will hear these words spoken as the Proper Preface for today. It's printed at the bottom of the insert to the bulletin. You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you. This is a good description of what Lent is all about, and a good springboard to our observance of a Holy Lent. Consider what this proper preface bids us do: Cleanse our hearts Joyfully prepare for the Paschal feast Pray fervently Do works of mercy Be renewed through the Word and the Sacraments And receive the fullness of grace awaiting us. All of these biddings should be a regular part of our Christian walk. Lent doesn't call us to a new religious practice or new charismatic insight. Notice the petition is asked on behalf of all faithful people, who are already baptized into a life with Christ. What Lent does do is focus our attention on what we should be doing all along, moving from grace to grace with Jesus. We begin with cleansing our hearts of all the impurities that have accumulated there. The Psalmist leads us to say: The sorrows of my heart are enlarged; * O bring me out of my troubles. Look upon my adversity and misery * and forgive me all my sin. The first step is to look, with God, at all those things that have assaulted us and damaged our heart. We walk through these in the Great Litany led by Fr. Thom this morning. We pray for deliverance from pestilence and adversity because we know through experience that such things cause our faith to weaken. Our trust in God is slackened. We need a good heart washing. "Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Since we also know through experience that our good intentions will fall flat if we alone are accountable for them, we invite God through the Holy Spirit to be our advocate. The Litany ends with "O Christ, hear us." The next bidding takes advantage of our just cleaned heart and asks us to be joyful and expectant. Lent is very much a parallel season to Advent. We are joyfully expectant of the resurrection of Jesus and all that means for us. The conventional wisdom is that Sundays in Lent are exempt from the obligations of the season. That may be true. But they are not outside the season. Sundays in Lent are times when we joyfully focus on the Paschal feast and that is central to our understanding of Lent. We are walking with Jesus and that is where Jesus is going, so we need to go there with him. Sundays in Lent are not departures from Lent, but rest stops where the weary traveler gets refreshed and reminded of his heavenly destination. Lent calls us into fervent prayer. Fervent prayer is not desperate prayer, it is intense prayer. Again, the Great Litany shows us the way by breaking down our supplications one by one so we can truly focus on what we ask for. Then, we beseech God to hear us. My dictionary defines that obscure word as to ask earnestly. We don't demand that God hear us, as would be improper of us. But we ask earnestly, as a child asks his Father for something dear to his heart. There is a sense of peace about praying in this manner. Fervent prayer brings us closer to Jesus when we need him most. This week at vestry we talked about our Domain name. In the past month I'd gone on line to renew our license and felt pretty good about it until vestry started asking some questions I didn't have answers for. It soon became obvious that there was much more to be done. So I entered again into that unsettled, unfamiliar world of the internet where I had no desire to go. For me, and I think for many of us who were born before Google, it's visiting the dragon's den. Confusion and frustration set in until I stopped and asked myself, "Where's Jesus in all of this?" I found familiar ground in my simple prayer of access, the Jesus prayer. "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Said 3 times, then followed by some watchfulness until Jesus comes alongside of me and we go on together. I didn't understand the realm of domain names any better, but I was closer to my God. I was back in familiar territory. That is fervent prayer for me. Lent calls us to do works of mercy. Mercy is in short supply these days. We hear a lot about justice and doing what's required, but not much about mercy. That's probably because mercy involves forgiveness, writing off an offense done to us to restore a relationship that is broken. The greatest act of mercy ever performed was Jesus' crucifixion on our behalf. As we walk through Lent toward Jesus' great redemptive act, he asks us to do for others what he did for us. Look for opportunities this Lent to extend mercy. It's a time to patch up old wounds. Call and talk with someone who's grown distant from you. Or help out a stranger who has no expectation at all that you care about them. The discipline of doing works of mercy is not in the doing of them, but in seeing the opportunities for them. They are everywhere, but we need practice in seeing them. Lent calls us to renew ourselves through the Word and Sacraments. For many of us this comes with a big asterisk: COVID-19. We're still laboring as a church under attack by a pandemic and it is not likely to disappear before this Lent has run its course. Remember, the Church is the living body of Christ. It has survived many pandemics, wars, betrayals, depression, and calamities. We went through many of these in this morning's Great Litany. The church will survive this pandemic because it is the sacred holder of God's Word and sacraments. Right now the big C Church is hurting, wounded, but not slain. Will not be slain. But the little c church, the church that is comprised of each believer, is alive and well and nourishing the big C Church. Cherish the Word and Sacraments in your heart. Practice them as you are able. As such we are doing just what Jesus commanded until he comes again. Finally, Lent invites us to receive the grace that awaits us. God's grace is all around us. I am especially fond of the prayer for missions in the Prayer Book that reads, "Send down upon our clergy and the congregations committed to their charge the life-giving Spirit of your grace, shower them with the dew of your blessing and ignite in them a zealous love of your Gospel through Jesus Christ our Lord." Lent is a time to be showered by God's life-giving Spirit of his grace. There's nothing we need do to receive it, just be thankful. If you want to take something on for Lent, make it God's grace. Well there you have it, a template for Lent. Pretty much the same template for every day of our Christian life. With fervent prayer, I pray that you may have a full Lent, following Jesus and abounding in his grace. Amen.