"Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?" (John 14:9). So Jesus responded to Philip’s question about wanting to know and sense the presence of God.
It is a good question for all of us as we once again make our Lenten journey to Easter. How would you answer if asked to share your thoughts about God? What thoughts come to mind when we think about God? Do we take the time to think about God? Do we believe there is a God? Are we more confident this year than last, that there is a God who knows and is concerned about us? Does our belief in God make any difference in our lifestyles?
Amid the many, busy and distracting events of our lives, the quiet hours of Lenten worship are certainly needed. It is a needed time for solitude, for reflection and meditation as we journey through our particular wilderness to Easter. Yes, to look at how we are doing and why; yes, to evaluate our relationship with God. Lent is that traditional time of the year when we are urged to probe into the deeper corners of our being. Lent is a time "to be still and know that I am God."
But one would hope that our quiet time with God would have some explosive results. Our journey to Easter should not be all peace and tranquility:
Lent is a season for crash helmets. It is a season for deep self-examination, intense emotion, purging the soul and reorienting life by discovering anew not only what sort of power it is "we so blithely invoke," but also about the dark powers which are at work in human experience. Lent began as a time when candidates for baptism would like gladiators preparing for battle, discipline themselves for the spiritual warfare ahead.1
This year we are making our pilgrimage to Easter through readings from the Old Testament. Most of these readings are centered on or around the "covenant" that God made with Israel. A covenant is an agreement or contract that God initiates. Through the covenant, God speaks and the people of the covenant listen. It is because God has spoken that we know what God wants. Covenant thinking directs our thought to God and what God has done for us and what God expects from us. To have our thoughts directed to God, to listen to God is more helpful than intense navel gazing which can lead to the problem of our gospel reading for today, and that is spiritual pride. But lifting our eyes and seeing the faithful activity of God on our behalf can pull us out of ourselves into more faithful, useful and joyful living.
We begin our Lenten journey with the prophet Joel. We know very little about this prophet. Joel’s book contains no calendar references and it is completely silent about kings or empires. Yet the style and content of the book would suggest that Joel is one of the later prophets, probably living and working about 400 years B.C., during the time of the Persian Empire. Chronologically (because of its late date) this is not the best place to begin our Lenten sermons on the Old Testament. But with its clear and ringing call for repentance, this book makes a good spiritual entry point for the season of Lent. Because of this clear and needed call to repentance, many Christian denominations are hearing this text at their Ash Wednesday services.
The book of Joel is filled with references to a great and destructive plague of locusts. He paints a picture of utter destruction that is left by these hungry pests. They come in huge clouds, sweeping over the whole land, and making gardens and fields like a desert.
Fire devours before them,
and behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them,
but after them a desolate wilderness,
and nothing escapes them ... (2:3)
The prophet saw in this terrible calamity a forewarning of the coming day of judgment, the day of the Lord. Disasters of this magnitude have a theological meaning for this prophet of God. It is not just nature speaking, but the God above and behind nature. In this terrible locust invasion the people of God are being warned about the seriousness of their situation. This prophet sees calamities as a vivid reminder to return to God in repentance.
Joel follows in the time-honored tradition of the prophets of old. Take Amos, for example, when he preached this warning to his people:
"I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me," says the Lord.
"And I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain upon another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered; so two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me," says the Lord. (4:6-8)
In our text for this Ash Wednesday worship, we read the call to repentance in these words:
"Yet even now," says the Lord,
"return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments." (vv. 12-13)
The consistent message of all scripture is that the only way to escape God’s judgment is through repentance.
Fasting, weeping and mourning were the usual expressions of repentance, but they became a pious performance rather than "a broken and a contrite heart" (Psalm 51:17). And so the dramatic call, "rend your hearts and not your garments."
"Heart" in Hebrew understanding has more to do with one’s will than one’s affections. To "rend the heart" is the call to change. It is a strong exhortation to subdue the will. The "tearing of garments" was part of the usual ritual for mourning (2 Samuel 1:11). It was a visible expression of grief and subject to misuse. "Look how sorry I am!" "Rending one’s garments" is a way of repenting loudly so all people can see what great "repenters" we are. It is repentance growing out of pride. Both our Old and New Testament lessons for today speak against a repentance for show.
Of course, it is also easy to "rend one’s garments." We can pray and fast and give up things for Lent. We can for a period of six weeks even show compassion for the poor and maybe increase our contributions. But frequently these efforts are only skin deep and once again the result is a kind of cosmetic piety whereby we fool others and maybe even ourselves.
But how can we "rend our hearts?" How can we change our way of thinking? How can we change the direction of our lives? How can we change our basic attitude, the orientation of our lives? That is what true repentance is about and that is what it means to "rend our hearts."
The old story is told of the Sunday school teacher who asked her class of boys, "What must we do to receive the forgiveness of sin?" One of her boys replied, "Well, first you must sin!" Here is one of the big hurdles for the spirit of true repentance and that is our need for it. The concept of sin does not have much going for it in our modern climate and its idolatrous desire for self-affirmation. We may have made some mistakes or bad decisions because we were wrongly positioned in our family, but surely these little things couldn’t separate one from God?
Several years ago the country was caught up in the drama of an 18-month-old girl trapped in a deep and narrow abandoned well. For three days the country watched and waited as television crews in pictures and words reported this race with death. But finally the second shaft was finished and the little girl was saved - cold and hurt - but alive. And the nation, with parents and rescuers wept with joy.
However, a few months later much of this good will and joy changed into envy, hate, greed and suspicion. Movie people came to the little Texas town and groups began to fight among themselves as to how the story should be told and who was to get the credit and receive the profits.
Such is the power of sin. That sin is original in us is not a popular idea. I would much rather deal with my sinful activities than a sinful "me." But the truth of the matter is that I am not sinful because I do bad things, but I do bad things because "by nature I am sinful and unclean."
One of the most vivid and persuasive examples of sin in our century is the Holocaust. Here sin was engaged in the unbelievable task of destroying the people of God. It is easy to focus on the demon Hitler, but the truth is that most of the world was involved. Hatred for the Jews has been around for a long, long time and we Christians are guilty of promoting and feeding these fears and suspicions.
We read in Elie Wiesel’s novel, The Oath, these words, "With every approaching Easter, the Jews tremble." Robert McAfee Brown, professor emeritus at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, makes these comments concerning Wiesel’s observation:
"Why? Because as Good Friday and Easter approach, Christians have frequently taken up cudgels against Jews, holding them responsible for Jesus’ death, and feeling called upon to avenge that death by killing Jews. Persecutions, pogroms, forced conversions, mob violence, burning of ghettos - all of the tools of the anti-Semitic trade have historically been given license for expression the closer the Christian year gets to Easter. ‘Born in suffering,’ Wiesel writes elsewhere, ‘Christianity became a source and pretext of suffering to others.’ "2
The Holocaust insanity was accomplished by well-educated people growing up in a well-endowed cultural, technological, and Christian environment. And even more frightening, the world found many reasons to turn its back on this insane event.
Such is the power of our fallen nature. We look for scapegoats. The presence of sin enables us to take credit for our own success and comfort because we are "better" people, and to blame poverty and suffering on the lazy, sinful victims. We look for evil in other people and in other nations, all the time ignoring the beam in our own eyes. We know that the Bible tells us "that all have sinned," but we all know that there are differences in sinners. We are not as bad as most!
Do we need to be reminded of Isaiah’s admonition, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips" (6:5)? Do we need to be reminded that when it comes to sinners, the Bible has two basic distinctions - repentant or unrepentant?
Repentance is coming to our senses like the prodigal son and seeing ourselves as we really are - warts and all. Repentance is facing up to the powerful desires within us to deceive - to deceive others and ourselves.
But repentance is not only recognition, it is also repudiation. I like the insight by the old revivalist, Gypsy Smith, who said that the difference between conversion and repentance is the difference between waking up and getting up! Frequently getting caught will produce feelings of remorse, anguish, regret, and sorrow, but unhappiness is not repentance. Genuine repentance means that the direction of our lives has changed. It means we have come to our senses and we arise and return to our God. We ourselves must be changed!
And we can’t do this on our own. We can "rend our garments, but not our hearts." Our bonds of captivity are too strong to break on our own. In our sin, we simply do not have the power to direct our own repentance. Power to repent comes from God’s decision to save. I doubt very much if the prodigal son would have gone home to an elder brother, but going home to a loving father is an altogether different matter. The relationship of love makes all the difference.
So also with the people of Israel. Their prophet Joel not only tells them to "rend your hearts and not your garments" but goes on to say:
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and repents of evil. (v. 13)
The people of God were reminded of their history, a history of their faithful, loving God. A God who called them into a covenant relationship. A God who patiently put up with their whining and complaining unfaithfulness. Yes, that is their history - the history of steadfast love continuing to love a stiffnecked and stubborn people. God is not against a sinful people. Rather, God’s vision and purpose is one of mercy and promise.
God is not a harsh judge looking and waiting for us to make mistakes and then pounce on us. Joel’s God is a God of mercy. Jesus’ God is one of compassion and mercy. Sometimes the message of Lent and Easter can come across as though the cross was erected on Calvary to please God. But this is a pagan idea. Christ was not nailed to the cross to change God’s heart, rather it was just the other way around. The cross is there because "God was in Christ reconciling us into himself." The Calvary event happened because "God so loved the world, he sent his Son."
Here is power to change the direction of our lives. Here is power to grow in faith. The history of the people of God and our own history warns us not to underestimate the power of sin in our lives. In Matthew’s gospel the warning is given so all can understand it, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." My life will follow that which I believe to be the most important. This warning needs to be heeded, but it would be even more disastrous to push God out of our history and our lives and ignore God’s power to change us. God’s love can pull us out of ourselves. God’s love can become our "treasure." In the relationship there is power to change.
We do not have to stay the way we are.
1. The Editors, "Forward," Journal for Preachers, (Lent, 1986, p. 1).
2. Robert McAfee Brown, "Jewish Contributions to a Christian Lent: The Impact of Elie Wiesel," Perspectives, (February 1986, p. 4).