Fallen From the Desk of Pastor Wayne
At a recent interfaith panel discussion, I was blessed to hear powerful witnesses for peace from each of the faith traditions and how we as individuals are to live in community with one another. No matter what faith tradition we share, it calls us to respect every life. No matter what faith tradition, we acknowledge the reality of evil and our individual responsibility to work to overcome evil. Yet in every tradition, we have folks that decide they have the free will and the right to do the exact opposite of what their faith tradition teaches. Muslims of Palestine have their suicide bombers, Jews of Israel have their system of apartheid, Christians of the USA have their nuclear weapons; each making any ethical questions about ‘just war’ not just moot, but completely indefensible. We know ‘the Good’, yet we choose not to do ‘the Good’. Our faithlessness is revealed in choosing not to trust in God’s wisdom, but in our own devices. Our free will is limited only by our own conscience.
It was recently impressed on me how frequently the parable of Jesus that calls us to focus on ‘removing the log in our own eye before dealing with the speck in another’s eye’ informed Luther’s decision-making. We first have to look at ourselves and do a ‘reality check’. Luther cautions that we each take an inward inventory of ‘who I am’ and ‘where I stand’ before even thinking to stand in judgment of another. It is a valuable discipline, perhaps even a secret of life!
In the Christian tradition, we are now in our Lenten pilgrimage, traveling toward the center of our lives, to the very heart of God. Rather than a 40-day funeral for Jesus, the Lenten season speaks to and of my own guilt and continuing sin, and of my own need to be cleansed, purged, and washed. It is a time to reaffirm our own baptismal covenant. The Lenten pilgrimage affords us the opportunity to retreat into quiet time for personal reflection on our own condition before God. It is time to remove the distractions of our everyday routine, to immerse ourselves in the written word, to engage in prayer, and to focus on what really matters in life. Who am I? Who is God? What is the relationship between God and I, and what will be the consequences of that relationship? What role can the Church play in this relationship that God and I share?
The Lenten pilgrimage is also a time of reflection on Christ’s journey to Calvary. Wherever we may be scattered throughout the world, we are on the road to Calvary – with Jesus and with one another.
Pilgrimages require that we take steps forward, one after another, continually moving into the future. It is essential that we not just stay in one comfortable place, stagnating; but that we are diligently seeking our spiritual health, willing to prepare, to renew and reaffirm our life and our calling. As Jesus reminded Peter, we often follow a path that leads to places we would prefer not to go. Christ calls for discipleship and discipleship involves denying self, taking up the cross, and following Jesus.
The powerful stories and elements of our own faith tradition remind us of the covenant, the promise of God never to destroy humankind with water, putting a bow in the sky as a self-reminder never to be involved in our wholesale destruction again. It is now up to us to solve the violence of this world. In the accounts of Exodus we find God seeking to bring us out of slavery and revealing to us the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, given to aid us in living in peace with one another. I encourage you to come and listen this Lent to all of the lectionary ‘road signs’ that point out new directions for our own lives and our own ministries.
One of the most difficult tasks for me as a pastor comes on Ash Wednesday and is the act of marking each of your foreheads with an ashen cross and repeating the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. It is sobering. I often choke up with the intensity of the reality of our mortality. I have presided at far too many funerals to be numbed by the denial of death. Each life is precious. Your life is precious. Our time together is short and uncertain. Yet God has given us “Now!” and we stand together in God’s Presence. Come and share this Lent with all of the other pilgrims, as we follow the path to the Cross and beyond. Remember, as well, to take heart while on this journey for we know how and where the story ends!