Ash Wednesday Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Donald L. Hamer
Posted on
Trinity Episcopal Church
Hartford, Connecticut
Ash Wednesday, 2017
Reconciliation. It is a word that we hear quite frequently, particularly in religious circles. It means to bring together, to bring into harmony, to bring two objects or people or concepts or sets of data that are not in harmony naturally to be compatible with one another.
When celebrity couples get divorced, the reason is often – as it is here in the State of Connecticut – “irreconcilable differences.” This literally means that the two people are so estranged on virtually every conceivable aspect of their relationship that these two people who once deeply loved one another cannot possibly find common ground to put their differences aside and bring it all back into some form of harmony.
We encounter this word “reconcile” in another venue of our lives – balancing our checkbooks. At the end of each month, we need to check our bank statements to make sure that everything you THINK you spent is accounted for or – more usually – that you didn’t forget about something that you did spend. The process of bringing these two disparate concepts together – what we think we have and what we actually have is called “reconciling” the account.
And so Paul tells us this morning that “reconciling” ourselves with and to God is a major theme of the Christian life. “On behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God,” Paul writes. Paul himself was trying to be reconciled with the members of the church he founded in Corinth, having been challenged by the teachings of others. And one of the reasons reconciliation is so important to Paul is that he recognizes that reconciliation was the primary work of Jesus – in fact, Paul writes, that is why Jesus came to earth, or, as Paul writes, God “made him to become sin who knew no sin.” That is why Jesus was born, and it is the reason he died.
Going back to the divorce analogy, God surely had plenty of good cause to want to divorce us due to irreconcilable differences. But instead of cutting us off as a stern judge, God instead acted as creator and became one of us and sent his son, Jesus to be one of us in all things but sin, so that he might reconcile us to God once again.
And so our project for the Lenten season is to work on our relationship with God. We need to work on the relationship between ourselves and God, in the one-on-one of our daily lives. But to do this takes work. Couples going through a tough time in their marriage can often benefit from marriage counseling – which is a process that helps them to identify problem areas and begin to explore questions related to those areas.
But it’s hard for us to ask questions, particularly if they cause us to look deeply at parts of ourselves that are uncomfortable or hard to look at. Many couples in troubled relationships never seek counseling because they feel like that is admitting failure. We all probably have a friend or relative who will never go to the doctor because they are afraid of what the doctor might find. And credit counselors and attorneys will tell you they have had clients facing bankruptcy who will admit that they have not even opened many of their bills for months. The theory is the same in all of these cases: ignorance is bliss – but only temporarily. When the arguing becomes incessant, when our bodies finally break down, when the sheriff comes to the door to serve the papers – we pay the price for sticking our heads figuratively in the sand and ignoring the problems that eat away at our spirit and stifle our soul. No one likes to admit mistakes, but pretending they don’t exist gets us only a temporary reprieve. There is an old saying that is as applicable to our lives as it is to the payment of debts: Pay me now, or pay me later with interest. We can run, but we can’t hide. We can close our eyes, but that’s like playing the childhood game of “peek-a-boo” – with the same results. The reality remains the same.
No one likes to admit mistakes – and no one likes to confess sins. But that is the work God calls us to in Lent. That is what Paul means when he writes, “we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.” Jesus came to heal the relationship between us and God, and when we call ourselves “Christian,” we bind ourselves to that mission, not just when it is easy or convenient, but especially when the going gets tough.
Today we begin the season of Lent, and St. Paul calls us into reconciliation with God and God’s mission in Jesus Christ. Just as with illness, we can’t know the cure until we have asked the right questions about the illness; Just as a troubled couple cannot begin to address their differences until they agree to get help and ask the right questions; so it is with our spiritual health and our relationship to God. We can’t experience God’s healing mercy and grace unless and until we identify and understand the causes of our estrangement from God.
And so as we enter this season of Lent, I want to suggest that we apply to our prayer life what we learned about the transfiguration. May our prayer life consist less in trying to change God’s mind to do what we want, and make it more about opening ourselves to seeing Jesus for who he really is. Let us pray that God so opens our hearts to the Spirit’s moving that we can honestly look at those places where our relationship with God is hurting and pray that God open our hearts to more align ourselves with the life and teachings of Jesus. Lent is a great time for us to enter into that work. With God as both judge and therapist, we know that God wants a good result. All we have to do is accept God’s invitation to enter into the conversation.
I wish you a blessed and holy Lent. AMEN.