Loading... LENT IN EXILE:
Here in 2021 we are entering our second Ash Wednesday, 50 days of Lent, five Sundays of Lent, and possibly Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday, the Vigil, and Easter as a gathered worshiping fellowship of St. Paul Christians. In our own homes, we are in exile from our Holy City, Jerusalem, the place of our central worship and spiritual nurture. This Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17th, you and I need to get on our knees, humble ourselves before our Loving God, and pray for this world we live in. We must see our own self righteousness and indignation of our deprivation, repent of our complicity and arrogance, rebel against the social/cultural patterns that obscure our vision, our understanding, our course of future action. Friends, this IS the WORK of LENT. You can run, you can hide, you can even dabble a little, yet NOTHING will replace our desire to be ready for our own tomorrow, and that of our family and community, unless we truly BEGIN --- ASH WEDNESDAY -- to come before God. Just as we are = NO EXCUSES.
Your Vestry has provided resources to help you through the leanness of Lent. Our obligation as Christians during Lent is clearly three-fold.
1st * of self examination and repentance we are called to a rare honesty; not picking on ourselves morally as much as comparing ourselves to the measure of God's Love in Jesus Christ. It is not only freezing outside, but getting colder deep within. Not all of it is Covid's fault. We own it. Thus we must recognize it.
2nd * by prayer, fasting, and self-denial each of us must make time for God, welcome again the sustaining Spirit of God within, and yield to GOD'S WAY OF LOVE, making our time, energy and resources more available to Grace and less to selfishness. As often as you can, however you can, PRAY WITH ANOTHER.
3rd * by reading and meditation on God's Holy Word means reallocating our priorities and pleasures to bring us closer to God in Christ Jesus, using one of the books from church, especially the 50 Day Challenge, and finding tools for meditation to use at home, like Forward Day by Day, the internet or library.
I am reading "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson. A favorite collect says "read, mark, and inwardly digest". In my 20 years of leadership with the DuBois Food Pantry, I have operated a federal program for seniors which requires an annual application and identification by race. My eyes are opened and my soul squeezed by the necessity to identify myself and most others as White. ONLY in American, the land of equality, do people think of themselves as White. In Scotland, I'd need to trace my clan, or in England, my relationship with a Peer. In Russia, I would need to identify with a region, in Japan with honorable ancestors, in many nations including our pre-colonial history, by tribe. In India, it was different. The caste one was born into endured for life, along with its privileges or restrictions. In Africa, No One thought of themselves as Black. In China, No One thought of themselves as Yellow. No American Native ever historically thought of themselves as Red, nor Latino as Brown. We accept all this labeling and a convenient way to establish our own caste system. To self declare as White means - WE ARE ON TOP, IN CONTROL. Anything that disturb s this premise is unacceptable. Churches tell us to play nice, but Never to change the system. Schools teach us lessens about how each race has earned its place, and gives us examples of how to live comfortably in its place. Only in America can we instantly tell where someone ought to be on the pecking order of our society. If we think we have made progress since the founding of our nation, then WHY are you and I comfortable referring to ourselves and our community as WHITE???
WHY stop at self-identifying as WHITE? Are you Blue or Red, or maybe even Purple? Are you Green, or not? What color is Christianity today? Or who cares if it is not relevant any more to how we maintain our culture? Is there something within to look at, ponder over, uncover, recognize, deal with???
Such honesty is a hallmark of LENT. Yes, it is humbling. Our faith, instead of just a warm blanket, becomes a meddlesome excavation of who we are, what norms we are really made of, what cages we can not escape. Yes, it is hard work! Fasting and Self-Denial are fun only for hedonists. Delving deeply into God's Holy Word is exhausting...but life saving! Begin ASH WEDNESDAY. Receive the IMPOSITION OF ASHES. Get started. Try to keep going, Dig for a better you. Reach for a higher Love. Latch on again to the SPIRIT within. Lengthen the scope of your faith.
All are welcome to receive imposition of ashes and Holy Communion Ash Wednesday, at St. Paul's Church Porch entrance, 4th street, beginning 9:45am, and again 7:00pm.
In Love this Lent,
Fr. Bob McKay
