February 17, 2010 - Ash Wednesday

God Offers Grace and Mercy
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Ash Wednesday – February 17, 2010

“Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love...”

These are the words of our gospel acclamation during Lent, words taken from the Old Testament lesson from Joel. There's another version I know (you know how they take all these same basic words and put them to different music...) - & the words are a little bit different. They say, “Return to God, with all your heart, the source of grace and mercy. Come, seek the tender faithfulness of God.” Same basic words, slightly different feel to them though.

But “tender faithfulness” is not exactly how God sounds in this reading from Joel. What's going on for the people of Israel seems neither tender nor faithful on God's part. The people of Israel are in the middle of a crisis. Chapter 1 talks about swarms of locusts, sweeping across their land, devouring everything in sight, leaving nothing behind for food or drink. It's not clear if Joel's talking about literal locusts, or if it's a metaphor for an invading army – but either way, the Israelites are in deep trouble. And the way the prophet Joel sees it, it's because the people have screwed up. Somehow or other – he doesn't give us the specifics – the people have neglected their relationship with God. They've broken away from the covenant God has made with them. And now the day of the LORD is coming, says Joel, so watch out! Pay attention! Sound the alarm! Because God is coming, and God is mad. Joel sees what's going on & what might be about to happen as punishment from God, punishment for an unfaithful people.

Now, Lutheran theology doesn't really agree with Joel's perspective here. Lutheran Christians don't look at wars and natural disasters and diseases as direct punishment from God's hand, although certainly there are people in other Christian circles who do – and we certainly heard from them at the time of Hurricane Katrina and again after the earthquake in Haiti. But Lutherans do see what Joel is talking about when it comes to the state of our relationship with God. We recognize that we are sinners, that we have screwed up. We know that our natural inclination is to turn away from God & seek our own way, do our own thing. Left to our own devices, we neglect God and our relationship.

But it's easy to forget that it matters, easy to go about our merry ways without giving God much of a second thought, easy to forget that we owe God everything. It's easy to forget that we are formed from dust by God's own hand, that we breathe because of God breathes life into us.

And so sounds the trumpet of Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent that we enter into today, not as an alarm sounding God's imminent and angry return to punish us, but coming as a call for our attention. Ash Wednesday comes each year as a gift, a chance to refocus our attention. Once every year, and for the 40 days of Lent that follow, we are invited to reflect on our lives, to look at ourselves as individuals, to examine our relationships, to see how we are doing as a community of faith. Especially on Ash Wednesday, we have an opportunity to recognize where, when, and how we have created a disconnect between ourselves and God and each other, to see the damage we have done, sometimes intentionally, sometimes just out of neglect. Of course we can do that every day, but usually we don't. Ash Wednesday and Lent come every year to remind us of how important it is to recognize and name our sin – which, when you get right down to the heart of it, is basically just that we turn away from God every chance we get, taking for granted the grace and forgiveness that is so freely given, yet costs God so much.

“Yet even now,” says the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.” Hear God's trumpet call this Ash Wednesday to come back, with sorrow for the ways that we have turned away from God; with sincerity, and not just for some religious show. Because in every relationship, there comes a time when you have to say, “I'm sorry.” In every relationship, there comes a time when you have to say, “Please forgive me.” Because inevitably, we do things that hurt the other, and in order for healing to come, we have to repent, to change. And our relationship with God is no exception.

So hear God's invitation to repent today, and take it seriously. Accept that invitation. But please don't look at it just as some burden. God doesn't want us to wallow in our guilt and shame and sorrow. This call to repentance is an offer of forgiveness. When we repent, we get a chance to start over. We get a chance to re-center our lives in the one who gives life. God loves us and longs to restore us to wholeness – in our relationship with God, with others, within ourselves. Repenting is the way we re-turn, back through God's always-open door of forgiveness and love. Return to God with all your heart, the source of grace and mercy. Come, seek the tender faithfulness of God. Amen.