Changing Direction

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 Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
1B Lent, February 18, 2018
St. Alban’s, Simsbury, CT
Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15; Psalm 25:1-9

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

My dad has an amazingly good sense of direction. He has been known to say, “Wait, stop. We need to turn around. We are going northeast, and we should be going southwest.” Mind you he can say this on a two lane road in the middle of the New England woods. Once he has driven or walked or ridden his bike to a place he could return there without any directions or a GPS.

Nowadays most of us don’t have to rely on our internal sense of direction, we merely need to type the address into our smartphones or our car’s GPS and start driving. We do not need to cultivate our own internal sense of where we are in the world and whether or not we are going in the right direction.

But I wonder if we do need to cultivate that internal compass of ours? Perhaps not in the literal sense, but in the metaphorical. Lent is an opportunity to do just that. To pause and reflect. To be aware of our sins and our transgressions. To be reminded of our mortality. Yes, all of that. And it is an opportunity to also ask the hope-filled, possibility-opening questions about whether or not our whole lives are going in the right direction? Our time is precious, our lives are a gift. Are we using the days we have in a way that is life-giving and fulfilling? As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

At the close of our Gospel reading today, Jesus says: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” There we have it. Repent and believe in the good news. What does it mean to repent? It means to change direction. To change our thoughts, our behaviors. Our Rite I language is helpful here, where we talk about “amendment of life.”

This is the invitation to us today, in our readings, in our litany, in this season of Lent. Of what do we need to repent? Or what in our life needs to change?

Many of you may already have a Lenten discipline. Something you are giving up or a new practice you are taking on during this holy season. That is wonderful! And I hope you might consider the broader invitation in this season to reflect on your life and to hear the call for repentance, for a change of heart, a change of behavior.

Clearly we as a nation are in need of repentance. Something needs to change, so that we are no longer seeing headlines of children gunned down in schools. In schools. Places where all children should be safe. Places that should be filled with hope and possibility, not with gunfire and death. My heart broke on Wednesday evening as news broke of the horrors of the the shooting in Parkland, FL. Those horrors are all too familiar to us here in CT.

I hope that none of us are dealing with something so tragic or heart wrenching in our own lives. And yet we do not have to wait for tragedy to happen to make a change in our lives.

In fact, it is tragedies like Parkland that remind us how important it is to make changes in our lives, to ensure we have our priorities straight, to ensure that we are living into who God calls us to be. Life is short. We never know how long we have.

No doubt there are things in our lives that are not going the way we would like them to go. No doubt there are things in the world and in our own communities that are not going the way we would like them to go. The invitation in our readings and in this season is to identify those things and to take ownership of what is in our power to change.

A number of years ago, the parish I was in at the time read a book called A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen. We read it during the season of Lent, and one of the great lessons I took away from it was the invitation to notice how we can fall into the habit of complaining about the state of our lives or the state of our communities or the state of the world in a rather detached way as though it was all someone else’s responsibility to fix. The book invited me to catch myself when I did that and to ask myself what I could be doing in my own heart and mind, in my own community to address the problems about which I was so eager to complain.

I found that to be a very helpful and hopeful reminder. I have power. We have power. We can make a difference. We can change things, in our own hearts and in the world around us. It reminds me of that wonderful Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

So, this Lenten season can be a time for giving up something that we will go back to on Easter. That is a good and holy spiritual practice. It can also be a time to try on a new practice that we might very well keep for the rest of our lives.

In this holy season, I invite you to reflect, to pay attention to that inner voice that nudges you when you are going in the wrong direction. I invite you to feel empowered by your baptism, by the fact that you are a beloved child of God, to be a force for good in your community and in the world. Jesus is inviting all of us to repent and believe the Good News. And if we believe that Good News. If we believe that we are called to be agents of God’s reconciling, redeeming love in the world, then we know that there is much work for us to do - in our own hearts and beyond these doors.

AMEN.

2018 Ash Wednesday Homily

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Ash Wednesday 2018

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Joel 2:1-2,12-17; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word by heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As some of you know, I get up early in the morning multiple times a week to go to CrossFit, which is a fitness program that combines weight lifting and gymnastics. And in lots of ways, CrossFit is like Church. We all have our usual spots in the gym. My spot means that I spend a lot of time looking at poster of “Fitness in 100 words” by Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit. There is one sentence that stands out on this poster. And it is meant to. It is in a different color than all the rest of the text. It says, “Routine is the enemy.” I have been thinking about that sentence this week, as I have been reflecting on the fact that we are about to enter Lent, and on this Ash Wednesday, to be reminded of our mortality.

At first this statement, “Routine is the enemy” could seem completely counter to our common life as Episcopalians. We are, after all, people of the book, the BCP. Our worship is meant to follow a set pattern each time we gather. That is part of our shared identity. We could say that our worship follows a “routine,” but I think that would be missing the point. The point of Glassman’s statement about avoiding a routine is to avoid doing the same thing over and over again. It is to keep the act of caring for our bodies from becoming rote, merely routine, something we do without thinking about it. Our worship is not, and should never be, rote. Even if we are following the book, each time we worship it is different in someway - the readings, the prayers, who is present, what is going on in the world or in our own lives. And if we ever find that worship feels rote, as though we are merely going through the motions without any thought for what we are doing, it is time for a session with our therapist and our spiritual director, because something is missing in our lives.

For me, the statement, “Routine is the enemy” is really about embracing change. And actually, I think that is what Ash Wednesday is about. It is about coming to terms with the finite nature of human existence. We are mortal beings. At some point our bodies will give out. Nothing in this world lasts forever. Everything changes.

Now, change is tricky. I think many of us don’t really like it. It can certainly produce anxiety and fear. I know for myself, as someone who likes to plan, that I can get grumpy and frustrated when things don’t go according to plan. I try (and sometimes I even succeed) to remember how many wonderful blessings have come to me in my life when things have not gone the way I planned. No doubt those of you here from St. Andrew’s know all too well the challenges and multitude of emotions that can come with change. You are have had to change a lot this past month as you have been out of your building.

There is no way around it. Change is hard. AND (and this is a very important AND) change is a blessing. The fact that things do not stay the same is what adds richness and texture, depth and meaning to our lives. As many of you know, my children used to be wearable. They fit right here, between my chin and my belly button. Now they talk in paragraphs and do all kinds of things for themselves. Are there moments when I wish they still fit here? Of course. But now I can have conversations with them and do things with them that were never possible when they were infants.

Change gives us something for comparison. I can marvel at Katherine’s performance in her swim meet this past weekend precisely because I remember when she was an infant.

Or perhaps it helps to think about other rhythms in our lives. Think about how much we savor a vacation or even a sabbath day, when we have been working for many days straight. If everyday were a vacation, we would cease to value it so highly.

Or think of the act of fasting (fitting for this holy day and season). Part of the point of giving something up or choosing not to eat for a particular time is so that we will appreciate it all the more when we do. And the richness of that appreciation is because we know what it is like to be without.

In a few minutes you will come forward to receive ashes and will hear the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Yes, that can seem a morbid reminder of the fact that you too will change, but I hope you will see it as in invitation to find joy in the richness of life. Yes, I am suggesting that you find joy on Ash Wednesday, and I do not think that is contradiction.

I think the joy comes in having our priorities straight. In remembering that nothing lasts forever. We are dust and to dust we shall return. This is temporary. We never know how long we will have. May the knowledge that nothing lasts forever be a source of hope for us in the midst of challenges. May it inspire us to savor all the blessings of our lives.

While the ashes too will soon disappear from your forehead, may their memory linger throughout Lent. May you find this to be a season in which you can slow down and pay attention. Savor today. Remember that nothing lasts forever and there is always joy to be found, even in the midst of all the challenges and all the changes.

AMEN.