Advent Lutheran Church

"Lent: A Journey Toward Two Destinations"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            Tonight we begin the season of Lent, a 40-day journey in which we come face to face with what it means to be alive.  Not just breathing and taking up space, but really alive, the way God meant us to experience life.  There’s nothing ho-hum or routine about God’s desire for our living, at least according to the Bible; what God wants for us is a robust and vibrant life.  It might sound a little strange to bring that up just now, since here we sit, ashes on our foreheads, a tangible reminder that one day we will die.  But maybe there’s no better way to fix our attention on the value of our living than by acknowledging the fact of our mortality. 

            So tonight we are invited on a journey, different from any other we will ever take, because this is a trip toward two destinations at the same time.  God’s Word is our guide. 

In St. Matthew’s voice, Jesus calls us to an internal destination when he calls us to authenticity in our relationship with God.  He first issued that call to his initial followers, and the orders haven’t changed since.  Religious devotion was simply expected as a basic rule of behavior on the part of Jews in Jesus’ day, and that devotion was expressed in very concrete ways: in prayer, at specific times of each day; in fasting, the practice of denying oneself a favored activity in order to use that time to focus more clearly on God; and alms-giving, or the giving of money to the poor.  The danger in all of this, Jesus points out to his friends, is in allowing those disciplines to be corrupted by the prideful desire to have others see you perform them, and so think more highly of you.  Which means that the real point of the disciplines of Lent is God.

There is a certain purity here that is easy to miss, but which God appears anxious for us to experience.  It’s the purity of intention, the purity of worshiping God simply for the sake of worshiping God, not so that God will be persuaded to become useful and do something for us, like grant our request for good health, or bless our nation, or even give us salvation, as worthwhile as those desires are.  God wants us to be authentic in our relationship with him, and that authenticity begins with the purity of our intention to worship God simply because he is God, no strings attached.

For example, in the children’s book titled The Frog and Toad Treasury, we watch in chapter after chapter as Frog and Toad explore the world together, support each other, create a lasting, solid friendship.  One episode, called The Surprise, takes place in October.  The leaves are falling.  Frog decides that he will go over to Toad’s house and rake his leaves for him, but that he’ll do it in secret, as an unexpected gift to his friend.  “I will rake all the leaves that have fallen on his lawn,” Frog thinks to himself.  “Toad will be surprised.”

But unbeknownst to Frog, Toad has come up with the same idea.  He’s planning to go over in secret and rake all the leaves at Frog’s house.  Both arrive at the home of the other at the same time, rake each other’s leaves, then return to their own homes, undiscovered.

However, as they make their way home, a huge windstorm blows in and scatters the piles of leaves all over the lawns.  That evening, neither Frog nor Toad realizes what the other has done, because each has returned to a yard that is covered with leaves.  But both are also happily satisfied, thinking how surprised and pleased the other must be to have a freshly raked lawn.  “Tomorrow,” each says to himself, “I will clean up the leaves that are all over my own lawn.”

It’s a children’s story, but with a spiritually mature point: the acts of devotion did not depend on acknowledgment by the other, or even on the accomplishment of the act itself.  The acts were done out of a pure motive; that’s why they were authentic.  It’s that same purity of motive that Jesus calls us to live out in our relationship with God as he invites us inward, one of the destinations in our Lenten journey.

But an authentic relationship with God always has a point of impact, and that point of impact is always outside of ourselves.  That’s the message of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years before Jesus.  Just as Jesus did, Isaiah also takes aim at worship that’s outwardly righteous and devout but masks behavior that is opposed to God.  “Look,” the prophet says, “you serve your own interest on your day of worship, and oppress all your workers.  Such worship as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.” 

How about you?  Are you pretty good at looking pretty good, especially on days of worship?  God is looking for something else from you.  Listen to Isaiah again: “Is not this the fast (worship) that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them … offer your food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted?” 

The other destination of the Lenten journey is out into the world that God loves, to make differences in that world that are according to God’s desires and are specific, concrete, and practical.  We think of worship as something that we do here, in this sanctuary, on one or two days a week.  We’re partly right.  But worship also happens in the office, the jobsite, the classroom, the hospital, the home.  It is an act of worship of God when you bring food to a food bank and clothes to a clothes closet; it is an act of worship of God when you refuse to pass on damaging gossip; it is an act of worship of God when you rightly speak up for another student when speaking up gets you shut down and pushed away; it is an act of worship of God when you forgive someone who has wronged you and release them from the debt you feel they owe you. 

In fact, Isaiah makes it sound as if God intends all of life to be worship.  And come to think of it, maybe that’s what Jesus means when he talks about storing up treasure, that treasure is what we find when we turn our lives into worship.  In practicing the disciplines of Lent, minute by minute, hour by hour, week by week, may you deepen your devotion to this One who carried the cross for our sake, and in your devotion may you bring healing to the world as you find the treasure of your life.  Amen.