Lent 2020

Simple Gifts of Lent

A Mid-week Lenten Sermon Series

Ash Wednesday - Ashes 
Week 1 - Word
Week 2 - Water
Week 3 - Bread
Week 4 - Wine
Week 5 - Prayer

Lent begins this Wednesday, February 26, 2020.  I am offering a Mid-week Lenten Sermon Series: Simple Gifts of Lent.  I hope it will assist you in your faith journey.

Ash Wednesday

The Simple Gift of Ashes

Cantor sings: “’Tis a Gift to Be Simple”

Why a happy song during Lent? 

Aren’t we supposed to feel bad and think about our sins?

People and oftentimes we see Lent a big ‘guilt trip.’  I know that in my past faith journey – guilt was a big part of Lent.  But if ‘guilt’ is central to Lent – we’ve missed the point.  Someone told me that they don’t like Ash Wednesday because it is too negative, full of darkness, talk of our mortality and death.

That view seems to be enforced by our hymns and our liturgy.  But we need to step back and take a broader and more imaginative view of Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent.

The theme for our Lenten meditations is ‘Simple Gifts.’  It is a Shaker Folk Song written and composed in 1848 by Joseph Brackett of Gorham, Maine.  Shakers are a Christian sect founded in 1747 and noted for the individual believer can have a personal communication with God who is both male and female and in the ability to find and give voice to the “Inner Light.”

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

This Shaker Song is a dance – a work song dance.  Our relationship to God might be such a dance.  During Lent we dance with God toward a deeper relationship – a deeper love.  The dance can lead us to recognize the Simple Gifts – profound gifts of God’s grace.

This evening we will meditate on the simple gift of ashes.
How can ashes be a gift?  Tonight they are a reminder of our mortality and the frailty of life. 

How can you speak of ashes as a gift.  Ash Wednesday and Lent is such a downer!

Yes, they are a reminder of our frailty – of the fleeting nature of life.  But I’d like you to re-imagine that – not as a negative – but as a gift.  Yes, it is a gift to recognize that life is fragile and fleeting.  How so?

An example – from of all places former Senator from Illinois.  Senator Mark Kirk – one of our Senators from Illinois had a stroke – a severe stroke.  He’s recovered and he told of his journey – his trip to recovery in a letter published at the time.

He had two operations to relieve the swelling in his brain.  He worried he was going to die.  Then he tells of a dream he had of three angels coming into his hospital room.  They wanted him to go with them.  But Senator Kirk said, “No!” because he knew that he was in the hospital and why he was there:  to begin a long difficult recovery from his stroke.

In other words, he looked at the ashes – his mortality and began to look at those ashes differently.

He wrote of how he was depressed and the hospital chaplain read to him from the Gospel of St. Matthew – chapter 6 – a portion of the Sermon on the Mount:

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin…if God so clothes the grass of the fields, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”

Jesus’ words puts our ash ridden frail lives in prospective.

Isn’t that what Ash Wednesday and Lent is about?  It is not about guilt or feeling we’ve failed – but rather about facing reality – the reality of life that it is indeed a gift – a gift to be relished and embraced while we have it.

Senator Mark Kirk faced the ashes and learned how they are a simple gift:

I’m different from what I was. My left leg and left arm might never work like they once did, but my mind is sharp. I’m capable of doing the work entrusted to me by the people of Illinois, but I am forever changed.

I’m an optimist now, grateful for every blessing. Bad things happen, but life is still waiting for you to make the most of it. I want my life to count for something more than the honors I once craved. I believe it will.

My faith is stronger. My humility is deeper. I know I depend on family and friends more than I ever realized. I know, too, that the things that divide us in politics are infinitesimal compared with the dignity of our common humanity.

Climbing the steps of the Capitol was one of the greatest moments of my life. It was a goal fulfilled and a message to all stroke survivors:

Never, ever give up.

I was the beneficiary of many kindnesses from colleagues on both sides of the aisle after my stroke, and those acts will forever matter more to me than any political differences. I don’t expect to be the same senator I was before my stroke — I hope to be a better one.

I want to make my life matter by doing work that matters to others. I want to do it with the help of my friends, Republicans and Democrats, and to share the satisfaction of knowing we have honored our public trust together.

I was once a pessimist. I’m not that man anymore. And that change, brought about by misfortune, is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Isn’t that the nature of faith?  Gain through loss – resurrection after death?  God in Christ brings new life from the ashes.

May our Lenten journey lead us to receive the simple gift of ashes.

Amen.