Reminder, Repentance, and Renewal: A Journey from Ashes to Abundant Life

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and steadfast spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10

It's time, my sister, my brother. It is time to receive the ashen etching that traces again the oily mark imposed on our brows at baptism. It's time to embark on the transforming trek of Lent.

The journey begins with a smudge on the brow that reminds us who and whose we are: We are broken, battered mortals groping for the God to whom we already belong. We are fragile, failing, fearful creatures, crafted from dust and returning to dust. And...we belong to God. We frail beings belong, ever and always, to the God who does not stand far off, but rather walks alongside us, covered in the very dust and dirt of our days.

Reminded, we repent. After all, our fear, our frailties, our failings move us to act like the world exists for our benefit alone. We use it, and the people in it, in ill-fated attempts to get what we want, what we have convinced ourselves we are due. We turn every which way but the life-giving way of the cross of Christ. Along this journey we repent, we turn again toward the only one who can offer real and abundant life. We fast, we pray, we turn our faces, our hearts and our open hands toward the world that God so loves, the world in which Jesus crucified and risen is getting his hands dirty and his feet dusty.

Along the way, renewal rises as a gift from the dust and ashes of our lives. We broken, battered mortals are forgiven, healed, made new by the God who gropes through the dust to make and remake us into who and what we are created and called to be: children of God and brothers and sisters with all of God's dust-born children.

That's it.  That's the journey...not just this holy season but every season, every day...reminded, repenting, renewed, over and over again on this Lenten way.

Thankfully, as it turns out, we arrive where we begin - in the heart of God and one with God's dusted creation.

Create in us clean hearts, O God,

and put a new and steadfast spirit within us.

Amen

Click this link for an audio version of this blog read by its author

Lent Again?!

The movie, “Groundhog Day” stars Bill Murray as an ill-tempered TV weatherman unhappy about having to cover, yet again, the annual emergence of the renowned groundhog, Punxatawney Phil from his den. While in Punxatawney, Murray’s character (also named Phil) gets caught in a time loop in which he repeats February 2 over and over and over again. Every duplication of the day is announced by his alarm going off at 6:00 a.m. with Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You, Babe.” Throughout the movie Phil travels from shock and dismay, into self-centered manipulation of the experience (and of others), through bored endurance, and, finally, into embrace of the transformation offered by seemingly endless reprisals of the day.

Sometimes moving through the church year (even weekly liturgies) over and over and over again can be something like Phil’s experience with Groundhog Day: Shock and dismay…self-centered manipulation…bored endurance…

Yet again, the alarm plays “I Got You, Babe” and Ash Wednesday approaches with its annual ashen imposition of mortality’s shadow. Yet again, we’re invited to engage six weeks worth of Lenten discipline (how many times do I have to give up chocolate, anyway?). Over and over and over we sing those dreary hymns, wonder whether Sundays are included in the fast, hear the stories of suffering and loss, worry that our congregation will do a foot washing…

It’s pretty natural for repetition to trigger everything from dismay to self-centeredness to boredom, even with something like the church year. Yet, repetition also carries promise when it’s rooted in the presence and promises of God. Hearing the stories again and again, engaging the ritualized behaviors over and over, walking the same path with Jesus and other members of his body time after time…all these and more can draw us through repetitious rehearsal into new life, transformation, and deeper engagement in God’s mission of healing and hope in the world.

Wartburg Seminary professor Craig Nessan puts it this way: What each of these ritual occasions provides is the opportunity to...articulate and rehearse what we ordinarily neglect...What we ritualize by means of the historic Christian liturgy is nothing other than the kingdom of God proclaimed and embodied in the person of Jesus…Worship affords the occasion to rehearse the role of one’s true self, a citizen of God’s kingdom [Beyond Maintenance to Mission, p. 37].

Blessed (and transforming) repetition be yours this holy season and always!

Bishop Bill Gafkjen