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We start Lent today. It is a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. If done right, we become more the persons God has called us to be.
Whatever happened to sin?
There are two phrases that can be used with the imposition of ashes. There’s the more traditional, “Remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” And there is, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.” Both have rich and deep and tremendous meaning.
There was a period of time, I think, where we cast aside any mention of sin. It made us feel bad, maybe. I don’t know. It led to books, Whatever became of sin?. Because it seemed like we weren’t sinning anymore. Confession went by the wayside. There was not an acknowledgement that we’re broken human beings.
In our own lives, at the risk of harming, we decided we were going to stress self-esteem of students. Here is the result. Kids today believe they are tremendous and wonderful, but deep inside know they’re not. They know they have some brokenness. They know they have some hardship. I would suggest that what is a reason, a result of this is depression and anxiety.
When they hear a compliment, they don’t believe it’s really true, because we told them everything they did was wonderful. You got a trophy just for showing up. We eliminated winning and losing. Now, I’m not suggesting we shame people. And I think to some degree that was what we were reacting to. That there were periods of time where people were shamed for the things that they did. For their shortcomings, for their hardships.
There was perhaps a period of time where the church spoke too much about sin and not enough about mercy and forgiveness. But I would suggest the attendance here today for Ash Wednesday is testimony that we need to talk about our sinfulness.
Look at our world. Look at large events. Look at Gaza and Israel, Ukraine. Look at the people desperate to leave Central America and Latin America and countries like Venezuela and Ecuador. Look at the fact that we still haven’t figured out how to feed everyone. Not because we can’t. There have been numerous observations that we produce far more food than we need. We just don’t share.
And listen to some of the political debate about food. It’s as if people who simply want to eat are somehow being selfish, lazy, not wanting to do what they need to do. Ash Wednesday is a phenomenal recognition that we know deep within us too, there’s brokenness. We have our sinfulness. We have those areas where we need to experience more fully and more deeply the love of God.
And as the prophet Joel reminds us, we have those areas of our life where we still are not doing what fasting should lead us to do. We are not doing the very things that we are to do to help those on the margins. And we are not doing enough to say, yes, maybe we fast, but we don’t really care about loving God and loving neighbor.
Today is such a day where we recognize that we stand before God in need of his love for each one of us. We stand as people who need to acknowledge not just to ourselves and not just between me and God, our own brokenness and sinfulness.
In the early church, when it came to the sacrament of confession, people stood up in the congregation and said, “This is what I have done.” And their penance before they could rejoin the assembly often took the rest of their lives. Now, the church recognized that those types of sins, they were typically major sins, were not all that human beings deal with.
And so thanks in particular to hermits like Anthony, there was more of an individual nature where the priest represented the congregation in the sharing of sins. We have something to offer a world that is broken. We have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We have a God who loves us more than we can know. We have self-esteem not because we’re told so, but because we’re given so by God. Every single one of us is a beloved son and daughter of God.
As I’ve said before, it is good that each of us exists. And that’s the hope that God calls us to. And that’s what Lent is all about. This prayer, fasting, and almsgiving ultimately should enable us to be able to say when Easter arrives, here are the ways in which I have received new life from Jesus Christ who is risen from the dead. Here’s how I have grown more to be like Jesus.
And if we believe that this changes our lives, then we need to recognize that the task and the challenge given to us is the one by St. Paul. We are ambassadors for Christ. We have a fundamental challenge. The church writ large, but I would argue also this parish locally. We need to grow. We need to get younger.
Not because I value the young more than the old, and not because it’s a competition, but every day I know I’m getting a day older, and I know you’re getting a day older. That’s why Jesus was so insistent that we had to share our faith.
Now, this evangelization is not something that begins by thumping people over the head with the Bible. I would suggest it’s simple and, okay, pardon the commercial. It’s inviting someone to the fish dinner and sitting down and talking with them, getting to know them. Maybe it’s reaching out to someone with whom you fundamentally disagree, not to change their mind, but to understand why they believe what they believe.
We are ambassadors for Christ. And if we are not, then it makes it harder for the people that you and I encounter in our daily lives to come to know that there is an ultimate solution to the brokenness of life, and it is a relationship with Jesus. And so today, ask the Lord to help you to grow in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, so that you might come to discover exactly who it is God has made you to be.
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