Lydford (Joint Benefice) Holy Communion with the imposition of ashes, 22/2/2012
2 Corinthians 5.20-6.10, Matthew 6.1-6,16-21
There is power in penitence.
But at the start of Lent, our season of self-reflection, our time to place ourselves in a wilderness of wondering about our salvation and its shape, our time of special openness to the spirit of God for judgement, healing, and direction, at the start of Lent let us not make mistakes about the sort of power which is available to us in penitence.
Jesus is clear in the words which Matthew recorded: ‘don’t be like the hypocrites’ - don’t make the mistake of religious people from time immemorial and regard a time of self-imposed austerity as a sign, in itself, of salvation. Be austere, if that helps your Lenten reflections. Make extra space by denying yourself a luxury or two, or by getting out of bed earlier for extra prayer, or by reading a difficult but ultimately rewarding theological or devotional book. Of course there is a power in doing these sort of things. That’s why well-intentioned Christians encourage others to do them; that’s why it’s good, for instance, to gather in a group for a Lent course, making in our lives a special time of sharing and learning together.
But don’t think that these activities in themselves will reward you. The power is not in doing these sort of things.
It is not the act of austerity, to show your penitence, which connects you to God. No, the power in penitence has a simpler and more fundamental source. It is the simple act of turning towards God that releases the power of Lent to you, that opens the healing, reconciling power of God to you.
It is the simple act of turning. Turning away from that space in your heart and head which is concerned with what others think of you, what they see in you, what they expect of you, which causes you to behave accordingly.
The power in penitence is in the simple act of turning towards the Other in your life - the One whose only desire for you is to receive his love; the One ‘who for our sake was made to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ (2 Cor 5.21)
The power in penitence is in the simple act of turning towards that space in your heart and head which is concerned with what God thinks of you, what he sees in you, what he expects of you, that space which is simply and solely concerned with God.
Turning to the space where God is - or as St Paul entreated the Corinthian believers: ‘Be reconciled to God’.
Now we practicing believers find this hard sometimes. Because we misplace the source of our power in all the activities in which we involve ourselves. Because these activities are the way we deal with how we think others think of us, what they see in us, expect of us.
And sympathetic, open-minded unbelievers often find it hard to turn towards God because they also are deeply concerned with how they think others think of them, see them, what they expect of them. And turning away from these concerns is very hard indeed. Their power holds and constrains us all.
The T. S. Eliot poem Ash-Wednesday begins with three lines which seem to express this sense of trappedness, constraint, the inability to change perspective:
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
And later in the poem Eliot seems to underline this as he writes,
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Eliot speaks for all who want to find hope in life but can't; for all who want to find faith but don't know where to look; for all who want to be reconciled to God but don't know how to turn from those concerns which entrap them. Lent belongs to such as these.
Lent isn't for the religious people who think they know precisely what to do to get right with God. Jesus makes this clear when he says,
‘When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.’ (Matthew 6.16)
I think those are among the scariest words in the gospels: they have already received their reward, these people who know what they need to be seen to be doing. Their hearts are turned towards the expectations and desires of others. They're happy now, God says; leave them to it - there's nothing else for them from me. But Eliot writes,
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
Eliot is a man in tune with Lent, for Lent isn't for those whose lives are driven by desires to do what the next person expects, to have what the next person has. Lent is for those who reject these desires in the hope of finding the Other, and who can live with the irony of saying, Because I cannot hope to turn again, which is actually an expression that hope exists.
Eliot published Ash-Wednesday in 1930, four years after his conversion to Anglicanism. And because of this we might read his opening line another way.
Because I do not hope to turn again
Eliot has turned to God, in his conversion. He does not hope to turn again: he does not hope to turn away from God again. He wants to continue to receive the power in penitence by continuing in the simple repeated act of turning towards the One ‘who for our sake was made to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ (2 Cor 5.21)
Although at times we do not dare to hope, Christianity offers us hope anyway. The penitential season of Lent encourages us to turn to face ourselves honestly, and most of all to turn and face God and to find him in our hearts, waiting to reward us with his love, waiting to redeem us.
The power in penitence. It’s not in the doing of things, it’s in the attitude of turning. As Eliot's poem puts it,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
...
Our peace in His will
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