From a sermon preached at Saint Alban’s Epping NSW
In the season of
Lent we prepare for our celebration of Easter. Lent and Easter offer a yearly
rediscovery by us of what we have become, and of what we can become through our
own baptismal death and resurrection. Easter is our return every year to our
baptism, in which we entered into the beginning of our experience of salvation,
in God’s gifting to us of the grace of freedom. Through Christ’s death and
resurrection, we begin the journey into fully realizing our destiny as people
who are created in the image and likeness of God.
This season of Lent gives us the opportunity of focusing more
deliberately on our life and faith journey. This is a time to strip away what
hinders and distracts us as we seek to come face to face with God and with
ourselves. This is part of our continuing formation as human beings - as beings
created in the image and likeness of God, and called to fully live in that
image.
Being formed is a
complex process. Along the road of life we are frequently de-formed. We seek to
be re-formed in the light of the Gospel. When we are in a more or less whole
state, we are able to per-form well. Sometimes we may, against our better
judgement, con-form, when we know we are short-changing ourselves by doing so. The
process of growth in our lives means that we constantly seek to in-form
ourselves, in order to make better decisions and choices that are in harmony
with the Gospel.
By making our
Lenten journey within the framework of this season, we accept the challenge of
living into the depths of our being. We don't wallow in what besets us, nor do
we accept as unchangeable, that which limits us in our relationship with God
and others. Lent gives us the safety of a structure in which to examine our
lives in relation to our life in God. Lent is a time for looking at the raw
material of our lives, and allowing the grace of God to re-shape and re-form
us, that we may rejoice at Easter, in the new life that is given to us.
As we look
freshly at our lives this Lent, it may be useful to reflect on some familiar words that accompany us on our faith journey. I have been
thinking about the much-loved prayer from Anglican liturgy, Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known… This is a prayer that expresses our most profound sense
of longing for our desire to be the same as God’s desire. As we journey further
into the world of prayer, we find that our longing for this union is matched by
our realization that there is what we might call an interval between the
presence of God on the one hand, and the absence of God on the other. God is
present, yet God is also distant. The ancients called this state compunction, from the latin, to puncture with. They saw it as a
spiritual pain, created by the twofold awareness of the beauty of God and our
awareness of entering more fully the mystery of that beauty, on the one hand;
and on the other hand, a spiritual grief, brought about from an awareness that
we constantly sabotage the union with God which we most desire.
The season
of Lent is a time to nurture the relationship with God which we desire. Traditionally
in Lent we seek to exercise some control over the appetites which often control
us, so that by means of this training, we are able to enter into a readiness to
do some work on this relationship with God.
There is a
hymn from the monastic tradition which beautifully captures the link between
silence as a control over our speech, to be used as a tool by which we may an
inner journey, to purify our desires. Recalling the background of the desert –
which for us is the inner desert we find in our heart, rather than a physical
desert –the hymn says:
There silence shall set free the will
The heart to one desire restore
There each restraint shall purify
And strengthen those who seek the Lord.
(Text: St Mary’s Abbey, West Malling, in Hymns for Prayer & Praise, Canterbury Press Norwich)
The Church
provides us with a way to become better disciples; through the disciplines of
prayer, fasting and giving. This is more than saying extra prayers, giving up
food and being more generous.
Prayer -
whether of words, silence, images or darkness - is the language of our desire
for union with the mystery of God. Does our awareness of the presence of God
produce in us a corresponding regret that our attitudes and actions often
create an absence of God, while our true desire remains unfulfilled?
Fasting is
about control. Are we in control of our appetites, or are they in control of
us. Food is the first stage in our awareness of the passions in our lives. Do
we satisfy the immediate desire, or can we give the desire space and time, to
train ourselves that the body is not the sum total of human existence. Fasting
is also about preparing for feasting. There is no feasting – physically no
ability to feast – if fasting is not also present.
The
traditional practice of giving during Lent is not just to make us feel
generous. It is a reminder that there is enough for all, and that our
distribution from our plenty, is required of us as an act of justice toward our
brothers and sisters.
May this
Lent lead us along the path of Christ into the mystery of God, which we will
celebrate in all its fullness of the great Easter feast. Above all, have a joyful Lent. Lent is not about being
gloomy or morbid. How can it be, when after all, its purpose is to take us on a
journey which leads our desires to be one with God’s desires.
