Lent Day 25: Forgiveness!

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,

    whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity

    and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silent, my body wasted away

    through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,

    and I did not hide my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”

    and you forgave the guilt of my sin. 

Therefore let all who are faithful

    offer prayer to you;

at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters

    shall not reach them.

You are a hiding place for me;

    you preserve me from trouble;

    you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. 

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;

    I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

    whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,

    else it will not stay near you.

Many are the torments of the wicked,

    but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,

    and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

~Psalm 32

Meditation

In college I took a philosophy class that was based entirely on The Grand Inquisitor, which was a single chapter in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov. The professor was a kind and soft-spoken man, but also anxious. He had a heavy eastern European accent, and he didn’t look particularly well—he was very pale, sort of grey in complexion. During one class, in discussing ethics, he gave an example of someone who really, really needed a pack of cigarettes, but who didn’t have any money, so, wasn’t it, really, ok that he stole a pack of cigarettes from the Star Market? Sort of a modern-day Jean Valjean, I guess. In a later class, he said, “You know, once I really, really needed a pack of cigarettes, but I didn’t have any money. So I stole a pack from the Star Market.”

He ended up taking a medical leave halfway through the course. I don’t know entirely what was going on with my professor, but I believe at least one thing that was going on was a persistent, unshakeable sense of guilt, or maybe shame. He had unfinished business of some kind.

In the Christian tradition, Psalm 32 is one of the seven penitential psalms. Usually, these are psalms in which the writer is asking God for forgiveness for something specific. Psalm 51, the psalm we pray on Ash Wednesday, is an excellent example. Psalm 32 is an odd duck among these psalms, though, because the psalmist is not asking God for anything, but, rather, telling the listener how amazingly wonderful it feels to be forgiven.

And isn’t that true? The feeling of seeing a person who was angry with you, or disappointed by you, and knowing that all is forgiven. It’s… heaven. 

For most human beings, feelings of guilt and shame when we have trespassed some ethical boundary are normal. Feelings are simply messages from our bodies. This was wonderful, that was terrible, this is scary… When we’ve done something, even something as seemingly minor as stealing a pack of cigarettes from Star Market, we generally have some lingering feelings, maybe at first, of anxiety. But eventually, it can turn into guilt. Or even, shame, which is guilt’s awful twin, and far more complicated to deal with. Guilt is about an action. Guilt says, I did something bad. Shame is about ourselves. Shame says, I am bad. I hope all of us exist in shame-free zones, because shame is never the answer. 

Psalm 32 begins with verses telling how happy, how blessed we are when we’re forgiven. But then it moves into what the experience of what guilt can feel like. It speaks of wasting away. It speaks of groaning in agony, and feelings of weakness, even faintness. It speaks of the heavy hand of God resting upon them.

Then, suddenly, we discover that the psalmist is, in fact praying to God. But then I told you, they say, and you forgave me. May all who feel as I felt pray to God, open their hearts, and be forgiven! 

Then, God speaks: I will instruct you, and teach you the way you should go—don’t be like a stubborn animal, who needs to be tied up and restrained, in order to stay near its master. By implication—stay near me because you want to stay near me, a truly beautiful invitation from God, hidden under a homely simile. And then, the joy of forgiveness ends this psalm—which may, really, be a teaching psalm. Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. 

A simple message: tell God what’s ailing you, and God will heal you, will heal the sin-sick soul. But what about other complications when we are seeking forgiveness?

With only a few exceptions, most stories of guilt and forgiveness in the Hebrew scriptures are about sins against God and human guilt over disobedience, faithlessness, breaking the commandments. But Jesus adds a more consistent focus on the harm we can do one another, on the importance of forgiving one another as we have been forgiven by God. Reconciliation really is at the heart of our faith.

But what happens when it’s too late to reconcile? When the one we have harmed is no longer on this earth? I believe that when we do harm, we should make amends. To me, that means: telling the person that we understand the harm we did, and that we are sincerely sorry. And then, asking the person how we can make amends… how can we make it better, how can we restore the relationship between us?

This is far more complex when the person we have wronged has died. What can we possibly do? We can pray. Speak to God about it and see whether our heart can be eased in that way. But there may be other ways. We can take time to reflect on what the person in question really cared about—what they loved. And then we can connect with that, in some way, as a way of connecting with them. Suppose the person you hurt loved animals… maybe volunteer at an animal shelter. Say they loved music…perhaps encourage young people with musical gifts or attend a concert. Recycle, or contribute to Greenpeace if they were concerned about climate change. 

Anything that this person cared about can become a vehicle for remembering your relationship at its best. Beautiful memories can be like a prayer. They can also be the balm your soul needs around the fractures in the relationship. They can increase your trust that, in the end, the good in your relationship outweighed the bad.

God is love, and wants us to live in joy, in hope, and in peace. Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. Trusting in that steadfast love can make all the difference when the complications of life leave us with unfinished business. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lent Day 23: The Boy Who Ran Away! A Monologue Sermon on the Prodigal Son

From time to time I preach a monologue sermon, from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. Yesterday I preached from the point of view of the prodigal son. 

Years ago, even before I was ordained, I wrote a sermon from the point of view of the elder brother--the one who, in the end, is angry at the forgiveness shown his younger brother. If you're interested, you can find that sermon here.

If you prefer, you can watch this sermon on our YouTube video. It begins at 30:15. 

Scripture                   Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32 (NRSVUE)

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable:

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ” 

Sermon            

I’m standing in the doorway of the house, looking out at my father and my brother. They are standing at the edge of the field—my brother covered in sweat, because he’s just come in from working all day, alongside the paid laborers. I can see that my father is pleading with him, leaning in towards him, reaching out his hands to gently touch him. But my brother pulls away. He is standing, stiff as a cut board. Every so often he glances over at the house. He glances over at me. His face is a map of misery. 

But here I stand, a purple linen robe over my torn and tattered tunic; my father’s own heavy silver ring on my right hand, a red stone shining in the torchlight; soft calfskin slippers on my dirty feet; and a goblet of wine in my hand. It is, as yet, untouched. 

My brother is flashing with anger. I am not surprised. In fact, this is the first thing that has not surprised me in the hour since I trudged up the hill to our house. My brother. I am home, and he is not pleased.

I can hardly blame him. A year ago I did the most shameful thing a son could do. At the age of seventeen I approached my father and told him, I wanted to go. I had to go. And I needed my inheritance, so that I had something to live on.

This is not done. Even as I spoke to my father, his eyes shining with tears that never spilled onto his face, I could feel my own face flush with the shame of it. I knew it was akin to saying to my father, “You are worth more to me dead than alive. But since you’re alive, give me this, please.” 

My father didn’t say a word. He turned and went into the back of the house, where he kept important documents. He brought out a small scroll which he opened, and I could see that it was a rough map of his vineyard. He looked at it for a long while. Finally, he took a reed, dipped it in ink. And drew a line across the map at the far end of the property. I could see that it was slightly larger than one-third of the vineyard. He looked up at me. “This is your portion of the inheritance. I’ve made it larger than a third, since the house will go to your brother. As the law requires, he will inherit a double portion.”

He turned away from me, but I could hear his voice shaking. “Go to town. Take the map. Sell the land that I’ve marked off. You can give the map to the new owner as their deed.”

And so I did. I went to town, and met a neighbor—someone who lived just down the hill from us. He was eager to take the property, and paid me with a heavy bag of denarii. I took it home and began to pack. 

A few days later, the property was his, and I was carrying my heavy pack down the road. My father and brother stood at the entryway of the house, watching me go. I know this, because I looked back, just once. But no more after that.

I don’t know how to explain why I did it. I could talk about how close my father and brother were—and they were. They understood one another perfectly. Agreed on everything. I was always the shrill voice at the table, telling them why they were wrong—about my friends, about the tax-collector up the hill, about the weather. In the evening, they would end their day together talking in front of a fire about the next crop, the workers, the price of wine. I had nothing to add, so I sat there in silence, or retreated to my room, or walked outside to look at the stars. 

I could talk about how hard it was after my mother died. She was the one who listened to me, who nodded at my stories instead of rolling her eyes, who held me close before sending me to bed. After she died, and the baby she had tried to bring into the world died with her, I cried for days. I cried until my brother said, “That’s enough.” And my father said nothing. And I thought, “That’s enough? I will never stop crying. I will never not miss her. Who is for me now?” And my brother and father continued to talk about the crops and the workers and prices, as if a vast abyss had not just opened up and swallowed our family. 

But if I’m really honest, none of those things made me run. My father and brother were ordinary men, who lived an ordinary life where I didn’t quite fit in. But that’s no tragedy. My mother died, but many mothers die in childbirth, and life goes on without them.  

I left because there was a burning anger inside me that I didn’t understand, and I couldn’t put out. I left because I if I stayed, I thought I would go mad or commit murder. I left because, at 17, I didn’t even know who I was, and I certainly didn’t think the grapevines were going to teach me. 

So I ran away. Through my father’s vineyard, out of Galilee and north-west to the sea, the sea town of Sidon in Phoenicia. I went to the harbor and saw the barrier island, and ships curving around it, to come to port. I saw the workers unloading the goods from lands I didn’t even know existed—their spices and silks, barrels of wines and ales. I befriended some sailors by buying them food and wine, and I thought maybe I would go to sea with the next ship that left, bearing fine Lebanon cedar for sale. But then, I was enjoying the wine, which the sailors encouraged me to drink until I was senseless, so that they too could drink until they were senseless. I was enjoying the women, though… I could not tell you one of their names or describe one face or remember one thing they said to me. And I was enjoying the games—rolling dice for money, always seeming to lose more than I won. 

My money ran out just as the city seemed to run out of people. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough food anywhere, and even people who helped beggars—as I had become—couldn’t help us any more, because they had their families to feed. I looked around for work, but the only person who would hire me raised pigs. He sent me out to give them their slop. By then I was so weak from hunger, the slop looked good to me. I dipped my hand into the pail and held it up to my nose—the jumbled remains of day old grains and greens, wilted, souring. My stomach—as hungry as it was—heaved in warning, and I dropped the handful back into the pigsty. 

As night fell, I rested against a stone wall that divided the pig farm from its neighbor’s property. I had finished gnawing on the hard bread that was my dinner. A lone star rose in the sky, and the sight of it pierced my heart. Suddenly the sound of my father’s and brother’s voices wafting out to me as I looked up at the stars came to me. I’d always considered it boring, annoying noise. Now even the memory of it sounded like sweet music.

What am I doing here? I thought. And then, a greater knife to my heart: What have I done? I put my head in my hands and wept. I wept until I had no more tears, and then I slept.  

The sound of a rooster awakened me and I lay there, very still. I have to go, I thought. I jumped to my feet and ran to find the owner, who gave me my pay and some bread for the journey. I thanked him, and I ran. 

The whole way home—a two-day journey—I rehearsed and refined what I would say. I imagined my father’s stony face, and knew the only thing I could do was to admit it. Admit it all. To tell him that I’d done the worst, and I knew there was no forgiveness to be found. But maybe there was work. And maybe, over time, there could even be trust. But that wasn’t up to me. 

I trudged up the hill as night fell, and I walked through the fragrant grapevines. The harvest was starting soon… it looked like a good crop this year. I looked up to see the house, expecting to see the firelight through the window. To my surprise I saw what, at first, looked like a pile of cloth by the door. Then I realized… it was a man… it was my father. And as I drew near, he scrambled to his feet and… began to run. To run toward me, not away. I was… astonished doesn’t cover it. I was amazed. This was not possible. But even as I was thinking how impossible it was, my father was falling on my neck and embracing me, and weeping. We were both weeping. I started to say my piece, but he interrupted me, calling a servant—the robe, the slippers, the ring. Family heirlooms. And then, the party. A party unlike any I’d known. 

I will never forget the look in my father’s eyes. I had not known. I had not understood the depths of his love. I had not understood the size of his beautiful, beating heart. I had not known that such forgiveness—forgiveness for the shameful, the cruel, the unforgiveable—that it could exist. But it does. I learned that just about an hour ago. 

And now I’m standing in the doorway of the house. And my brother is still out there. He’s looking at my father with a face of stone, and my father is still speaking, still whispering words of reassurance, words of encouragement. But he is not having it.  

I know what I must do. I put down the goblet of wine. I take off the ring and the shoes, and place them with the wine. I take off the beautiful robe, and carefully fold it and hand it to a servant. 

I step outside, and begin to walk toward him. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lent Day 21: Go Ahead. Say it Out Loud

 While I kept silent, my body wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 
~Psalm 32:3-4

Psalm 32 is one of the penitential psalms. Unlike the others, though, it isn't a present tense, God-forgive-me-for-this-now type of psalm. Instead, it's a narrative about the joys of being forgiven. 

In the lines I've shared above, the psalmist is recounting a memory of a time when they were trying to hide themselves from God--when they were oppressed by the guilt they felt, and felt the pressure of that building up inside.The guilt sapped their strength. It felt like a weight, the heavy hand of God upon them.

Then the psalmist describes how incredible it felt to let it out--to say to God, yes, I acknowledge it: I sinned. I did. And God forgave, which seems to be the very nature of God. 

I don't believe we are able to hide ourselves from God. (There's another psalm, pointing that out. You can find it here.) I tend to assume God knows everything I do, the good, the bad, and the ugly. My experience isn't of trying to build up the courage to confess to God what I've done (or left undone). But I do sometimes have to ask God for help in dealing with the aftermath of what I've done. 

A while back a friend told me we were no longer friends. I was stunned. The ex-friend made the case that I hadn't been available to them; that our friendship seemed only about my needs, and not theirs. I recognize now that I had stopped putting in the effort to connect with this friend by picking up or answering the phone, by texts or emails, or any number of things I could have done to bridge the physical distance between us. (My ex-friend used to be local, but now they live at a distance).They were hurt, and they are not able to forgive me. 

This continues to weigh heavily on me. I pray for this friend, not in the hopes of resuming the friendship, but just because they were such a good friend to me. They were there for me at one of the most fraught, intense times in my life. I want them to have a happy life, abundant life, always. It's between God and me now, to stitch back together the pieces of my torn up heart, and God is good at that. Healing the brokenhearted and binding up their wounds is a specialty. 

But I have learned my lesson. When I love someone, I say it out loud and I do my best to live it. I reach out. I make myself available. I try not to let too much time go by. I try to be the friend I should have been to my ex-friend. I try to be better. And God can help me with that.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Lent Day 20: Check-in: How's your Lent going?

He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

~Luke 13:18-21

Homemade bread in my kitchen.

It's the twentieth day of Lent (we don't count the Sundays--they are always the feast of the resurrection), and it seems like a good time to check in. How are you doing? Specifically, how is  your Lent going? 

I confess that I am a little overcommitted right now, but I am still finding this a beautiful and encouraging time of the church year. I love the season, and the ways it focuses us and helps us to remember who we are and whose we are. 

I love that we have Wednesday evening supper and worship at our church (you can watch last night's service--just shy of a half hour--here). In fact, today I was fantasizing about doing it all year long. (Don't worry UPC soup-makers. I know that's too much for our resources. Like I said, fantasy.)

I love the devotional we are using this year, from the marvelous Kate Bowler. It's called "The Hardest Part: Hurt We Carry, Hope We Find," and it's very, very real. Talks about fear, and illness, and frustration, and the WORLD NOT BEING THE WAY IT SHOULD BE (all caps mine). And it is not a downer, simply honest and lovely, and you can get it here. (Hey, half a Lent is better than none. And you could read one devotion in the morning and one at night.)

And I love the people. The people who are traveling together this Lent--my congregation, my family, my colleagues, my friends, in real live and virtual life. Their curiosity, their gratitude, their absolute honesty. It's such a privilege to walk together.

I want to say it's a Lenten world, right now, but I like Lent too much to attribute bad things to it. But every day we read horrifying news--looks like the social security administration is close to collapse, I see. And people are afraid, very understandably. 

I believe it is community that will save us. Church community, retirement community, communities of colleagues, communities of friends, communities of the resistance, all these communities and more. We need one another. 

I read the best thing in our devotional this morning, again, the brilliant Kate Bowler, who is a professor of Church History, her specialty being, the American church. She writes,

The cultural narrative we are told is that we should be able to handle it all on our own or “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.” But let this historian tell you what this really means. 

*Sounds of a historian rolling up her sleeves.* 

In the early 19th century, bootstrapping originally meant trying to do something ridiculous, like lifting yourself up by your own hair. It’s impossible. So maybe we should simmer down imagining that our individual selves can carry the world on our shoulders. It takes a village to raise a child, and a community of faith to sustain being human.

We can't do it all on our own. Nor should we try to. Asking for help is human, and vulnerable, and absolutely required. Go ahead and ask. Ask your pastor. Ask your church. Ask your friends. Ask the Office on Aging. Ask your congressperson or senator, or state representative or senator. Ask your doctor. Ask.

Asking is like that little seed Jesus talks about. It's a small thing that grows and grows, because it grows community. And I truly believe that in community is where we all need to be, right now.

Tell me about your Lent. Tell me how you are doing. Tell me if you need help finding community, and I'll do everything I can to help.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Lent Day 18: On Time and Wisdom

 Lord, let me know my end
    and what is the measure of my days;
    let me know how fleeting my life is.

~Psalm 39:4

A Statue of Buddha from Bacalhôa Buddha Eden, Lisbon, Portugal
Courtesy of Atlas Obscura

In my living room there is a small plak with a black sky above and a tentative sunrise or sunset over a black silhouette of mountains at the bottom. On it are the words:

The problem is, you think you have time. ~Buddha

This is not actually a quote from "the awakened one," the wandering sage who lived something like 2500 years ago. It is a quote from one of his contemporary students, Jack Kornfield, who wrote "Buddha's Little Instruction Book" (1994), his distillation of the master's teachings for modern readers. This particular quote does represent a theme that can be found more than once in the Buddha's teachings. It may be a summary of this one: 

Those who have come to be,

those who will be:

All

will go,

leaving the body behind.

The skillful person,

realizing the loss of all,

should live the holy life

ardently.

Time. Time is a central concern of the wise, and of those who are advising others to find wisdom. We find the same theme in the Psalm appointed for the first half of this week. Psalm 39 begins with three verses of the psalmist trying not to speak--they don't want to sin with their tongue! But by the end of the third verse, they are positively burning from the effort of keeping silent, so finally, they come out with it, the prayer that has set their heart on fire: they want to know how long they will live.

Why does the psalmist want to know how long they've got? Maybe it has to do with something they want to do, something specfic--such as becoming a wise person. Maybe they want to know how much time they have left to spend with those they love. Maybe they fear an overly extended life--a long, slow descent into feebleness or dementia. Or, maybe they fear an untimely, early demise, with much left undone.

(True confession. This whole conversation makes me think of my attic. *shudders*)

In any or all of these cases, the Psalmist in search of wisdom feels that knowing the span of their days will help them. 

Perhaps they will not put off until tomorrow what they must do today.

Perhaps they will learn wisdom with a greater urgency, and fill their heart with, not just knowledge, but the ability to use that knowledge for good, for others as well as themselves. 

Perhaps they will spend the hours, days, or years they have before them in doing mercy, living justly, and walking humbly with their God. 

But there is also a risk that knowing the number of their days will bring them to a standstill, a kind of spiritual paralysis, in which they are filled with anxiety or fear of that unknown last journey. 

This prayer of the psalmist is a puzzle. There are, of course, times in our lives when we may know with some degree certainty how short our time will be. But even then, God surprises us. We outlive the prognosis, we beat the medically determined odds. 

I think the psalmist doesn't actually want a text from God with "one week" or "five hundred-twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes" on it. I think the psalmist wants to live their days in wisdom, but also in peace. I think the psalmist wants the tiniest taste of God's wisdom so that their days--however many there may be--are lived in precisely the way God wants them to be lived, whatever that may mean. 

God, let us know, not the measure of our days, but how you want us to live.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Breath prayer:  Living.... with You.

Lent Day 17: Imagine!

Hear, everyone who thirsts;

    come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread

    and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,

    and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

    listen, so that you may live.

I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

   my steadfast, sure love for David.

See, I made him a witness to the peoples,

    a leader and commander for the peoples.

Now you shall call nations that you do not know,

    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,

because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,

    for he has glorified you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;

    call upon him while he is near;

let the wicked forsake their way

    and the unrighteous their thoughts;

let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

~Isaiah 55:1-9 (NRSVUE)

Girl Drinking Water in Rwanda (from Partners in Health Initiative)
Courtesy of Art in the Christian Tradition, Vanderbilt University Divinity Library

Sermon

Yesterday I read this invitation to reflect. As I read it to you now, I invite you to listen and reflect on the questions it asks.

Imagine yourself when you were 6 years old. Do you remember what you were going through when you turned 10? Remember how you felt at 16? Do you remember your dreams at 21? All those versions of who you used to be are still inside of you. Your 7-year-old self still gets excited when you remember the joy of that day. Your 35-year-old self still wants to cry when remembering the pain of that year. Like a nesting doll, every version of you has been a part of you becoming who you are today. Some versions of you went through some terrible and painful experiences and some felt great joy. But all versions of you were held by God. [1]

I did yesterday what I just invited you to do now. Some of my memories were quite vivid. Other years had so many associations with them it was hard to find a single, real connection. For age 6, I remembered a long-forgotten bulky blue cardigan that someone had knitted for me, and also my sudden fierce need for pierced ears. Also Davy Jones. He was part of the picture somehow. 

The most striking thing here, though, is the truth that each of is still all these people—the 6-year-old in the blue sweater, the 10-year-old who has changed schools, the 16-year-old playing Grandma Tzeitel in “Fiddler on the Roof.” They are all the same person who gave birth at ages 26 and 31, who graduated from seminary at 42, and who stands in front of you now at… the age I am now. Each of those moments informed the person I was to become in small ways and large, and each of you can say the same of your 6-year-old and 10-year-old and your every-age selves. 

And so it goes with communities. We are in the portion of the prophet Isaiah when the matter at hand is the Babylonian exile. In chapters 40 through 55, the prophet is comforting the afflicted: speaking to those who have been taken into exile and who have suffered the loss of their leadership and religious practices. Their King Zedekiah, who had tried to resist Babylon by forming an alliance with two other nations, was eventually arrested along with his family. His sons were executed as Zedekiah looked on, after which Zedekiah himself was blinded.

Portions of the Lamentations of Jeremiah describe the horrors of exile vividly: 

The tongue of the infant sticks
  to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,
    but there is nothing for them.
Those who feasted on delicacies
   perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple
   cling to ash heaps.
~ Lamentations 4:4-5

There are much worse verses than these.

At the same time, the Judeans who were carried away and were living lives of deprivation and desperation still had memories of home. They remembered the magnificent Temple built by Solomon with the same kind of love Jesus had for it. They remembered the many festivals they had celebrated there with their own kin. Their lives, too, carried layer upon layer of memory—the joys of home layered with the trauma, grief, and loss of exile. And even when the exile came to an end about seventy years after it began people carried their own, their parents’ and their grandparents’ memories—joy layered with trauma, grief, and loss.

How do we find the people still in exile, but suddenly facing the prospect of returning home? Most likely we find them with a mixture of emotions. Hope? Doubt? Fear? Isaiah calls to them, You who are thirsty—come to the waters! He knows they are thirsty for fresh, clear water. In Babylon they had to purchase all their water and carry it home. And they are spiritually empty. They are thirsty for God. Is their thirst mingled with their own or their parents’ memories of drinking fresh, clear water when they were children? Are they imagining what the water at home in Judea is like now? Isaiah is inviting them to remember and to imagine. 

Come, the prophet says. Buy milk and wine and bread without money. Your God will supply your needs. Why buy the things that don’t satisfy? Remember the land of milk and honey? It awaits you.

As their time in exile comes to an end, the prophet asks the weary, disheartened people to imagine this wonderful homecoming. A homecoming that restores them to the abundance they’ve longed for—both materially and spiritually. It’s not just water: it’s the living water God promises, which will quench their thirst forever. It’s not just groceries, it’s an abundance of the heart, the steadfast love of God. Eat and drink what is good; delight in it. It is free! It will satisfy for the long term. Imagine!

God offers to remake God’s covenant with David; now the covenant will be with the people. They can trust God to be their protector, the one who will supply them with all they need. No intermediary is necessary—not even a king. But there’s one catch: it has to do with the people’s relationship with God. Seek the Lord, Isaiah urges them, who is still to be found. Call upon God, who is yet at hand. Isaiah is talking about repentance. 

For the exiles returning home, a huge issue is the question of why they are there to begin with. You could point to different mistakes different kings made along the way, or their leaders’ unfaithfulness. You could point to the people losing their connection with God even before they were carried away physically. Do the people need to repent these things? Sure. But repentance here might not mean what we tend to think it means.

Repentance is not about: You were evil, now you’re planning to be good. It’s not about God throwing you into the “lost” or “broken” bin, and you needing to figure out how to climb out of the thing. That’s not it. Repentance is not a bootstraps project. 

The word we translate “repentance” simply means turning around. It’s about changing your view, your point of view. Looking at things in a new way. 

Father Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles who founded “Homeboy Industries,” the largest gang member rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. Father Greg describes it this way: “We imagine a world without prisons, and then we try to create that world.”  In a Lenten reflection a couple of years ago, Father Greg shared a story about a young man he worked with. He wrote, 

A gang member, Louie, sat in my office at Homeboy Industries and was sobbing. “How come everyone here loves me?” The crying intensifies. “I mean…everyday…I take myself to court…and everyday…I find myself guilty.” He thinks a bit. “I signed on the dotted line…to everything I’ve done. If you knew who I really am…it would dissuade you…from loving me.”

Repent. 

It means “to move beyond the mind you have.” It doesn’t mean “do good and avoid evil.” It is about seeing things differently. There is an invitation in it to embrace the mystical view; to see as God does. Louie needs to recognize his own unshakeable goodness. No need to become someone he is not. The gentle urging of our tender God is for Louie to recognize what has been there all along. He needs to move beyond the mind he has, so he can see it. [2]

Repentance is simply seeing yourself the way God sees you. For the exiles, that meant seeing their own unshakeable goodness, seeing themselves as beloved children of God, despite what had happened to them, despite their sense of responsibility or guilt. It meant their understanding that through all they had experienced—the memories of long ago as well as the trauma of exile—God was holding them. God never let them go.

Repentance for us is the same. You, too, are unshakably good. You are God’s beloved. God loves you with an everlasting love. God has called you by name, and you belong to God. No need to take yourself to court everyday and find yourself guilty. That’s not the mindset God wants for you. That’s not the life God wants for you. 

Do you have a hard time seeing yourself this way? I think most of us do. How about this: Imagine it. Imagine yourself—that 6-year-old you, that 21-year-old you, that your-age-today you, and imagine that you are God’s beloved, and you always have been. Imagine your own unshakeable goodness. Imagine that, just as God is offering the exiles a warm welcome home, God has that welcome ready for you, every minute, every day. You have been at home with God all along. God has always been holding you. God never let you go.

In a chaotic world, this love of God can be our still point, our north star, the rock on which we stand.  When we wake up and the news that blinks up at us from our phone horrifies us, God is there. When we wonder when the fighting will cease, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, God is there. When we wonder what our role might be in this strange and unsettling time, God is there. God is holding us. God never let us go. 

Imagine that.

Thanks be to God. Amen. [3]

[1] Brenda Thompson, MDiv, Angela Taylor, MDiv, Hailie Durrett, and Karen Bowler, PhD, “The Hardest Part: Pain We Carry, Joy We Find,” Sermon Guide, The Everything Happens Project, KateBowler.com, 2025.

[2] Fr. Gregory Boyle, S. J., “First Sunday of Lent: Seeing Things Differently,” February 21, 2021, Ignatian Solidarity Blog, https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2021/02/21/seeing-things-differently/. 

[3] "Imagine!" Concept and resources thanks to [1]

Lent Day 15: God Our Helper

 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
    my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
    I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods,
    and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I remember you upon my bed
    and think of you in the night watches,
for you have been my helper,
   and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you;
    your right hand holds me fast.
~Psalm 63:5-8

Today's portion of Psalm 63 begins with David--still, on the run in the Judean wilderness--declaring that God's steadfast love is better than living, better than life itself. This is a remarkable sentiment coming from someone who is running for his life, and running from one to whom he gave life. We have to imagine that David is having a reckoning with himself, and with God, as to the reason(s) he is where he is in the first place. (See yesterday's post, here.) In such a hostile natural environment, at such a dire hour, David is starting to assemble a sense of what is good, a hierarchy of spiritual needs, let's say. I don't think it's going too far to say, he seems to have concluded that living is not at the top of that hierarchy. That, on some level, he accepts that he may die, and only wants to affirm--or have God affirm--that, in the end, he has God's steadfast love, which is all that matters.

David compares this knowledge to a feast, a feast for the soul, akin to a feast for the body filled with rich foods. The Hebrew words (as found in the King James/ Authorized Version) translate to "marrow and fatness," certainly useful foods on the run, with protein that would provide lasting satiation and energy. (I've never consumed marrow, but had a father who was a butcher from a family of butchers, and he appreciated marrow very much. Likewise, some in our congregation's Bible Study!)

David will praise God, therefore, lifting up his hands, singing out his praises with that mouth that is remembering such deliciousness... even on his bed. Remember, he is roughing it, so the is certainly not sleeping in a royal bed.  Still, his memories of meditating on God there flood him. David speaks of remembering God, meditating on God in the watches of the night. The very image the psalm conjures is one of safety, repose, and delight at contemplating God in all her wonders.

Ultimately, David connects all this--the satisfaction of a great feast for the soul, the place of repose and delight--to a God who has been his helper. Under the shadow of your wings--another image that fits in with the time of rest and meditation--I sing for joy. 

Let's look more closely at this image of God as "helper." The root Hebrew word for helper is EZER, and we find a version of it used here. The word appears 21 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Seventeen of those times (including the usage here), the "helper" is God. In her article on "Helper," indigenous scholar Kat Armas points out that the Hebrew usage of "helper" is very different from our contemporary assumptions about it. We tend to think of a helper is someone who is subservient, under the supervision of a more important person. But in Hebrew usage, a helper is one with power to help. In the Hebrew Scriptures there are only four other appearances of the word: three refer to military aides, and one occurrence refers to the woman whom God creates in Genesis 2, to be a companion to the man in the Garden of Eden.*

This means that the word "helper" when applied to the woman in scripture does not and cannot mean that she is inferior to the man. Cultural and conservative assumptions about that word have driven an entire theology of the relations between men and women, and they are in error. Women and men have equal dignity in the sight of God, and neither is inferior to the other. Only the woman is given the descriptor that is primarily used for God. God is helper. So is the woman.

Our portion of the psalm--again, harkening back to the earlier metaphors around sleep and lying down--closes with a statement of David acknowledging that he turns to  God, completely. "My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast." The "right hand" of God refers to God's power. David believes himself--awake and asleep--held in the powerful love of God, who, even in this terrible moment of fear and uncertainty, will never leave him.

I  mentioned yesterday that this psalm is one I often sing to myself in bed, and now you probably have a clearer understanding of why that is. I find the psalm incredibly comforting, and something that reminds me, as well, of the steadfast love of God, that helps me, too, to notice that deep satisfaction in my soul. God has been my helper, countless times throughout my life, and this week alone, because there is no way I could do, well, anything without God's help. 

My whole being clings to God; her right hand holds me fast.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

* Kat Armas, What Does "Helper" Really Mean? July 25, 2018,  https://katarmas.com/blog/2018/8/3/what-does-helper-really-mean#:~:text=So%20if%20woman%20has%20been,to%20describe%20a%20military%20aide. katarmas.com.