Make me a clean heart: A homily for Ash Wednesday

 

Preached at Croydon Minster, Liturgy of Ash Wednesday

‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12.34).

 

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The gospel reading we have just heard, read in the context of Ash Wednesday, calls us to almsgiving, prayer and fasting, which, along with penitence, we know as the traditional features of Lent.

 

And it calls us to ponder deeply what we really treasure, because that will be a sign of where our hearts truly lie.

 

This is what acts of piety are, and what their outcome is meant to be: getting our hearts right with God; righteousness.

 

And this task of practicing our piety, our righteousness, is for the private sphere. You could almost say Jesus calls for ‘piety distancing’.

 

For those Christians given to be highly sociable, activist and extravert that is really rather hard to get their heads around. Privacy sounds very individualistic – me and my God - privacy is what they crave at out of the way early morning services, isn’t it?

 

This isn’t about a worship-style choice or temperament, but the heart of righteousness.

 

Piety, as taught by Jesus, is unshowy, seeks no flattery or admiration from others but rather focuses on the intensity of our relationship with our Maker and Redeemer.

 

The refrain throughout this passage is when you give alms (charitable giving), when you pray, when you fast, do these things for ‘your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you’ (vv4, 6, 18)

 

We have all been driven out of public spaces into the private realm by the lockdown. That has been uncomfortable for so many people. People are finding it hard to live with partners, family members, or households.

 

Or perhaps it’s just they find it hard to be with themselves, whether living alone or in company.

 

No wonder there is such widespread poor mental and spiritual health, and not just because of the pandemic.

 

The hardest person to confront is yourself. The hardest place to enter is one’s own heart.

 

Lent is the time for ‘spiritual audit’ and a deep heart check-up.

 

What in my faith has nourished me in the pandemic? Where have I found myself bereft? Ask those questions, and if you want help with them, be bold, ask: that’s is what I and your priests are here to offer, and there are other wise fellow Christians you can speak to amongst our number. What are the ‘tools of the spiritual life’ as St Benedict calls them, that you need now?

 

One outcome of the pandemic must surely be for us to re-learn the disciplines - the structures if you prefer - of our lives of prayer. (And that’s for now, not just when Boris says it’s okay to mingle again).

 

Ultimately in Lent we are invited to go deep into the chamber of our own hearts. It is an invitation into what the mystics call the ‘interior life’. That is what the action of penitence is all about: as tonight’s psalm says, ‘Make me a clean heart, O God : and renew a right spirit within me’ (Psalm 51.11)

 

And what do we find in our hearts? Perhaps it’s anger, bile, frustration, vitriol; perhaps it’s faith, hope, love, endurance, gentleness. Perhaps it’s some of all of those.

 

Lent gives us grace and space to turn in and examine our hearts and the places we don’t really want to go, because as Jesus says, later in St Matthew’s gospel, ‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12.34). After all, he says, the place where what you most value, what is most you and where what you treasure is, it is there your heart will be also…

Sunday before Lent: Glory and Reality

Lord, may we see your glory.  May that glory fill this holy place and fill the whole world. May your glory seep from the heavens into our lives to animate us and illumine our hearts, that, as Christ’s glory was seen by human witnesses on the holy mountain, we may see that glory in our worship.

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Our readings today tell of human witnesses led up mountains where they see God’s glory.  First Moses goes alone, leaving Aaron and Hur, and then Jesus goes up the mountain, taking Peter, James and John with him.

When glory bursts out heaven touches earth.

This glory breaks out in the Law, the way of hallowing every day in relationship with God, revealed through Moses on the mountain top. This glory is described as a devouring fire, so powerful and searing it was.

God’s glory doesn’t just appear on mountain tops. The prophet Isaiah has a vision within the Temple: heaven touches earth. Isaiah sees the Lord enthroned in heavenly splendour as seraphs call ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory’ (Isaiah 6.3). Glory is released and unrestricted, it’s not hemmed in or defined: unbounded glory!

And yet in Israel’s story the glory has dimmed. It was like that before God raised up Samuel. In Eli’s day the light was dimmed, but not quite gone out God (1 Samuel 3.1-3a). The glory itself was not dim, but it appeared dim because frail human eyes could not see it.

(Glory dims in our own day when the gospel is betrayed by those who espouse goodness, truth and beauty and then - from positions of authority, power or trust - abuse the young and the vulnerable physically, emotionally or spiritually. I am thinking here of instances of the diabolical abuse of minors. That violates the vulnerable and defaces the beauty of the vision of Jesus Christ).

That is no vision of Christ, but a vision of obstinate human sin.

Such a contrast is when Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain and there they see the most overwhelming sight. It is the radiant glory of God. Nothing brighter or more splendid is seen in all creation. Accompanying this sight are the words of the Father,, that we recall from Christ's Baptism, ‘this is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him’. (Matthew 17.5b)

This glory is intertwined in the tapestry of the scriptures. And on the Holy Mountain there is the intriguing reference to the presence of Moses and Elijah. Threads from Israel’s story are woven into the Transfigured Glory of Jesus. The witnesses saw not only Jesus Christ but Moses, representing the Law and Elijah representing the Prophets; Elijah’s presence hinting at the ministry of John the Baptist, our patron saint who prepares the way of the Lord.

On that mountain Jesus is central, flanked by Moses and Elijah, and he is the light through which the Old Covenant of Law and Prophets is to be seen.

It’s little wonder that Peter wants to capture and hold on to this glory.

In words, later attributed to him, Peter describes how he saw this uncreated, divine light, and heard those words, as an eyewitness of Christ’s majesty. And he wants us to glimpse what he saw. He exhorts us, ‘You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart’ (2 Peter 1.19b).

St John reflected on this glory in the life of Christ: ‘The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (John 1.17). It is in Jesus Christ that we see the fullness of God’s glory: ‘And the Word was made flesh and we have seen his glory, glory as of a father’s only Son, full of grace and truth’ (John 1.14)

How do we connect with this glory?

The way is through Jesus Christ. The journey of glory is not just about mountain top revelations, but a way that takes us through the dark valleys and the sunlit peaks of human experience.

We see this when Jesus takes Peter and James and John somewhere else. This time it is to a dark place and not up a mountain. He takes them down, into the Valley in Jerusalem, between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives: to Gethsemane.

It’s as if to say, if you want to see the glory you have to go into the darkness too. From Gethsemane Jesus begins his walk to the Cross, lifted up on the hill, the mount of Calvary. He had already revealed to the disciples, and to us, that it is when he is lifted up on the cross that his glory will be fully seen. (John 12.20-26). And there he is not flanked by great figures of Israel’s story but by two convicted criminals; his glory is revealed even there.

Lent is a journey into glory, in its darkness and acknowledgement of our sinfulness. As we hear on Ash Wednesday, as the sign of the cross is marked on our heads in ash, ‘Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return; turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’.

We begin that journey this Wednesday. The self-denial of Lent, the forty days and forty nights, clears our sight to see the glory of Easter.

In Lent we do not sing the great opening of the Eucharist, ‘Glory be to God on high’, the glorious word, Alleluia’ falls silent, and yet still we sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee O Lord most high’.

May our journey together this Lent, be a journey into life and hope; a journey into glory.

Ash Wednesday: Taking Hold of Life

A sermon first preached at Croydon Minster on Ash Wednesday 6th March 2019.

‘Take hold of the life that really is life’ (1 Timothy 6.19)

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The season of Lent is, at its heart, a journey into Easter.

And that means it is a journey into

the mystery of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection:

what is known as the Paschal Mystery.

And that takes us to the very heart of the mystery of faith:

            Christ has died,

            Christ is risen,

            Christ will come again.

The Paschal mystery shapes

            and defines

who we are as Christians.

Created out of dust,

like all humanity,

- of whom Adam is the representative figure -

God’s life, has been breathed

into our nostrils.

This breath,

            in Hebrew nephesh,

is the life breath that animates us

and gives us life

in Adam.

It is the Holy Spirit

breathed into us in the sacraments

            – baptism, Eucharist, confirmation and penance among them –

that gives us life in the New Adam,

Jesus Christ.

As St Paul says,

in a verse of the first letter to the Corinthians,

a verse we know as an ‘Easter Anthem’,

‘In Adam all die: even so in Christ shall all be made alive’ 1 Corinthians 15.22

‘Dust you are and to dust you shall return’.

            Those are words said in the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday,

            as the sign of the cross in ash is made on our foreheads.

‘Dust you are and to dust you shall return’.

We are not left in dust and ashes

– ‘turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’ –

but rather in the dust and ashes

of human existence and awareness of mortality,

God’s breath gives life,

as he breathed over the Valley of Bones

            in Ezekiel’s vision

and animated them,

and brought them to life.

We are not left in dust and ashes,

            but given a new and glorious body

            within Christ’s body, the Church.

This is a journey, then, that confronts mortality,

            and faces it down.

Lent takes us from dust and ashes to new life in Christ.

This Lent here at this church we will spend some time in the company of the prophet Jonah.

Jonah is a deeply human character,

and the book of Jonah is a short and whimsical read of his ups and downs.

We might recognise parts,

of ourselves in Jonah.

Jonah is called by, but runs away

            from God.

In that flight

            Jonah is caught up in the storms

                        of life.

Jonah knows what life is like at rock bottom:

            ‘the waters closed in over me;

the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped around my head’. (Jonah 2.5)

But Jonah knows redemption,

            scooped up by the great fish,

            in whose belly he was for three days.

Even after that miracle,

            he experiences bewilderment and anger

            when his own expectations

            and machinations of missionary zeal

            go awry.

In the end he finds shelter from God,

            a bush,

which then withers away

and Jonah is again angry

with God.

There is no neat resolution to Jonah’s story,

            and neither is there to ours.

Yet in the Gospels

Jesus speaks

            of the ‘sign of Jonah’ (Matthew 12.39; 16.4; Luke 11.29-30).

It is that sign that we have an opportunity to explore this Lent.

At risk of giving spoilers… this sign of Jonah

is about the call to repentance and amendment of life;

this sign is about hearing God’s call and claim on our lives;

this sign is about understanding mission

            to be God’s task

            in which we participate

not manufactured by ourselves;

this sign is about knowing how to navigate the depths of our experience;

this sign is about knowing our utter dependence

            on the mercy and grace of God.

St Paul says:

            ‘take hold of the life that really is life’ (1 Timothy 6.19).

The sign of Jonah

points us to God’s capacity

            in Christ

to scoop us up, die with him and be raised with him

in the waters of baptism and new life

so that we can

‘take hold of the life that really is life’

The sign of Jonah points us to a challenge.

The challenge is this

that we do not go through

and then end Lent

in dust and ashes,

like Jonah, grumpy and resentful,

but prepared, expectant and alert

to the purposes of God

            in our lives and in our world.

The Church,

in her great wisdom,

discerns that through

‘self-examination and repentance;

by prayer, fasting and self-denial;

and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word’

(Common Worship: Times and Seasons, The Liturgy of Ash Wednesday)

we can rise to this challenge

and come to celebrate Eastertide

by ‘taking hold of the life that really is life’

            in Christ:

our incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Lord,

to whom be all honour, glory, and power

to the ages of ages.

Amen.

Imposters yet true - Seeking my true self in Lent

A sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral on Ash Wednesday. Readings 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10 and John 8.1-11.

‘We are treated as imposters, and yet are true’ (2 Corinthians 6.8)

+ In nomine Patris…

I have recently been reading a fascinating book about narcissism.[1] In it the psychologist authors describe the features of narcissism in individuals, including Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and narcissism in society.

The term ‘narcissism’ derives from the Greek mythical figure Narcissus who set out, a bit like us all, looking for someone to love. The beautiful nymph Echo fell in love with him and repeated his every word, but he rejected her and she faded away. Narcissus kept on looking for love and companionship, and one day, as he gazed into a pool, he saw the face that he would fall in love with: his own! He was so engrossed in his own beauty that he was stuck by the pool, lost the will to live and died.

In contemporary terms a narcissist is someone who thinks that they are superior to everyone else -  ability, status, good looks, intelligence and creativity - even if they’re actually not. Narcissism is corrosive for individuals.

It’s also bad for society. The book I’ve been reading says is that through narcissism we become phony:

We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy ($11 trillion of government debt)… and phony friends (with the social networking explosion).[2]

Clearly not everyone is a narcissist and whilst there are damaging features of society it’s not thoroughly rotten. But to sketch out the extreme helps us to situate our own self-regard, or lack of, in the context of Ash Wednesday and this beautiful season of Lent.

Lent takes us back to a pool, but not one where we gaze longingly upon our own image but upon the face of Jesus Christ. In the baptismal pool Jesus calls to us lovingly: he is the one who loves us before we even seek the love that only he can give. His love draws us into the love of the eternal Trinity. Lent is a time when his call to us and claim upon our love is renewed and heard afresh, lest he becomes to us like Echo was to Narcissus.

That call to Christ’s love on Ash Wednesday, and in Lent, is back to that first love - in its joy-filled disciplines - where we attend to body, mind and spirit: for our body, in disciplines around self-denial and fasting; for our minds, being stretched through reading and pondering; for our spirits, through re-engaging in our life of prayer.

Lent, which begins today, is the time of the Church year that invites us away from our phony selves and takes us back to who we truly are. We construct much of our own identities and want others, and ourselves, to believe it. The greatest danger is when we ourselves believe the myths about ourselves.

It’s not just about being narcissists and believing ourselves to be all-important, invincible and at the centre. All too often we believe the negative narrative of ourselves, summed up in phrases like, ‘I’m not really very good at this’ or we feel ourselves to be a fraud, on the brink of being exposed as useless, inadequate or unlovable. As Bernard of Clairvaux warned, in the 12^th century, ‘Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not involve endless self-preoccupation. You dwell also on the glad remembrance of the loving kindness of God’.

Ash Wednesday holds before us the phoniness of our lives – the over-exalted and over-negative bits -and places upon us, literally, and ‘in your face’ the reality of where we come from and who we are. It encourages us to dwell on the ‘glad remembrance of the loving kindness of God’

As the cross is marked in ash on your head you hear these words, ‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’. In the face of all we construct about ourselves and our identity - unrealistically good or unrealistically bad - we are reminded of our mortality, that we will die. We are not immortal, but turning away from sin and being faithful to Christ is the starting point and destination of finding ourselves, our loves and passions: Christ loved us first; we can find our assurance and identity in that love, a love that sees beyond self-preoccupation, either in the form of over-inflated egos or self-deprecation, and sees us as we are and as we can be.

This is the Christ who judges without retribution and with mercy. ‘Miserere me, Domine’ - Have mercy on me, O Lord - is not, for us, a desperate plea but, because of Christ, a confident declaration. This is in complete contrast to the crowd that gathered in judgement to stone the woman caught in adultery. They could not bear the threat that she represented to their sensibilities and supposed perfection: something that they could not claim, as became apparent.  They were acting narcissistically and saw no need for mercy. Rather than live with her less-than-perfection they would rather lynch her than forgive her.

In the face of their rampant and violent perfectionism Jesus wrote in the dust of the ground. We are dust, we are less than perfect; but therein lies God’s mercy and capacity, in Christ, to raise us up from the dust, breathe new life into our nostrils and form and re-form us in his image and likeness. Christ writes his love and life into our hearts: destination, Easter.

Is that possible? Can he do it? Surely, we say, I am a phony Christian, I am a phony person, my life a sham, I am an imposter waiting to be found out, just daring to call myself a Christian.

As sons and daughters of God we might well feel like imposters, and yet, Paul reminds us, we are true. As he says elsewhere this is possible because, ‘it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Galatians 2.20)

If nothing else this Lent, be assured that you are no imposter but as you seek to be faithful, to grow in holiness and to follow Christ you will be more truly yourself and more deeply human than the judgements, distortions and phoniness of the world can conceive.

That cross of ash marks you out as more yourself and not less; that you are someone who gazes into the face of Jesus Christ and knows that you are precious, valued and forgiven beyond measure simply because you are.

God loves you.

© Andrew Bishop 2016

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[1] Jean M. Twenge & W. Keith Campbell The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, (New York: Simon & Schuster).

[2] Twenge & Campbell, 4 .