Ash Wednesday Thresholds

Mark 15:33-39

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land - until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’

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This Lenten season, some of you have heard, we’re inviting each other to “do Lent” a little differently, by learning about and engaging some ancient, Celtic Christian practices as part of our journey to Good Friday and to Easter’s empty tomb – which is what these Lenten days are all about. All of this was inspired by a conversation I had with Pastor Teri Ditslear, from Roots of Life, our friends up in Noblesville, when she and I got together to brainstorm about ways we might walk this Lenten walk in a new way this time around.

In a nutshell, my hope and intention are that we will learn something new about these ancient traditions and disciplines and that we’ll find ways to engage some timeless faith practices in active, hands-on kinds of ways from one week to the next so that this Lenten season of faith, sacrifice, redemption, hope – and more – will be front and center for our hearts and minds in a deliberate, meaningful way.

All of it is inspired by a book called The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred, which you won’t need to have in order to play along, but which some of you might want to have if you’d like to go a little deeper with all of this. The book also teaches about 12 of these practices, all of which we can’t cover in our handful of midweek services. If that’s the case, sign up for a book on the table with the devotionals out there, in the entry, and we should have a book for you by Sunday morning, thanks to the ancient Celtic discipline known as Amazon Prime. They cost $15.00 each.

Okay, enough with the pre-amble. The first Celtic practice that made me think about Ash Wednesday and all that brings us here this evening is what is called “The Practice of Thresholds.”

According to Christine Valters Paintner, the author of the book, thresholds were important to the ancient Irish monks who begat these practices we’ll learn about in the weeks to come. Thresholds are just what you think, I believe. They are the point of crossing over from one place to the next; from one room to the next; from one space to another. A threshold is the space between one time and another, a place of transition. “The Celts describe thresholds as ‘thin times or places’ where heaven and earth are closer together and the veil between worlds is thin.”

In other words, a threshold can be tangible and worldly – like a turnstile at the train station, or the bank of glass doors at your school or office; like the double doors to our sanctuary, or the door from your garage to the kitchen or laundry room of your house.

A threshold can also be an intangible, spiritual thing – like the moment between dusk and nightfall, or dawn and daylight; like a move from illness to healing, or health to illness; like the change of seasons. A threshold can be the transition from one phase of life to another – graduation, marriage, divorce, retirement. Or a threshold might be that thin, mysterious, holy moment between life and death – living and dying – which is where these ashes call our attention to be this evening.

So the value in “the practice of thresholds” – as the ancient, Christian Celts understood it – was to be aware of just how thin these times and places and seasons of transition in our lives can be. And to live differently because of that thinness.

I read an article in The Christian Century magazine last year about a smart phone app that changed a man’s life. I’m not talking about Facebook or Twitter; SnapChat, What’s App, or Words with Friends. This app is called “We Croak.” It’s icon looks like this, though it has nothing to do with frogs.

The app does daily – 5 times a day, actually – what these ashes mean to do for us, once every year, at the beginning of Lent. The app notifies you five times every day, that you are going to die – nothing more and nothing less. From what I can tell, the app has evolved since I first heard about it. Whereas the notifications used to say, simply and repeatedly, 5 times a day, “Don’t forget, you’re going to die,” nowadays, you are invited to open the app when the notification hits your phone for a short, sweet quotation about death from a poet, philosopher, theologian, or other notable thinker.

The inspiration for the app is a Bhutanese folk saying that suggests, in order for a person to be happy, one must contemplate death five times daily. So, these are just some of kinds of reminders that have hit my phone since I downloaded the app a month or so ago:

“Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” (W.H. Auden)

“Despite the sound’s alarming roughness, it’s unlikely that the death rattle is painful.” (Sara Manning Peskin, M.D.)

“Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” (Doris Lessing)

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” (Alice Walker)

And, just to bring us back to this notion of “thresholds,”:

“How fine is the mesh of death. You can almost see through it.” (Jane Hirshfield)

This 21st Century app, these ashes on our foreheads, and now, I hope, this ancient practice of thresholds at the beginning of another Lenten journey all serve the same purpose if we choose to embrace them:

To remind us of just how thin the veil is between life and death; how easily crossed the threshold; how swift and surprising, sometimes, it comes, no matter how sure and certain for each of us – we know – it will one day be.

“Don’t forget, you’re going to die.”

“Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

As followers of the way. As believers in Jesus. As disciples of Christ, we are invited to remember, to not forget the truth of our impending death, because we need not fear the threshold between this life and the next – for ourselves or for those we love.

Because of Jesus, the curtain has been torn in two; the veil has been lifted; the threshold between this life and the next is a thin one; the kingdom of God has broken into our midst so that light and life shine into the darkness and death that pretend to threaten us on this side of the grave.

In Jesus, the love and grace and mercy of God conquers this death, wipes away these ashes, bridges that gap, crosses over the threshold that pretends to mark a distance between sin and forgiveness; judgement and redemption; anger and love; despair and hope; death and new life.

So, our sacred Celtic practice for the week to come, if you choose to play along, is to take notice of the worldly, earthly thresholds in your daily life – work, home, school, church, your neighborhood as you walk, the city limits or the county line as you drive, whatever. And to take notice of the spiritual, less tangible thresholds of your daily life, too – dawn and daylight; dusk and darkness; sleep and wakefulness; work and rest, whatever.

Download the “WeCroak App” if you dare – the author of that article I mentioned suggests there’s something as charming as there is challenging about all of that. Or pick up one of the “threshold stones” as the ancient Celts called them, that I’ve left on the table out front, and leave one or two at the threshold of some place that’s meaningful for you – your home, your office, your school. Let that stone be a reminder for you – and a strange curiosity, I would imagine for anyone who sees it – a reminder of what matters about your life, in that place, on this side of the grave.

And I hope all of this will help us recognize that we are invited to be mindful that we live with one foot in both worlds… in this kingdom and the next… on earth as it is in heaven, if you will. And let us not be afraid of this truth – that we are dust and to dust we will return – and let us rest assured in the promise of God, that nothing – no threshold is deep or wide or strong enough – not even the threshold of death – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen

Prophets and Powdered-Butt Syndrome

Luke 4:21-30

Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

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Have you ever heard of something called “Powdered Butt Syndrome?” I know some of you have because you’ve been part of Dave Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University” class, which is where I first heard about it.

According to Dave Ramsey “Powdered Butt Syndrome” is an affliction that prevents someone – a parent or grandparent, especially – from accepting advice or learning a new thing from someone who’s butt they’ve once powdered, such as a child or grandchild.

Dave Ramsey refers to “Powdered Butt Syndrome” when he warns people against being too bold in suggesting their elders make changes to their financial plans, specifically where things like nursing home or extended care facility insurance are concerned. Presumably, parents and grandparents don’t want to be told – by the children or grandchildren who’s diapers they’ve changed and whose butts they’ve powdered – about what to do with their money, no matter how correct they might be or how good that advice is.

Well, I’m not sure Powdered Butt Syndrome (PBS) is limited to parents and their children, or grandparents and their grandchildren. And I’m not sure that it’s only about financial advice or nursing home insurance, either. It’s hard for most of us to take advice or to learn from others, sometimes, who we are supposed to know more or better than, isn’t it?

So I couldn’t help but wonder if Powdered Butt Syndrome didn’t have a little bit to do with what was going on with Jesus in this morning’s Gospel story.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”, the townspeople ask that day in the synagogue. Maybe his old babysitter was in the crowd. Maybe an old neighbor was there or Joseph’s old carpentry mentor. Maybe that older boy who picked on Jesus when they were kids was in the room. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” “The carpenter’s kid?”

And at first they’re impressed. Amazed – all of them – by the gracious words Jesus has spoken: “good news for the poor, release for the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor,” remember? All good stuff.  All holy things. Surprising, inspiring words coming from the local boy, made good, if all the reports about what he’d been up to were true.

But then he gets a little big for his britches, that carpenter’s kid. Then he gets a little rich for his robe or cocky for his cassock or too tall for his tunic, however it was back in First Century Palestine. Because he kicks it all up a notch, doesn’t he?

Jesus tells his hometown friends, family and neighbors that, while they may want to see and hear some of the great things he’d been up to in the other places he’d been, that that’s not what he came home to do. See, that’s what that talk about Elijah and Elisha is all about.

In the days of Elijah, there were plenty of widows the great prophet woulda, coulda, shoulda helped – right there in the homeland; from among his own kind – but instead, Jesus reminds them, Elijah was sent out to some widow from Zarapheth in Sidon. And the same thing happened with Elisha, another great prophet. There were plenty of lepers who could have used some healing from among the chosen ones of Israel. But for some reason, Elisha was sent to cleanse a leper named Naaman, out in the foreign territory of Syria.

So not only was Jesus – the hometown son of a carpenter – putting himself in league with the likes of some of the greatest prophets in all of Israel’s history, he was also neglecting, if not refusing, to share with his own people the kind of grace and good fortune they were hoping he’d been saving up, just for them. And on top of that, he had already and apparently planned, again, to share that kind of grace and good fortune with other people, in other places; with the outcast and the enemy, even – just like those prophets before him had done.

So, it seems like the symptoms of Powdered Butt Syndrome are intensified the harder the teaching and the more bitter the pill is for the sufferer to swallow.

In Jesus’ case – that day in the synagogue of his own hometown – there was an outbreak of Powdered Butt Syndrome that almost got him killed. All those people, once so enamored by his gracious, inspiring words, suddenly ran him out of town and nearly off the side of a cliff, once he started telling them things they didn’t want to hear – no matter how true it was.

And I can’t help but wonder what the symptoms of Powdered Butt Syndrome look like for you and me. What kind of news is hard for us to swallow? What kind of grace is difficult to share? What kind of good news is so good, so generous, so much like the Kingdom of God we sing and pray and worship around in church on Sunday morning, but don’t have the faith or courage or willingness to share out there in the world as we know it?

What kind of Gospel is so much Gospel… so much Truth… so much grace… requires so much humility and sacrifice and change of perspective on our part… that we would sooner shoot the messenger – or hurl him off a cliff – or hang him on a cross, as it were – than follow in his footsteps, than live like he lived, than do what he asks us to do?

I believe it happens whenever we feel like we’re not getting our due… not getting what belongs to us… not getting what we deserve. I believe it happens too, when we feel like someone else might be getting something they don’t deserve; that doesn’t belong to them; something they may not have earned. 

Whenever someone questions the work we do in Haiti – suggesting that there are plenty of hurting, hungry, homeless people right here in our backyard – I think about how Elijah left home and went to that widow in Zarapheth in Sidon.

Whenever I hear pride and nationalism and selfishness and fear disguised as patriotism, connected with the suggestion that “we” or “our own” are more important or more deserving or more of a priority than others – I’m reminded about how Elisha cared for Naaman, the Syrian – and about how God doesn’t play the same kind of politics we are tempted toward.

And the reason I’m as emboldened as I am nervous about saying some of this to some of you, is because I don’t know any other way to understand this Scripture, or these words from Jesus, or these examples of our ancestors in the faith.

But I’m emboldened, too, because there is good, gospel news, here. And that is that we don’t have to pick and choose. I don’t believe any of this is so black and white or cut and dried or all or nothing. I’m under the impression that there is enough of God’s grace and love and mercy and promise to go around. I’m under the impression that there are enough resources and opportunities to prove it, too, and that we are called to find out how to share them.

I think the world operates, too much of the time – like the hometown crowd in Nazareth that day – from a perspective of scarcity and mis-guided priorities. Like if Jesus – or Elijah or Elisha, for that matter – were to share God’s blessings and resources elsewhere that there wouldn’t be enough for them to enjoy.

But we worship a God of abundant faith, hope, and love, do we not?

We worship a God of love that is patient and kind; not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude – and who asks us to do and to be the same. We worship a God of love who does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, but rejoices in the truth – and who asks us to do the same. We worship a God of loving abundance who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things – and who invites us to love one another – and our enemies – the same way.

The love of our God never ends, we are told, and under the banner of that God, there was and is and there will be enough to go around. And we are always being invited to get on board with that kind of vision for the world. If we choose not to – like the people in Nazareth, way back when – I’m convinced the power of God will pass through the midst of us and go on its way.

But if we humble ourselves, if we sacrifice our pride, if we change our ways, if we open our hearts, if we love the enemy and the outsider and the other, we might just see and celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promises right where we live – today, this Scripture will be fulfilled in our hearing: the captive will be released, the blind will see, the oppressed will go free, and the favor of the Lord’s love and justice and peace and power will be poured out for whoever dares to share and to receive it.

Amen