Days of Ashes and Squalls

Here's the liturgy from the 6:30 service at my church this morning.  I've copied it verbatim.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent -- a time of renewal and coming back to God. It comes as an intrusion as we face the reality that we are going to die.  "Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shalll return."  These words echo the

Perhaps I am an adequate shiphand, but I know I am a terrible captain

service at the grave -- "dust to dust."  This forceful reminder of our frail, short lives can seem offensive and rightly so.  In them we publicly state our sinfulness and human frailty.  It is a time of dying to ourselves and being crucified with Christ.  And as surely as we have died with Him, so we will be raised with Him to the glory of God.

Psalm 51 vv. 1-12.

For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

 ¹ Have mercy on me, O God, 

       according to your unfailing love; 
       according to your great compassion 
       blot out my transgressions.

 ² Wash away all my iniquity 
       and cleanse me from my sin.

 ³ For I know my transgressions, 
       and my sin is always before me.

 ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned 
       and done what is evil in your sight, 
       so that you are proved right when you speak 
       and justified when you judge.

 ⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth, 
       sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

 ⁶ Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
       you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

 ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; 
       wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

 ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; 
       let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

 ⁹ Hide your face from my sins 
       and blot out all my iniquity.

 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, 
       and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

 ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence 
       or take your Holy Spirit from me.

 ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation 
       and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Confession and Forgiveness

Leader: In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

ALL: Amen

L: Most merciful and holy Father:

A: We confess to You and to one another, and to the w hole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by out own fault, in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

L: We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength.  We have not lovedo ur neighbors as ourselves.  We have not forvien others, as we have been forgiven.

A: Have mercy on us, Lord.

L: We have been deaf to Your call to serve as Christ served us.  We have not been true to the mind of Christ.  We have grieved Your Holy Spirit.

A: Have mercy on us, Lord.

L: We confess to You, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness.  The pride, the hypocrisy, and the impatience in our lives.

A: We confess to You, Lord.

L: Our self-indulgent appetites and ways and exploitation of other people.

A: We confess to You, Lord.

L: Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves.

A: We confess to You, Lord.

L: Our intemperate love of worldy goods and conforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work.

A: We confess to You, Lord.

L: Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us.

A: We confess to You, Lord.

L: Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done.  For our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.

A: Accept our repentance, Lord.

L: For our waste and pollution of Your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.

A: Accept our repentance, Lord.

L: Restore us, good Lord, and let Your anger depart from us.

A: Hear us, Lord, for your mercy is great. Amen.

In his brief remarks to us, Pastor John related today how we are in age of victimhood.  Everyone is a victim, he said, and people often justify their actions via the faults of others.  He sees it all the time in his frequent work with people suffering from various forms of addiction.  For any change to happen, for any progress to be made, they must first break their denial, and realize that there is a problem, and they are at fault.  It's a message we don't hear enough, and the consequences are just as grave for us, but we can easily excuse them. (In fact, I was just thinking, thank goodness I'm no addict.  There's no serious problem with me.)  How many of our difficulties and travails the bitter fruit of our own mistakes of commission and omission?  The things we do out of greed or malice, or lust, or pride? Or the things we neglect, or avoid, or weasel out of? The things we deny?

This morning before church I read a bit of a photography blog by Pablo Gazpachot.  Here's is what he had to say, and I think it's quite germane:

One of my primary interests in life is lost souls who become found. Not so much in the Amazing Grace, spiritual sense (though that can be a beautiful thing too), but more in the self creation sense. We all pass through valleys of doubt, bewildered by the world, and blown by the wind. I am drawn to people who willfully get lost and experience the brink with no safety net and then slingshot themselves back into a reality that is no longer threatening or uninteresting. These people often find a gusto and a joy that escapes so many of us who cling to the workaday world. They know that reality is both created¹ and experienced and that a command of the former brings rewards in the latter.

No.

I have tried "self-creation."  I'm sure many of you have, as well.  It's a common pursuit.  The problem is that my heart, my will, my desires, are perverted.    Oh, there may be good intentions, noble desires, and the like, but within moments they are imbued with a self-righteousness and pride that soon degrades into envy and jealousy.  And those are the moments I pursue selfless ends with selfish motives.  At other times I am purely carnal.

Mr. Gazpachot says I can slingshot myself into the destination of my choosing, and escape the brokeness around me.  But he misses the crucial detail that the brokeness is within me as well.  As I sail the seas of life, he asks that I chart my own course, but what destination should I choose?  My fancies shift with the wind.  Perhaps I am an adequate shiphand, but I know I am a terrible captain, not escaping storms, but travelling right into the tempest.  

Perhaps this heavy-handed emphasis on brokenness and failure seems bleak--some may even say hopeless---but such is to corrupt confession and ignore both its essence and its end.  First, we must realize that it is not about us.  This is the essential center of confession--not only that we are wrong, that we are flawed, that we are broken, but that our brokenness is utter, that it is not in our control, that we cannot fix it.  We must diminish.  "I'm sorry and I'll try harder next time," is not repentance: correction cannot be of our own doing.  We must be humiliated, desperate.² 

And yet!

Desperation is not despair, and humiliation is never shame!  Although the essence of confession is our utter brokeness, its end is the complete and utter grace of God--that His love is absolutely true, and absolutely free.  Confession, ultimately, is not about us, but about Him and Christ's love for us that crosses every barrier, including those we have built within ourselves.  In His love and mercy, there is hope.  There is joy.  That where we have failed, He can prevail.  A confession that does not culminate in hope is no confession at all, but a penitent man in the grip of God's grace is a saint.

I'll leave you with a hymn, continuing in the sea-faring theme, written by Charles Gabriel in the earl 1900's, titled "Sail On!":

Upon a wide and stormy sea,

Thou’rt sailing to eternity,

And thy great Admiral orders thee:

“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on!”

 

Refrain

 

Sail on! Sail on!

The storms will soon be past,

The darkness will not always last;

Sail on! Sail on!

God lives and He commands:

“Sail on! Sail on!”

 

Art far from shore, and weary worn,

The sky o’ercast, thy canvas torn?

Hark ye! a voice to thee is borne:

“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on!”

 

Refrain

 

Do comrades tremble and refuse

To further dare the taunting hues?

No other course is thine to choose,

“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on!”

 

Refrain

 

Do snarling waves thy craft assail?

Art pow’rless, drifting with the gale?

Take heart! God’s Word shall never fail.

“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on!”

 

Refrain

1.  I have a hard enough time with individualized ethics.  I shudder to think what I would do with all of reality at my beck and call.

2.  I cannot stress this enough: humiliation and shame are completely and utterly different!  Humiliation carries with it the denotation of ostracism and rejection, but I use it the strictest sense of imparting one with humility.  Ostracism and rejection belong to the cruel domain of shame.  They are Satan's cruel pleasures, but not God's.  God may convict us of sin, that is, he may show us our errors, but it is only that we might return to living in a  way that does not harm us or others.  He convicts that we might return to Him.  It is one of the most bitter of lies to confuse the two, and I know what it is like to walk with condemnation.  If this is the case with you, I must must must exclaim, no, no, a thousand times, No! God does not condemn you.  Read Romans 8:36-39.  Take heart.  Draw courage.