Good Shepherd New York • Ash Wednesday • 2.17.21

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you've heard the story you know how it goes once upon a garden we were lovers with no clothes [Music] fresh from the soil we were beautiful and true in control of our emotions till we ate the poison fruit and now it's hard to be hard to be hard to be a decent human being wait just a minute you expect me to believe that all business and helpless to find it we should all be satisfied with this magical explanation for why the living die and why it's hard to be hard to be hard to be a decent human being childbirth is painful toiled to grow our food ignorance made us hungry information made us no good every bird in this understood i swung my tassel from the left side of my knowing after graduation there would be no going back and no congratulations from my faithful family some of whom already are fasting to intercede for me and a decent human [Music] being [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening today we begin the season of lent the word land literally means spring it's a time when the earth exits the deadness of winter and enters freshness this is what the season of lent is supposed to produce freshness it's to be a time to flee any coldness of winter in the heart which is a beautiful way of saying a time of repentance in order to sort of zealously pursue a springtime of faith it's it's a sort of pilgrimage into hope its origins had to do with a season of examining the heart and finding ways to make room for god in that space it's in this season that we focus on the fact that we're just human beings that are created and that as creatures we're also mortal hence the ashes and then we we need to turn away from our own mortal way of doing things to god's way of doing things so lent it starts today and through this 40-day journey that brings us through the death of jesus and the resurrection of jesus we're reminded how much we need grace in our lives in order to live a transformed life that reflects god's love and we're called in these next few weeks to renew our commitments and our faith as we continually acknowledge our need of god's transforming presence that happens within us so tonight we invite you into this first day of lent this ash wednesday we pray it will be a holy lead for you a time to turn to the good that's fueled by prayer and some fasting a tad of self-denial and by us committing to hear what the spirit is saying to the church through reading and meditating on god's word this season of lent it's uh it's a wonderful and terrible sort of thing but it's one that's jammed with promise welcome to ash wednesday [Music] [Laughter] from the dust we've come and dust we are and shall return just let it go glory to god glory to god in the hearts glory to god [Music] glory to god [Music] the grave [Music] just glory to god [Music] glory to god glory to god glory to god [Music] be still my sword make me whole lord make me [Music] [Music] me [Music] glory to god glory to god glory to god glory to god we've gathered here tonight on this digital space from many places from the east to the west the north to the south emotionally some of us feel happy others of us live in places of pain or disillusionment still others in places of anger and confusion or in sadness looking for hope irrespective of where we come from tonight we come for one thing only to raise our hearts our voices and our very bodies to god in the hope that by the very act of raising them in lament and in humility and in penitence that we may be touched in our brokenness and transformed by the power of god's love and equipped to pursue paths of justice and peace god knows faith is not easy that we are believing in a being we have yet to see the good news is faith isn't just a human thing it isn't just our responsibility we're called to simply open up to a god who is pursuing us and believes in us even when we find it hard to pursue and believe in god faith is really more like a love affair than a performance and like love it's chock full of mystery and surprise but also disappointment faith is is but it's also amazing over the next few weeks come come to god and watch what god will do [Music] when i think of god's great love i think of noah's time when love was not enough and man was forced to die this god he sent the flood to kill the race despised the children swept away i hear a mother's cry [Music] mercy lord have mercy mercy on [Music] searching for you would you save us grant us peace oh distant god above what did you make us blind with eyes it cannot see we seek but do not find and if you are so near why are you standing by [Music] when peace has been long lost please hear your children cry [Music] mercy [Music] every soul is searching for you would you save us grant us [Music] peace psalm 51 verses 1 through 17. have mercy on me o god according to your steadfast love according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for i know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you you alone have i sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment indeed i was born guilty a sinner when my mother conceived me you desire truth and the inward being therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart purge me with hyssop and i shall be clean wash me and i shall be whiter than snow let me hear joy and gladness let the bones that you have crushed rejoice hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities create in me a clean heart o god and put a new and right spirit within me do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit then i will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you deliver me from bloodshed o god o god of my salvation and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance o lord open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise for you have no delight in sacrifice if i were to give a burnt offering you would not be pleased the sacrifice acceptable to god is a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart oh god you will not despise [Music] holy mother of god pray for us pray for us holy mother of god pray for us pray for us [Music] [Music] [Music] most merciful god forgive us forgive more us merciful god for givers for all the things for all the things [Music] foreign son of [Music] oh god sun of god [Music] i'm [Music] today begins the season of lent see each season of the church here focuses on a specific part of jesus story the season's mood themes and stories they ebb and flow from feasting to fasting from fullness to loss from joy to sorrow now we've just completed a season of joy and celebration with christmas tide and epiphany but today we enter the more somber season of lent where we put ourselves in jesus shoes so to speak it's a season where we take up the posture of fasting and simplicity which we find in jesus when he enters the desert and resists temptation for 40 days it's a season where we reflect upon his journey to jerusalem where we reflect upon the disciples confusion around his purpose where we reflect upon the resistance that he meets in that holy city and ultimately his death on the cross now lent is admittedly the toughest and darkest season of the church year but what do we do when life itself has become a kind of lent and each of us in our own way have been forced to fast from a sense of normalcy for almost an entire year this is where it's important for us to remember that lent isn't about suffering for suffering's sake it's not about fasting for fasting's sake right we aren't simply during lent seeing just how bad we can make ourselves feel in a given season no lent is a season rather to embrace simplicity and detachment for one single purpose the purpose is to clear the way for the love of god to be our center and our guide right to put it a different way that purpose is to declutter our lives so that we can reconnect and perhaps feel ourselves turn in deeper ways to the loving presence and guidance of god our creator our source of being it's this turning away from ego and empire this repentance if you will it's a turning toward love the love of god and that's the turn that's at the heart of the season but this turn takes different shapes depending on your history and depending on your social location in the great words of john the baptizer who is also the great prophet of lent he called on everyone to repent and we have this powerful vision from him a vision of mountains being leveled and valleys being raised now whether you need to raise a valley or level a mountain in your own soul that's the discernment that we need to make lent holy this year st paul at one point put it this way he said we ought to focus on the foundation of our lives and lent is a season to focus on what foundation we are building upon for some the foundation is there but it's been added to covered up cluttered for some the foundation itself has begun to erode paul gives us an image there of a purifying fire sometimes that fire is chosen as in lent sometimes it's thrust upon us as in the pandemic but in any case the fires of our lives they reveal something they reveal whether we stand on a lasting foundation and whether we have built what we have built is lasting and meaningful for some lent is about burning it down right our egos are inflated we're at the top where we're trending toward the top or center of our cultural empires and i think john the baptist would invite us who are maybe at the top to consent to love which burns away every vestige of discrimination and domination and lies for some lent is about building it up building up a voice and a life that has been hushed or has been taught to believe that it doesn't matter right building one's sense of dignity perhaps in the midst of poverty or in the sense or in the midst of social shame these are different shapes that our turning can take jesus we're taught was tempted in every direction in the desert he's tempted to the highest sense of ego inflation and also the seed of doubt is planted at his core as to whether the foundation of god's love is actually enough now my good friend and theologian dr chris green who preached a sermon for our church last week talks about two distinct temptations in the human experience on the one hand we're tempted to a false light which he defines as a false sense of order now the danger here is where we wind up destroying ourselves and others in the name of order now whether wherever there is injustice wherever there's oppression it's because somebody with power decided to overreach or over protect and all of that in the name of order which comes from security and stability they attach to a good in such a way that that good becomes bad news for someone else this is the stuff of empires empires that promise security but they dominate and they destroy so much of the good that they say they're trying to protect that's the temptation of the false light now there's another kind of temptation that he talks about and this is a temptation toward a false darkness which he defines as a false sense of freedom this temptation is of course similar to the other in that we wind up destroying ourselves or others in the name of freedom wherever there is addiction or over indulgence wherever there's resistance to good and healthy limits or boundaries it's because someone who feels a lack of agency right a lack of power they decide to grab whatever power or agency they can find and they don't let it go despite the chaos that it creates for others right this is the stuff of revolutions it's the that which seeks to throw off limits and constraints of maybe perceived corrupt structures or systems in order to burn it down but what new order will emerge on the other side of that burning and how will it avoid repeating the original problem each of them these temptations are appealing in different ways and we probably find ourselves tilting in one direction or the other this is what ego and the false self do they try to protect our sense of order or freedom the only way they know how we wind up galvanizing into political left or political right we gravitate toward institution or revolution but lent has us reflect on how our impulse either to freedom or order is destroying something that god loves i invite you today to do lent in the name of love you see what both temptations are missing is love the love which risks chaos and risks insecurity for the good of another the love which surrenders to limits and boundaries for the good of another all of this in the name of love and so during lent we fast in the name of love we give in the name of love we serve in the name of love we pray in the name of love that's what our gospel reading is all about jesus is giving us instruction about our fasting and our praying and our giving to make sure it is rooted in love the question before us is what shape will our repentance take leveling the mountain raising the valley will it look like crucifixion or resurrection are we willing to be open to god's loving voice and guidance and whisper the direction to us my friend ashley raised the issue of direction for me when i began an initiation process into adulthood with my son jack the lesson of the first year was a common one in male initiation across cultures and it's this life is hard each year of course has a series of difficult but important lessons to learn and has ashley surveyed the lessons that are difficult lessons she pointed out that as the mother of a black son that the direction of male initiation might look different for them for those who have grown up being told that their life doesn't matter or who know from day one that life is hard and that it's not fair maybe they have internalized these lessons already and maybe they are ready to embrace the corresponding part of that paradox that life is good or that they're important etc i want us to consider during lent that some of us may need to be fasting from talking some of us need to fast from leading from filling up the space of the rooms that we occupy but some of us need to fast from silence some of us need to fast from following some need to embrace one side of a paradox that you're not as important or as unique as you think you are some need to embrace the other side that you're more essential and worthy and irreplaceable than you dared to dream god's guidance and god's discernment is what makes lent holy as to which path you'll take maybe lent looks like the way of the cross toward those you have power over maybe lent looks like the way of resurrection in your places of power powerlessness or your places of weakness but we should always remember that life and emotion are experienced in parts right life is complex we're rarely one or the other entirely my therapist friends remind me that it's good to say you know part of me feels this way and part of me feels that way there are parts of our lives that may be in tension with one another i'm rarely entirely one or the other so during lent maybe part of you needs to be leveled and part of you needs to be raised only god and our community who know us well can help us understand and discern the shape andy crouch says that our true self the self that's loved by god and created by god it has two ingredients vulnerability and authority but he says the human experience often tilts in one direction or the other and which way you tilt determines which land you live within or perhaps is determined by which land you live within and he talks about these two lands symbolically the land of plenty and the land of poverty maybe this lent we can learn to embrace one or the other right maybe this can be our form of repentance some of you are on the margins and your lenten journey can be going toward the center right toward that place of authority which makes humans humans you're joined and those of you who are at the center who maybe already experience a good deal of power maybe your journeys to the margins and that experience of vulnerability but god needs to give us the discernment needed to know what to fast from in the name of love what to resist or to shake off in the name of love and how we can offer our lives in generosity for our world what part of you needs to turn during this lent needs to rise or needs to fall may god help us during the season of 40 days of fasting of repentance and of prayer to clear the way for the love of god to bring the justice that john the baptizer talked about the mountains leveled and the valleys raised amen and now is the time for the imposition of ashes this is a moment for us to receive on our foreheads a gesture and a sign of what's happening within our hearts as we find ourselves moving away from selfishness as away from ego away from our empires and toward the love of god and so would you join us in the imposition of ashes we've already encouraged you to be prepared for this moment to have ashes on hand whether it's from palo santo or it's from incense or perhaps even a recently burned candle we simply invite you at this time to take the ashes and impose them on one another's foreheads or if you're by yourself to impose it on your own forehead and simply say these words will have them on the screen remember you are from dust and to dust you shall return remember you are from dust and to dust you shall return remember you are from dust and to dust you shall return [Music] amen [Music] from the dust we came to the dust we shall return from the dust we came [Music] to the dust we shall return [Music] we are [Music] um [Music] um [Music] from the dust we came to the dust we shall return from the dust we came [Music] to the dust we shower itself got it lasting [Music] seeds in the morning and by the night [Music] eyes [Music] um have mercy on [Music] oh lord have mercy oh lord have [Music] mercy receive now this benediction created from dust held together by god's extravagant love we turn away from sin and leave today embracing god's love go in peace [Music] you

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Length: 40min 7sec (2407 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021