Readings: “There is a profound logic in the sequence of Holy days and seasons. They lead us  somewhere that is difficult to understand intellectually.  Rituals are meant for something surprising, for which we are called to be in a state of prayer, otherwise it passes us by.  What is prayer? It is being vulnerable, being open, rather than enthusiastic or rejecting.  And then these rituals, these seasons, have such force that they may hit you like a locomotive. That is the whole aim: to become open.” ~ Jacob Needleman

 

 “What are you doing there, soul?” I asked. ~ Joy Harjo

 

Sermon:      As you know, the liturgical season of Lent began this past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.  It continues for forty days plus six Sundays, ending on Easter Sunday.  Unlike Christmas, which is always on December 25, Easter does not occur on same date every year. Why?

Because all four Gospels report that Jesus died on a Friday and his resurrection was on a Sunday.  They also report that Jesus celebrated the traditional Jewish Passover on Thursday, the night before he died.  However, Passover is part of the lunar based Jewish calendar, and so it does not always occur on a Thursday.  Instead, Passover begins on the full moon evening of the 14^th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, and on any given year, that 14^th day could fall on any one of the seven weekdays.  So how did the early Christian church reconcile Easter occurring on a Sunday while still connecting it to a lunar calendar? They fixed Easter day as a Sunday every year, and let the date of that Sunday float, relating it to the Spring Equinox and the cycle of the full moon. This year, the Spring Equinox is on Thursday, March 18 – the first full moon after the Spring Equinox is April 8 – and the first Sunday after the full moon is April 12, which is Easter Sunday.

I grant you that this information may seem more suited to a liturgical trivia game than a Sunday morning service at UCG.  However, I can’t resist sharing with you that, a few years ago when I attended Jimmy Carter’s Sunday morning Bible class in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy’s first question to the class was: “So when is Easter?”  My hand shot right up. Easter, I said, is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring Equinox.  Jimmy seemed a bit surprised to get an answer so quickly, but he was obviously pleased that the answer came from a woman who is also a minister.  So let’s repeat that together in case Jimmy Carter, or anyone else, asks you “When is Easter?, you can answer: “The first Sunday – after the first full moon – after the Spring Equinox!”

Back to Lent: It was not until the second century that we find the first reference about a spiritual observance of 40 hours of fasting and reflection just before Easter.  By the fourth century, there is reference to 40 days of fasting, a common practice in Jewish tradition, and also a time length that is parallel to Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness after he was baptized.  Some sources indicate that the 40 days of Lent were a time for sacrifice (ie giving up something) and prayer; other sources specify that Lent was a time of preparation and service for those who wished to join the Christian church.  One theologian says that trying to exactly pin down how various observances and practices emerged around Lent becomes a sort of choose your own adventure.

I first experienced Lent when I was 13 years old, and my parents transferred from a Methodist to a Lutheran church. My new Lutheran church took Lent seriously. Our youth group was encouraged to identify something to give up for the season.  Most of us gave up dessert, or candy, or gum, or watching certain TV shows.  My high school group met for breakfast and Bible study on Wednesday mornings during Lent from 7 to 8:15am, which in itself meant giving up sleep.  We were urged to attend the three-hour service on Good Friday afternoon and the Saturday evening Easter Vigil from 11pm to 1am.  The season became imprinted on my adolescent spiritual DNA.

When Larry was in seminary, I joined the United Church of Christ, and I realized not all churches observed Lent in similar ways. Simply put, the Catholic, Episcopalian and Lutheran churches most often emphasized giving up something, sacrificing – while other mainline denominations like Methodist, Presbyterian, and the United Church of Christ most often emphasized adding something, being of service and giving to others.

This difference in orientation – inward faith or outward works – was not something new. Listen to scripture passages from two different letters to early Christian churches:

Reader 1 –    From the letter to the Hebrews: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for,                                                 the conviction of things not seen.

Reader 2 –    From the letter in the book of James: Be doers of the word and not                                                                    merely listeners.

Reader 1 –    By faith, we understand that the world was created by God, so that what

is seen is born from what is not seen.

Reader 2-     For the golden rule of scripture is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Reader 1-     By faith, Abraham and Sarah set out from their homeland not knowing

where the journey would take them

Reader 2 –    What good is it for you to say that you have faith, but you do not have                                                      works?

Reader 1 –    By faith, the Hebrew slaves followed Moses and Miriam through the

Sea of Reeds as if it were dry land.

Reader 2 –    Can faith alone save you?

Reader 1 –    By faith, David, Judith, Rebekah, Ezekiel and many others, died

believing and are remembered for their faith, even though

they did not receive everything that was promised.

Reader 2 –    If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you

says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,”

what good will that do if you do not also help them practically?

Reader 1 –    For we hold that a person is justified by faith, apart from works prescribed                                                 by law.

Reader 2 –    Faith without action is barren, so faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Even then, this focus on faith versus good works in the early church was a false dichotomy.  Yet the same argument continued to spring up.  We find it again at the time of the Reformation when the Catholic church had become incredibly legalistic, with practices that had to be followed in order to be accepted by the church and to be saved.   Martin Luther came along, among others, challenging these practices, and said it was faith, not works, that saved you. Ultimately that disagreement helped to pull the Catholic church and the reformers of the Protestant church apart.

At UCG, our congregation not surprisingly includes a mix of folks who grew up experiencing Lent as a time of giving up something, and folks who recognized  Lent as a time of taking on an act of service, and folks who grew up with little or no experience of Lent, folks who still wonder “What’s with Lent?”.  When I arrived here, there was a rather traditional Ash Wednesday service, yet not much in the way of observing the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter. While I had personally let go of that tug between giving up and taking on, I did miss the intentional opportunity in Lent to consider my own faith journey, my life’s journey, my values, the opportunity to ask, “What are you doing there, soul?” – an annual opportunity in many ways similar to the yearly observances of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in Judaism, or the observance of Ramadan in Islam.

The pathway for me has been how to create new practices, new perspectives on the older foundational bones of the Lenten season.  Along the way, I’ve had some “ahas”.  Our spiritual journey is, of course, one of both faith and action.  We are called to an inward journey of reflection, of seeking and being open to the presence of the holy in our lives, however we experience it: through contemplation, meditation, prayer, quiet, nature, journaling, art, music, reading, questioning.  We are also called to the outward journey, reaching out to others and to the world with compassion, with action, with justice and mercy. Both parts of the spiritual journey are important interwoven paths that mutually support one another.  I think of it as walking a two-legged path that I call doing and being, or in shorthand, do-be-do-be-do-be-do-be.

Lent is a time for me to consider where I am on this journey. I’ve learned more than once that too much of the inward journey without the actions of being of service, leaves me feeling hollow and uncomfortable, skirting and overlooking my commitment to reach out, to make a difference in my world. And I have also learned that too much outward journey without the inward journey leaves me tired, burned out, running on fumes, without the inner resources I need to sustain my compassion and my commitments to outreach and to justice.

It is wonderfully synchronistic that no matter when the actual date of Easter falls, the six weeks of Lent always include the Spring Equinox, that day in March when the sun crosses the earth’s equator, making day and night of approximately equal length – that time when daylight and nighttime come into temporary balance.

Two very important words: balance and temporary. Balance between the inward and outward components of my spiritual journey is something I assess during Lent.  Temporary – well, one Sandy-ism that I own, and that you can quote me on – is that balance is always temporary; it is never static.  If the universe – if day and night – come into balance only twice a year during the March and September Equinoxes, then who am I to think I can always be perfectly balanced between the two poles of doing and being?  That balance is rarely – almost never – a clear 50-50 equation. Each person’s sense of where they feel balanced between the inward and outward journey, the being and the doing is unique.  Balance for you may be more like 60% doing and 40% being.  Balance for someone else may be the opposite. And our sense of what feels balanced in our life may change at different times and in different settings, as it has for me over time.

The key for me is awareness: the opportunity to recognize what calls me out of balance and what calls me back into balance, understanding that like the Earth’s rotation, this will always be an ongoing process. These weeks of Lent provide the intentional opportunity for me to discern my balance in walking, even imperfectly, this two-part spiritual path.

Our Lenten theme of fermentation comes from the Latin word “to leaven,” related to yeast.  Lent is a time to add the yeast to our spiritual life that will allow both our faith and our actions of service to rise and to bubble up within us.  Jesus tells this short parable in both Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels as he is speaking to a large crowd. Right after offering several longer parables, Jesus says simply:  What shall I compare God’s realm, God’s kingdom with?  God’s realm is like this:  a woman takes some yeast and mixes it with a bushel of flour and lets it rise, until the whole batch of dough has risen.

How do we find and add that spiritual yeast?  Instead of jumping ahead with answers and solutions, thinking that fermentation can be rushed like heating a frozen burrito in the microwave to get quick results, remember that fermentation doesn’t happen overnight.  As John Denny reminded us last Sunday, fermentation occurs largely without being seen. We have to set up the proper conditions and then let the process of fermentation do its wondrous work.

I believe that the spiritual practice of intentional awareness sets up the process for fermentation, allowing the yeast to rise in our souls.  It is that practice of paying attention: being aware of our yearnings, of our equilibrium, of our reservoir of inner strength and persistence, and of the Mystery of God – that creates the bridge between being and doing.

That kind of awareness supports our inner spiritual growth and the values that undergird the moral fabric of our being: honesty, courage, integrity, love, and hope.  That kind of awareness bolsters us in service to others, fortifying us to keep our hands to the plow of compassion and social justice.

It is precisely this spiritual reservoir that will be required of us in the days and months ahead as we face challenges in our own lives and challenges that face our community and our nation: challenges of inequity, racism, climate change, health care, politics, governance, and now the Corona virus, to name just a few.

So listen to this parable again – and hear it now not only as a call to each of us as individuals, but also hear it as a call to us together as a spiritual community:  take some yeast, mix it with a bushel of flour, let it rise until the WHOLE batch of dough rises.

There is so much value and meaning in observing this season of spiritual fermentation together as a congregation, putting that yeast into the bread of our lives, individually and collectively, and letting it rise in the whole batch of dough that is our community.

Let that yeast bubble in you and in us together and let it rise in prayer; let it bubble and rise in action; let it bubble and rise in compassion and in hope, and let it bubble and rise to nourish us as we join with the Spirit in the Holy work of healing ourselves and mending and renewing our world.

May you – may we – have a good Lent!

 

Prayer: We who came here separately are now made one as pilgrims on our Lenten path.

In the wilderness moments and in the common days that we share,

in the mix of sorrow and pain, of fear and love, of joys and blessings,

guide our feet on faithful paths,   fill our hearts with hopeful songs,

enfold our souls with visions of peace, kindle a flame of courage within us

that we may continue the journey that You set before us.  Amen.