[Propertalk] Ash Wednersday 2018 - part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

Although my homily for Wednesday is shorter than usual, Propertalk
sent my email to the black home for moderator approval.
I'll split it to see what happens. I put this together from thoughts
last night and the Facebook quote of Jan Richardson - I have several
of her books - very good!
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   ASH WEDNESDAY 

	JOEL 2:1-2, 12-17      14th FEBRUARY, 2018 

	2 CORINTHIANS 5:20b – 6:10     PSALM 103:8-14 

	MATTHEW 6:1-6, 16-21 

	 On the face of it, you and I might be excused for thinking that
today’s titles might be an oxymoron, an emotional downer, which may
seem to take the pleasure out of what we hold to be most uplifting,
most renewing in life. The celebration of love – something which we
do, actually, every time we make our Thanksgiving through the
Eucharistic Sacrament; the celebration of love is all about affirming
the most precious element of our livers. It sustains us. It reaffirms
us. It talks to us of being dignified and valued. The old song said,
“Love makes the world go round.” To know that one is loved is,
indeed, such a gift that it’s almost indescribable. 

	 I say “almost” because the “being loved” calls from us a
response that we should at least try to put into words and deeds how
uplifting being loved is. The discovery that we are being loved should
help us to find a way to respond. Being loved should bring us to the
exploration of who we are and what we are, so that we can take that
and give it, unreservedly, to the source of that love. Being loved
means not thinking about any cost to us. Or maybe that’s not true.
Perhaps being loved should help us to see the costliness, the
vulnerability of the person offering the loving, and should draw from
us an equal response of offering to the other something which we
consider most precious to ourselves – life itself. 

	 The starting point of this response, then, is, obviously, to say
“Thank you”. Or perhaps this isn’t so obvious, because to pour
out ourselves, to give our life and all that’s important, as much as
it may bring an incredible smile to our faces, is so costly. 

	 This is all the more important when we acknowledge our mortality.
“Make me to number my days,” pleads the psalm writer, because then
perhaps, we could know when to stop being selfish and arrogant, and
when to be loving. But the point of Ash Wednesday, this day’s other
title, the point of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day coinciding is
that we don’t know when we’ll be dust. We don’t know when
we’ll take our last breath and lose the ability to smile at those
who are most important; or to listen to those people; or to share a
special word or memory. 

	 And as this is true of those along our personal pilgrimage on earth,
so it is true of our relationship with God. 

	 One of the factors behind trying to follow a particular discipline
in Lent is that it helps us to try to discover how to try to make the
best use of the time we have, and to set aside whatever is crippling
us and those around us. 

	 Last year at this time I’d just read Endo’s novel called
“Silence” and seem the film. It talks of human beings’ capacity
to put anything and everything ahead of other people, and ahead of
what we know to be true and decent. This is especially true when we
may be adversely affected about taking a stance or advocating for
another. Sadly, this is true when we discover the costliness of love. 


	 “Sin,” reflected Fr. Rodrigues, one of the principal characters
in the novel, “Sin is not what it is usually thought to be; it is
not to steal and to tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally
over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he
has left behind.”  1 

	 One person walking brutally over the life of another in complete
oblivion of what that person is doing to anyone else. It is the
withholding of love, the cheapening of love to something that
doesn’t make demands on our hearts and minds. 


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