From a Sermon given at Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal in Covington, GA on February 21, 2021
https://youtu.be/pcSXeXZfdcs?t=820
Greetings:
Here we are
at the beginning of Lent, yet it feels like we have been in a time of Lent for
almost a year.
If lent is a
season of quiet reflection, we have had our lives quieted – unless you have
children at home, and then not so much.
In the last
year we have given up … so much. A trademark of the practice of Lent. We have
given up gathering, and feasting – otherwise known as dining out. We have given
up gathering for sports, concerts and music festivals, conferences, family
gatherings and reunions, vacation and long-distance travel, and church.
Some of us
have given up travelling to work or working altogether.
This last
year has truly been a season of denying ourselves past pleasures that were part
of our everyday experience.
In the
season of Lent, we deny ourselves our regular pleasures to make more room for
God. To refocus. To regain our bearings. To become more centered or grounded.
I’m
wondering if in this last year, this extended year of Lent, if in all that you gave
up, did you find you had more time for God? Did you find time for slow walks
and meditation? Were you able to let go of bad habits or distractions that were
no longer serving you or those around you? Did this long season of Lent create
space for you to rest?
Or
did you find yourself anxious about your circumstances? Did you worry about
family, friends, and neighbors? Did you and do you miss church, and fellowship,
and gathering and singing and communion?
Of
course, you do. If you are watching now, you are probably anxiously waiting for
a sign of the Good News that it’s time to return to this sanctuary, to this
place of comfort, to gathering and fellowship, and worship.
Some
of you may have come yesterday to sit in this sacred space.
Yet,
we find ourselves still in this long season of Lent.
In Leviticus
25, the Israelites are given a prescription for farming which included rotating
fields and letting a field lie fallow for a full year so that the nutrients
could be replenished. This year was a sabbath year – a full year of rest for
the land and the people and a holy sabbath for the Lord. A whole year of rest.
It was prescribed to happen every seven years, which is why we have sabbaticals
for our priests and teachers every seven years.
We have had
a year of rest from our routine. A break in our norm. We could call it a sabbath
year, a Lenten year to regard as holy. A year thrust upon us that we did not
set aside and plan for, but a fallow year, nonetheless.
Reflecting
on the last decade or decades, have you been over farming the soil of your
life, depleting the natural resources of your spirit and soul?
Sometimes
when we get sick, our bodies are urging us to rest. As a chaplain, I sometimes
share with the patients I meet who are anxious about being in the hospital that
their time there is prescribed as a time of rest. Being in the hospital is an
excellent excuse to disconnect from all the stress of life and reconnect with
your body, your spirit, your soul, and your maker, your source, your
inspiration, and your creativity. Of course, it's not easy to rest in the
hospital and it is not easy to rest in uncertain times.
In this
challenging time where we are forced to be away from each other, I propose to
you that this is an extended time of rest. It is an extended time of the Lenten
season for us to reflect and reconnect.
The fallow
field lies dormant only for a season. But without that season of rest, the soil
becomes useless.
What do you
need to do in this Lenten season to feed your soil, to feed your soul to
prepare for the next season?
What are you
still clinging to that no longer serves you? What is taking up space in your
home and your heart that is impeding your spiritual walk?
If you
understand gardening and farming, then you understand that the old plants must
be removed or tilled into the soil to feed it. You must churn the soil, remove
the rocks, fertilize, and prepare for planting.
What old
rubbish sits in the space of your life that will impede your soul planting this
Spring?
What do you
have left to do this Lent to prepare your heart for a resurrection? A renewal?
For Spring? And for Easter?
We are
simply in a season, my friends. It’s not the end, not even the end of the world
– but a cycle – a necessary cycle for us to renew the earth, renew our lives,
renew and deepen our relationship with God and even with each other.
5 minutes
In our Old
Testament reading we see Noah in a season of destruction and renewal. Genesis 6
tells us that things on the earth had gotten so bad with the hearts of men that
God was remorse at his creation and determined to start over with a remnant.
Our promise is that God will never again destroy the earth with a flood.
In our
current age of concern with climate change, melting glaciers, and rising sea
levels, some of you may be wondering about that promise. We see the earth
shifting and sifting and shaking much like a global garden being tilled.
Many people
have died in this season. Many more may yet die. Not because the whole earth is
wicked, but because our days are numbered. Certainly, we have reason to be
remorse with human nature, but there is balance with the good that we see and
the kindness that we share. However, perhaps, we are out of balance and
shifting.
It is a
season. Just a season. Death is part of our cycle of life, just as winter must
come before spring, death must come for us to awaken into the kingdom of God.
We mourne the loss of those we love, yet rejoice that they have gone before us
and wait.
When the
shifting settles, and the soil is turned, and this Lenten season ends, we will
go back to work and school and play – but with renewed spirits, refreshed by a
season of rest and reflection.
Will we come
out of this season the same as we went in? Will we plant the same seeds and
reap the same harvest?
As you let
go of those things that no longer serve you and your families, I pray you seek
God for the new crops in your life, the new habits and practices that will feed
your soul and those of your families and neighbors.
What can we
do and plant and how can we be in such a way that a season like this does not
return to us? What covenant will God make with us to say – as a sign – I will
not bring destruction like this on the earth again.
We could
debate the validity of the flood. We could debate whether or not God is a
destructive force as well as a life-giving force. How you feel about that
theology in your hearts will range even in this congregation as much as the
range of your politics.
But for
today, we have a scripture, a theodicy, that tells us God was remorse with man,
brought a great flood, and left a family to start fresh... with a promise – a
promise that we will never be forsaken. We have the promise of the rainbow that
reminds us that we will not be completely destroyed.
We have a
promise that we will come out of this Lenten season with a vastly different
landscape. Yet it will be a landscape that is renewed, refreshed, and ready for
you. For you to plant, and gather, and live, and love, and connect and
reconnect – perhaps in ways you never have before with people you’ve never met
before.
Be inspired
by the hope and knowledge that we live in cycles and seasons and that this is
an everlasting covenant with the God we serve and love. May hope be stirred in
your spirit, in your life, in the soil of your soul.
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