In Bondage to Sin: Ashes to Ashes... Lent

According to Matthew 4:2, Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. THEN, famished and weak, he met ALL EVIL face-to-face. It came in a condition of weakness, not strength.

Moses went up to the mountain 40 days w/o food, only the presence of God. Elijah went into the wilderness and lived on the strength of his last meal for 40 days. They both knew the legend of Noah and his family and the onslaught of being tossed about after 40 days of rain (and nights).

In Reformation times, the practice of doing penance went seriously out of whack. The Basilica of St. Peter in Rome was essentially built on the fundraising efforts of paying a monetary sum as a demonstration of true contrition. But the church detoured from being discipling agent to dispensing agent.

Along the way, a very important and beneficial practice got lost or disarmed. The step back to consider the seriousness of one's sins and doing something different in life as a reminder, that got turned into the purchase of forgiveness--with advance ticket sales offered for a nice price.

No coach I know would consider scrapping the entire practice of taking a time-out. The team needs it. He/she needs it. And so do we. It's more than our little foibles, the unkind word here and there, the lustful thought, the alms not given, the prayer not said, that constitutes our sin.

It is our whole condition. Our whole broken relationship with God and with each other. As my church says in corporate confession, "We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves..." This rift is not repairable by self-help, a six-week diet, or a makeover at the spa. It is by the grace of God. Grace is a very dramatic story. It never hurts to take a time-out. Any discipline or ritual that serves as a mnemonic device for that time-out time is helpful. It can open the heart and mind just like prayer.

And I think sometimes the best prayers we can ever pray are not the ones that ask for what we don't have. They may be those that for once do an honest job of saying who we are, what we are, what is--without a pre-fab answer in mind.

We all need time for that.

R.

Ashes, Dust and Clay

Ash Wednesday began the six week season of Lent that will take us through Holy Week and Easter. Even in Lent, however, Sundays are considered sacred space and are little Easter outposts amid the journey of recollection and contemplation.

Or maybe just mindfulness. In order to fully live as humans, we are mindful of our mortality even as we are mindful of the God of Life.

Here's a poem prayer from Lent 16 years ago:

Ashes, Dust and Clay

Long ago, in dust and clay
you saw, O Lord, a flowered Spring
You saw the birth of life deep green
long ago in dark of night.

With no eye yet on earth to see
You saw, O Lord, a joyous light,
the break of earth’s first day to be.
You saw, O Lord, where I have been
chose love and breath to me to bring
Long ago of dust and clay.

And long ago to dust and clay
You made, O Lord, first blooms to fade
You brought again to ash and rust
All grasses green and living ones.

When my eye, too, shall fail and dim
as strength no more within me runs
Then deal with me as once with Him,
Your Son in whom I hope and trust,
Restore to life all Thou hast made
of ashes, clay and dust.

--Roger Fuchs

We pray. I remember that I am but dust. Be for me the Resurrection and the Life. Amen.

COMMENT: Beginning Lent with Ash Wednesday, we confront our own mortality, the dust and ashes to which we all return. Yet of these same things and less, the Creator has made the glorious wonder of all life. We place ourselves safely into our Maker’s hands, from whence comes life that does not die.


© 1994, 2010 by Roger D. Fuchs. All rights reserved.

Rob Bell Rollout--NOOMA in Lent

Hi, PDX!

A little rain to remind us of where we live. That's a good thing.

Where we live... Something VERY exciting is coming to where we live. His name is Rob Bell, and we'll be rolling him out at our first NOOMA in Lent gathering next Wednesday evening, 7 PM at 7220 SE 39th Ave. (just down the road a piece from Woodstock).

NOOMA? Trade mark for a spirited piece of work. Anglicization of "pneuma", Greek for spirit or breath.

Rob Bell talks out in the real world: in/on a subway train, at an auto repair shop, in an airport gate area, outside a stadium, in a restaurant, walking down a wet street lined with cars held up by paramedics and fire fighters at the scene of a two-car accident. Life happens...

Rob Bell talks the way real people do in their private conversations with God and with friends. No fear. No apologies. Nothing but honesty, for once.

Rob Bell won't answer all your questions. Maybe he'll even give you a pile of new ones. But he will lead you on a journey that will bring freshness and hope and wonder to your spiritual path.

All in 10-13 minutes each week. Then there will be 45 minutes for us to exchange thoughts and reflect over coffee. Or tea.

2/11: "Breathe". What does it mean to have life and breath? Is each breath speaking the name of God? Is the breath of God in us? Does life allow us the time to breathe?

Six weeks, starting 2/11. 7 PM. Done by 8 PM. Fun. Free. Bring friends.

LENT. It's not the yucky in your drier vent. It's a journey...

And, yes, we know Lent doesn't start 'til 2/25; but we want to wind up before Spring Break. So we will on 3/18.

Shalom,

Pastor Roger

Rob Bell: Lent--not what's in your dryer vent!

Happy overcast, PDX!

We're under that January pall for sure. I remember a couple of springs like that in Nebraska when I was in high school. Didn't warm up forever. Didn't see the sun forever. Country roads were without a bottom. Mud everywhere. Could just about do a person's spirit in for good. Not here to talk about that though.

Here to talk about Rob Bell. If he and some of his ilk are the future spokespersons and visionaries of those who follow Christ, then we have indeed emerged from a long spiritual pall. And thank God! Just when I was about to asphyxiate, breath comes along. Perhaps that's why he calls his series of monologues NOOMA. That's Anglicization of pneuma, the Greek word for spirit, or breath.

Bell looks straight at the camera and talks like a person who lives in the real world. He asks the questions I've asked for years. He knows that following Christ is not about spending decades of your life trying to get your belief system right before you ever take a step. It's about living in the world where God works and is already at work, proceeding without having much of anything figured out. But proceeding anyway.

That's why I'm so pleased that a little group of Lutherans out in the Woodstock/Eastmoreland area of SE Portland have decided to throw open the doors on six Wedesday evenings, starting February 11 at 7:00 PM. A different Rob Bell video (10-13 minutes) will kick off the evening. Then we'll talk over coffee and cookies for 45 minutes or so. We'll just talk honestly and see where the NOOMA and the pneuma lead us. All questions and comments are fair game if they are spoken in honesty. Really!

Yup! Starting February 11, 2009, 7:00 PM. 7220 SE 39th Avenue, Portland.

Spread the word. Bring friends. It's our way of doing Lent. Which is not what's in your dryer vent.

In succeeding posts I'll give you a preview of where we'll go with Rob. Hard to choose only six of these gems from the 23 he's done so far.

Shalom!

Pastor Roger