Preached before I knew that a teenager had just murdered 17 (teens and adults) in Parkland, Florida
For readings, here
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This year’s Lenten
booklet weaves together the poetry of Mary Oliver with scriptural passages and practices.
In light of this, I want to offer you one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, The
Summer Day
Who made the
world?
Who made the swan,
and the black bear?
Who made the
grasshopper?
This grasshopper,
I mean-
the one who has
flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is
eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her
jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing
around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her
pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her
wings open, and floats away.
I don't know
exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to
pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and
blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I
have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else
should I have done?
Doesn't everything
die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is
it you plan to do
with your one wild
and precious life?
What will you do
with your one wild and precious life?
We may think that
this is a service about death, about the reality of our mortality...
But, we can’t talk
about death without talking about life.
And, as I juxtapose
the question, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life”
with the words, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return”, I find
myself considering what happens in the in-between.
Because, for all
of us gathered here today, we are in the in-between time. We live in the here
and the now of our lives. And, with Ash Wednesday’s frank and honest look at
the reality of our brokenness and the truth of our all too short lives, we are
reminded that there is work to be done.
The work of repair,
of reconciliation, of healing. The work that takes broken hearts and mends
them. The work that unites what has been divided. The work that gives life, the
work that shines the light, the work that shares the love.
Which is why I
feel myself drawn to the passage from Isaiah we have heard today. Specifically, the closing words of the
passage
“you shall be
called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”
A phrase drawn
from the words of the prophet Isaiah today.
A phrase that
defines the purpose of our Lenten fast.
The Lenten fast
can take many forms, many of us “give something up” or “take something on” in
this season. We do something out of the ordinary to help us reconnect to God,
ourselves, and each other.
Reconnection is
restoration. Restoration is reconciliation, Reconciliation restores and repairs
that which has been broken by those things which we call sin, brokenness,
trespass, or even debt.
So, this year, I
ask us all to undertake a fast that repairs.
A fast that takes
the broken places and people in our lives and offers restoration. A fast that
brings wholeness of life. A fast that helps us to answer God’s call, as we
ourselves are restored.
At this time, I am
going to give us all a few minutes to consider or re-consider what our Lenten
observances might include this year…so that we all might undertake the fast
that repairs.
silence
As we continue
with the invitation to a Holy Lent, let us consider our one wild and precious
life—so that in considering our death, we might re-consider our life.
Amen.
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