Stop...and Turn

Perhaps many members of the parish don't realize how busy things can be here within this building, especially on days like the third Monday of the month when we have four very different activities going on all at the very same time:

Handbell Choir, Congregation Council, Dog Club, and Civic Chorus.

During the day people are in and out, there are phone calls, emails, repairs, pre-school kids upstairs and in the basement, meetings, classes, and more.

We are busy!

But finally in this span of time together today, we come face to face with the realization that this rushing around which you and I do may not be all that impressive to God.

We want to have a long list of accomplishments, at any cost.

--Instead of soaking in the learning and thinking about the subject, students may interrupt an interesting discussion or activity in order to ask the leader

“Does this count toward my grade?”

“Will this be on the test?”

--Adults may be involved in one of our groups or activities, and think that the activities take the place of worship...so they don't show up on Sunday morning. The activity was enough for them to check off the church-thing!

--Even the mark of ashes, which can be a helpful sign of our human frailties and failings can be treated this way – as something to be crossed off the list,

“Now I've done that.”

Was it different in ancient Israel?

Are we the first or the only “busy” people?

Of course not.

We may dress it up a bit differently, but it is the same old problem which afflicts every generation,

the pernicious tendency to make ourselves the center of the universe,

with our wants and our desires becoming the things of greatest importance,

and our fears the ones which must be assuaged.

The call to us this day is for us to come to a complete STOP;

to quietly consider where we have been and what we have been doing,

and to hear again about what is truly important.

It takes time!

The Exhortation this day calls it the “Discipline of Lent,”

those things which can help us

--to examine our lives,

--to acknowledge our misplaced values,

--and to prepare to start out again, on a different path.

The great danger is that we hop over this whole process,

that we endure our corporate confession as just another thing to get out of the way.

We bump into it, mumble “excuse me” and keep on going the same old way.

But confession provides us the chance to turn and go a different way,

The whole enterprise has a negative reputation,

and that is unfortunate, since it should have the sweetest sound in our ears.

In the Large Catechism, martin Luther reminds us that Confession has two parts:

1—where we acknowledge our sin and separation from God and each other,

2—where God gives the word of forgiveness and restoration.

How wonderful!

And when God restores communication with himself, and puts us back into community with each other,

are we going to act in the same old way?

Be done with it!

Here is a good one-sentence prayer:

Once you have lit the match to my trash, Lord, teach me to keep my fingers our of the fire!

Can we let go of all of those things?

Once we have named them in confession, do we really wish to take them back?

Leave the garbage alone,

and pick up something new.

Stop, listen, and take up what is true, and honorable, and builds up the community of faith.

Our quilters group, our committees, our various volunteers in Family Promise and all of the other things could merely rush through all of the things that they do, without thinking about why?.

We all need to stop and hear again the words from scripture that describe what Jesus did:

--He spent time together in worship and study in the synagogue and temple,

--He spent time apart in prayer,

--He spent time in the community in conversation, and vigorous action.

Then we can consider carefully how our lives should be shaped in that same pattern.

--We can spend time together in worship and study in the Sunday assembly and Church School,

--We can spend time apart in prayer, individually, and in Morning and Evening Prayer,

--We can spend time in the community in conversation and invitation to come listen to Jesus,

--We can spend time for vigorous action on behalf of our neighbor.

We are busy, oh, so very busy.

Let us make it our habit

to STOP regularly,

to examine our past,

to listen again to God's promises,

and take hold of life as forgiven and re-directed persons.

Return to the Lord...for he is gracious....

Turn this way, ...and live! Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.