Rend Your Heart: [A Lent] Blessing
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so that you can see
its secret chambers,
the hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.
Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart's walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those you have yet
to find.
It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering
for trusting the breaking
for tracing the tear
that will return you
to the One who waits
who watches
who works within
the rending
to make your heart
whole. (Jan Richardson)
My friends, Lent is not a time for dreariness, and wretchedness. Lent's a time for tearing open our hearts, reaching deep into our souls and laying all that weighs us down in front of our Creator. It's a time to get honest with ourselves--really honest---and to shed light on those things that linger deep within us, things that cause us shame, things that disgust us, things that sadden us, things that embarrass us.
Lent is time for freeing up space and time for God to enter in; some of us do this by removing (giving up) something for Lent, some of us do this by adding a practice (reading the Daily Office, or some other devotional). It doesn't matter how we do it, it matters that we are intentional about doing it.
Why...why do this? Why take this time to "change things up?" Well, because we, in our very human "human-ness" get distracted, we get absorbed in the things of this world, forgetting the things of God.
Our reading from Genesis comes toward the end of the Noah story, when God supposedly got so angry with humanity's behavior that God destroyed all the people of the earth, except for Noah and his immediate family. There are all sorts of theological debates we can have about whether God is a vengeful God, suffice it to say I don't think our God is a vengeful God. But I do think our God is often a sad and grieving God. Is God saddened and grieved when we turn away from God? Yes, I believe God grieves deeply at our insistence on doing things our way instead of God's. I think God is horribly grieved when we hurt one another. And I think God is especially grieved when we hurt ourselves.
I know that God weeps each and every time our children are killed in acts of senseless violence yet we seem incapable of doing anything about it.
Why do we rend our hearts and souls open before God during Lent? Not because God likes to see us suffer (no God NEVER wants us to suffer), not because it's good to deny ourselves simply for the sake of causing ourselves misery. No, we rend our hearts and souls open to God during Lent as a cleansing act to free us, to lighten us, to open ourselves up enough to fully receive the new life presented to us on Easter morning.
In the ancient church, Lent was a time for those who desired baptism to study and pray as a way to ready themselves for receiving new life in Christ through baptism. [this morning at 10:30 we have a baptism and with that act little xxxx will never need another baptism...because we only get baptized once, but Lent allows us time to prepare to be born again at that empty tomb. Lent is a time to free up space within us to receive the glory, the wonder and the awesomeness of resurrection life. The more room we open up the more Glory has room to roam within our hearts and souls.
This is why we do the tough work of Lent- not because we are bad, but because God is so incredibly good. And all God wants is for us to make room within ourselves to receive this Goodness.
You see, my friends, this is why Lent is great, because a well-done Lent allows for an incredible Easter. A well done Lent guarantees us a depth and breadth of joy on Easter morn beyond anything we've ever experienced.
A well-done Lent opens us to a Love that is stronger and a Peace that is greater than we can ever ask or imagine.
A well-done Lent opens us up to the fullness of God. And the fullness of God? Well that is all that God has ever wanted for us, the fullness of Love itself. The fullness of Peace itself.
A well-done Lent leaves us empty of resentments, empty of guilt, empty of shame and empty of despair.
A well-done Lent leaves us empty enough to be filled---absolutely FILLED---with resurrection light, resurrection love and resurrection life.
So, as we're invited to the observance of a Holy Lent, remember that Lent is not something to endure, it's something to participate in--fully and completely--not because God is forcing us, but because we are sick and tired of hiding, denying, and shunning the darker parts of us. Through the observance of a Holy Lent we take all that weighs us down, those things we've stuffed into the recesses of our hearts, and lay it all down.
The observance of a Holy Lent requires that we dig deep.
To do this we must Rend our Hearts as described by Jan Richardson's poem, to do this we must empty ourselves so that we can be filled.
May God bless our rending, our emptying and then our receiving and filling. Amen
I then read this prayer for the events in Parkland, FL:
Good and Gracious God: we are at a loss.
We don't know how our children keep getting killed at school while we seem incapable of making this madness stop.
We ask for your blessing upon those who have died , for those who have been left behind to mourn an unimaginable loss;
we ask your urging to prod us out of helplessness and into action, out of hopelessness and into faith, out of fear and into courage.
We pray that we, together with our elected officials will find a way out of partisanship and into unity, out of blame and into responsibility.
We pray all this through the one who emptied himself of everything in order to save us all, Jesus Christ our Lord, who together with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns with you, now and forever.
Amen.
(C Dempesy-Sims, 2018)
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