A few thoughts about Lent and Jesus’ words in our gospel ‘that where our treasure is there are heart will be also’. Lent is all about a journey of the heart. It’s about attending to our inner life, what Jesus describes as ‘going into your room and shutting the door and praying to your Father who is in secret.’ Christ is speaking against public acts of piety done for show, but he is also speaking metaphorically of the journey into the inner room of our hearts as the place we enter in our time of personal prayer. The heart is the room where we meet ‘our Father, who is in secret’; it’s our inner sanctuary, our holy of holies. ‘Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life’ says the wisdom of Proverbs 4.23. To attend to our heart will require making space and time, slowing down, learning to be still and quiet, in order to let the Holy Spirit touch, heal, water and speak into the desert places of our inner being.
The reason we are encouraged to engage in Lenten disciplines is to allow this inner work to take place, to make ourselves both available and vulnerable to God’s mercy, grace, goodness and love, to allow some of our defences that keep God out to come down.
Our gospel speaks to the disciplines or practices that we are encouraged to embrace.
To give alms is to give our money to those that need it more than us, but also to give in other ways, in acts of mercy, kindness and generosity. All these open us up.
There are the disciplines of study: reading, listening to talks, meditating on a few verses of the Bible, letting them sink in and speak to our heart. Regarding the discipline of prayer, perhaps the key question we can ask ourselves this Lent is where can I make time to enter my inner room, to find a sacred space and time where we can bring our hidden selves before God?
And then there is the discipline of fasting, giving up meals or eating more simply and more mindfully. There may be other things we can give up to make more space for God in our life, a fast from digital or social media, or constant news, whatever distracts and makes it harder for us to be still, to connect, to pray.
All these are ways into the secret place, the holy place, the place where connection actually happens, our heart. It’s up to us to choose if we want to go there. But if we do, as we dare to enter the wilderness of our deepest selves, we take hold of a hand that steadies and guides us. Christ is waiting for us there, waiting to speak truth deep within us, to make us understand wisdom in the depths of our heart, to cleanse and make us new, to hear joy and gladness where we have become sad and despondent.
Whatever disciplines and practices you take, God is waiting for you there.
The act of penitence and confession we are about to make together is a preparing, a clearing of the obstacles in our way, the things that weigh us down and hold us back. Repentance is really good for us. We can acknowledge our sins, faults and weaknesses, because we do so to One who knows, loves and understand us, who is ready to forgive us, as we are willing to trust more of ourselves to him.
It is God’s grace that helps us to see our sin, so that we can be delivered and set free.
I am going to invite us now to call to mind our sin and the infinite mercy of God. You can sit or kneel for this. If you want to come and kneel with me on the carpet you are welcome, because the floor is very hard. When we have said the words ‘Holy God, Holy and Strong, Holy and immortal, Have mercy on us’ I will invite you to return to your seats while I play some music, and this is where, if you want, you can write on a slip of paper whatever you are wanting to give to God – where you are seeking release from any sin, resentment, burden or habit, write them on a slip of paper and then burn them to symbolise God taking them from us, cleansing us and setting us free. Krista and I will then invite you to receive the sign of the cross in ash on your forehead, the symbol of Christ’s saving power. When we have received communion, while singing the communion hymn, I will also offer a short prayer of healing to those who like to receive this; just come to the front and I will pray for you.
Wilderness God,
as we begin this journey through Lent
help us to bring the whole of ourselves
into the mystery of your presence.
We come to you now in our weakness and vulnerability,
to find in you our healing and wholeness.
Meet us now in this place and time
and be our guide as we find the path of your love again.
Amen.
(Prayer adapted from Chris Thorpe, Apprentices and Eyewitnesses: Creative Liturgies for Incarnational Worship: Lent, Holy Week and Easter, 2019)
