Ash Wednesday

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have
made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and
make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily
lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission
and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

Ok...gonna try this again cause I was such an amazing success last time....

Like any good Episcopalian I went to church tonight to get "ashed". It's a tradition in the church that I didn't grow up with but which has become meaningful to me. But holy days like this do seem to bring out the crazies in New York. All of a sudden everyone becomes a preacher. And the hellfire and brimstone sermons become more frequent.

So on the subway home this man was preaching of God's awesome love and the devil's snares. He was confronted by a young woman who wanted to ask him to relax on the devil part. They both got into a shouting match that ended with him calling her Satan's minion and then spitting on her, accompanied by the foulest language possible. She was not innocent either and in fact started the swearing first. It was also obvious that he was pretty unstable and despite the pleas of other passengers she continued to prod and poke at him. It is the kind of incident that is classically New York...and in fact probably one of the things tourists flock to this city to see. One could shake one's head and take a bit of an ironic pose about it and then go on about your business. One could secretly tape it and put it on YouTube...it's the stuff that viral videos are made of.

But for me it was sad...a sad missed opportunity for all involved including myself, to really reflect the endless love and mercy of God. For if we really believe the opening of this Ash Wednesday Collect,. then indeed God hates nothing he has made...street preachers, antagonists, jaded and bemused New Yorkers...then all of the players in this little drama were God's children. And in fact each of them were teaching a message about humility and how difficult it is to for any of us to achieve.

First there is the street preacher. He obviously was a sincere man who had been blessed with a deep conversion experience. He was passionate about the love that he'd found with God and deeply wanted to share it with the subway car...whether or not we asked for it. But his experience of God was limited...and he was deeply attached to it, as it were the whole of God. When confronted by the woman, he could not see past his own viewpoint and ultimately had to turn her into a demon to keep himself together. As he argued with her he kept saying about all the "good he was doing and the media attention he was getting." He was so wrapped up in his own message he forgot to ascribe any of his "good" to God, where all good comes from.

The woman had her own issues. She was obviously fed up with his often obnoxious volume and frequent allusions to the devil. But she was enjoying her role as antagonist too much. Rather then ignoring an obviously unstable person, she kept twisting the knife in father until he broke and spit at her. I was at one point afraid it was going to get really violent.

I kept wondering what would happen if he could just see her as the voice of God for him right there and then...if he could accept that maybe the way she was provoking him was telling him something valuable about himself and his own unresolved issues...his arrogance and lack of humility. Maybe he was telling her something about her own normalcy and lack of passion...and maybe that her complacent certainty was not quite the thing either. And maybe they were telling all of us jaded New Yorkers that there these moments that make us uncomfortable might be the moments where we can find real lessons. Maybe it was a challenge for us not to the players in this drama as Maury characters or reality tv, but rather as Jesus himself, live and in person, right in front of us on the R train.

What does this all have to do with the Ash Wednesday Collect? We, to me these moments of strangers rubbing up against each others corns are moments of missed connection. And missed connection...missed mark is really what sin is. It is are failing to live up to the radical nature of God and the radical message of Jesus. And that message is that God is love and Love is everywhere. And that doesn't just mean those who are easy to love. God is present in the angry, the petulant, the borderline, the mentally unstable...and we almost ALWAYS miss it.

But the good news is that, again, God hates nothing he has made. and that means that in our failure to respond with compassion, we are not condemned, but loved. We can try again, determine to live out the love we profess with our faith...and we will most certainly fail. I know I do time and time again. But the good news is that God doesn't seem to demand that we get it perfect...just that we try, sincerely...that we humble ourselves enough to realize that we are no better than the people whose instability amuses us...or frightens us. The adversary isn't the devil...it's another human being who is just as sad lonely and confused at heart as we are if we are honest. And God loves us both...he doesn't take sides.

So far from being a depressing thing, as this collect looks on the outset, it is actually full of hope...which springs out of it's pretty dark penitent language. And as we start the Lenten Journey, hope can only be a good thing.

Holy Lent to all!