THE WORD IS NEAR

A Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

Pastor Laura Gentry

Romans 10:8b-13

The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It’s Lent. That means it’s time to focus on repentance. Well, what are repenting from? Sin, of course. But what does that mean to us in our modern society. Sin is not a very vogue word anymore and so I think it is helpful for us to talk about sin this morning so we can make sure we are all on the same page. What do we mean when we say “sin”?

In early Christian times, the church sought to define sin and found that they could classify all sin into seven categories, which came to be known as the seven deadly sins. The final list included: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

Donald Capps, professor of pastoral care at Princeton Theological Seminary, recently conducted an interesting study about the attitudes that people hold about these “deadly sins” and restored “melancholy” to the list, thus bringing the amount of sins to eight.

Here is how Capps defines each of the sins. As I explain them, I invite you to think about what this study asked people to answer. First, which sin do you consider to be the most serious, the most harmful? And secondly, with which sin do you struggle the most?

Anger: An angry or resentful attitude reflected in feelings of intense hostility, vengefulness and inner rage

Apathy: An apathetic attitude toward life, reflected in an indifference toward the needs and aspirations of others

Envy: A persisting envy of another person who enjoys advantages of attention and recognition that one wants for oneself

Gluttony: Addictive habits, like excessive or erratic eating or drinking, which cause oneself and others misery

Greed: A consuming desire for wealth or affluence (or for the security material things promise)

Lust: A sexual attitude that treats other persons as objects

Melancholy: A personal bitterness toward life; hatred and disgust for the world and the people with whom one associates

Pride: A self-centered attitude of continually expecting or demanding praise and adulation

So of these types of sin—anger, apathy, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, melancholy, and pride—which do you consider the most serious and with which do you most struggle?

Capps’ findings were interesting. For both clergy and laity, pride and envy were at the bottom of the list for the seriousness of sins. They considered them the least offensive. Yet, ironically, these were the top to sins they admitted to struggling with. Yes, the sins of pride and envy plague most Christians.

Capps explains that since people don’t consider these sins to be that serious, they don’t necessarily feel much guilt about having pride and envy. However, they do feel shame about it.

They feel shame because they have high ideals for their lives. They think they ought to be able to accomplish everything they put their minds to, especially in relationships. They think they can be all things to all people. And it turns out they can’t. And so they feel bad about themselves for having fallen short of their own ideals.

This makes people feel drained and depleted. They desperately hunger for recognition and admiration but live with a gnawing sense of defeat and failure. In short, they feel miserable because of their own inadequacy. They are ashamed of themselves.

So what do we do with ourselves when we find ourselves in this boat? When we feel depleted and don’t know how we got this away? Even looking at scripture can contribute to this. For example, in today’s gospel lesson we see Jesus standing up to the devil. Without food, out in the desert, he still has the stamina to beat the devil at his own game every time and resist temptation. We think how unlike Jesus we are because we haven’t that kind of spiritual strength. And that can push us further into our shame.

Yet, we also have some amazingly helpful words from Paul in our Epistle reading. He is upset at how how the people are seeking to establish their own righteousness. Isn’t that what we’re doing when we feel ashamed about not living up to our high ideals? We don’t need to be the perfect people we think we can be, he explains. “For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." By this end, he means fulfillment. Christ has fulfilled the law on our behalf.

Christ has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves and his righteousness can be our righteousness no matter what deadly sins plague us. How? By believing and calling upon his name.

That’s the whole deal as Paul tells it. We don’t need to go around puffed up with pride trying to winkle a little bit more appreciation out of people so we’ll feel better about ourselves. We don’t have to get jealous when we see other getting more recognition than we do. These sins stem from the needy, shameful self and they can’t fill our emptiness. They come from the heart of the person who feels unloved.

Yet God loved us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus to be our righteousness of for us. Jesus came to complete the law for us. If we just believe in Jesus and call upon him to help us, we will be saved. That is love. That is pure love. That is what we are hungering for in our heart of hearts.

Paul writes that this love is not far off. He says "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." We can grasp the eternal love of God in Christ simply be believing in our hearts and calling to him with our mouths. Salvation is right here. Love is right here. The remedy for our emptiness is right here. Right now.

Oh, can’t we see it? Can’t we grasp it? That’s what this season of repentance is designed for. It’s not here to make us feel more guilt or shame than we already bear. It is to help us see that we don’t have to go on living this way. We can trade in our emptiness for joy. We can admit that we need Christ’s righteousness because we can’t earn it by our own good living. We can reach out and grab onto our dear savior with all our hearts and ask him for salvation. The word is so, so near. Why don’t we just call out to him?

Let us pray: Jesus, we cry to you. You know that our own attempts at happiness have failed us again and again. We simply cannot live up to our own ideals. We fall short and end up feeling depleted and needy. Yet you came to save us. Help us to see that your love and your righteousness are so near to us. We reach out to you again. We believe you. Lord Jesus, save us. Amen.

© Laura Gentry 2010

RELEASE IN US A PASSION

A Sermon for Ash Wednesday
February 21, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Joel 2:1-18
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come. Fire devours in front of them, and behind them a flame burns. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, but after them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. They have the appearance of horses, and like war-horses they charge. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle. Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale. Like warriors they charge, like soldiers they scale the wall. Each keeps to its own course, they do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another, each keeps to its own track; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls; they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The Lord utters his voice at the head of his army; how vast is his host! Numberless are those who obey his command. Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible indeed—who can endure it?

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people. (New Revised Standard Version)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Tonight is one of the most solemn church services of the year: Ash Wednesday—the night we get ashes smeared onto our heads with the sobering words: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Ashes in ancient times were used to show repentance. If you’d see a guy walking around so gray with ash that you couldn’t even recognize him, you would know that he was repenting for something. I picture it being something like the Peanuts character "Pig Pen" wafts dust wherever he walks. Repenters preparing for baptism would continue to dump ashes upon themselves without washing for the full 40 days. Can you imagine how they would have smelled by the end of Lent? It was a ritualized way of showing the foulness of their sin, of their desperate need for God’s redemption.

But repentance is not so outwardly demonstrated these days, except for Ash Wednesday and you’ll be glad to know that we don’t dump a whole bucket of ash on your head like in ancient times. We simply give you an ashen cross in the middle of your forehead.

So why is this necessary? I mean, have we really been that bad that we should have to be marked with such a dirty cross? I believe our Lenten repentance is necessary not simply for our own sins, but for the world’s collective sins.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a theologian from Ghana, writes about God being agitated. This agitation—described in many places throughout the bible—is born out of compassion. Most of all, Oduyoye says, God is agitated at suffering and injustice. And yet our world is so full of it. God must deeply agitated with us.

There is an Ash Wednesday prayer that goes like this:

O God,
you have made us for yourself,
and against your longing there is no defense.
Mark us with your love,
and release in us a passion for your justice in our disfigured world;
that we may turn from our guilt and face you, our heart's desire,
Amen. (Janet Morley, All Desires Known , Expanded Edition, Morehouse Publishing, 1994.)

Release in us a passion for your justice, it says! That is what we ask for tonight. For we have lost that passion. Bit by bit, we have gotten "compassion fatigue" and with all the horrors pronounced to us on the nightly news, we've become incapable of feeling sad about the state of the world. We are numb to the suffering. Hearing of senseless and violent deaths hardly even warrants our notice anymore. It become normal.

But it is not normal to God. It will never be normal to God who loves each one of us more deeply than we can fathom. Suffering and death and injustice are deplorable to God! Our Creator is saddened, upset and agitated that we have become so heartless, so resigned about all that is wrong.

And so the ancient church developed this special day, this day of ashes when the trumpet was blown to wake the world from sleep, to invite them to leave their numbness behind, to enter God’s agitation, to lament together and the misguided direction of the planet.

We continue this tradition today—sans the trumpet—because of it’s power to wake us from our slumber. Yes, it is an awakening to sorrow but this sorrow leads us to the profound realization that we are in need—desperately in need of God’s grace and mercy. This repentance day and this 40 day Lenten journey are not easy, comfortable or fun, but they open our hearts in a mysterious and amazing way to the saving love of Jesus. These days are meant to turn us—turn us away from the powers of darkness that have laid claim to us and our world and turn us again toward the light of Christ, the bright and morning star.

During these 40 days, we must return to God through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving. In this Lenten journey, we will allow ourselves travel with Christ, through our agitation and tears, to the cross, the grave, and on to the Easter victory of new life. May this journey release in us a passion for God’s ways! Blessings to you on the journey. Amen.


Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2007