Thankful Memorial, Chattanooga
February 26, 2020
Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 103:8-14
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Today, we enter together the Church’s season of Lent.  Many of you know already that it is a penitential season, a time when we turn inwards, remember our shortcomings and our sinfulness and, by God’s grace, reorient ourselves to God’s will for us.  Our readings tonight encourage us to “be reconciled to God” and to fast for righteousness such that we become “the repairer[s] of the breach.”  At the heart of Lent, then, is the concept of reconciliation. 

And that’s lucky, because reconciliation seems to be in the air a lot around here.  Throughout the month of February, our adult Sunday School class, ably led by Mother Hannah, has been talking about racial reconciliation from our local context, looking at the history of race relations in the Episcopal Church at large, in Chattanooga and even right here at Thankful.  We’ve been asking the question, “What can we do to heal what has been broken and move forward together in faith?”

And reconciliation is also a big part of what we Episcopalians in the Diocese of East Tennessee have been focusing on for the past few years, too.  Our recent diocesan convention took it as its theme: “Reconciling all things in Christ: broken and mending.”  And our Lent adult Sunday School class will participate in a diocesan-wide offering entitled “Well Fed: Holy Food for a Reconciled Life.” 

So, this “reconciliation” is a good word – but it’s also a very church-y kind of word.  What, exactly, does it mean?  And what does it have to do with us – both in this particular season and in our lives at large?

Tonight I want to focus on two dictionary definitions of the word that you might have thought had nothing to do with Lent.  In Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary[i], among other definitions, “to reconcile” means to “accept something unpleasant.” And I want to come back to that idea.  But first, let’s consider another unlikely definition: “to check (a financial account) against another for accuracy.”

We don’t often think in the Church about that definition of reconciling; in fact, in this modern age of online banking, I doubt that there are many folks who still “reconcile” their checkbook register with their account statements!  But, I think this kind of financial reconciliation can actually serve as a good analogy for our Lenten work. 

So imagine for a moment your life as a checkbook register. Imagine that we’ve each recorded, pretty accurately, or at least as best we could, the human transactions we’ve made over the past year: the ways we’ve shown love to others, cared for God’s creation and worked to help establish healthy relationships and systems in the world around us and the ways in which we’ve maybe failed to do so. And now, imagine that this Ash Wednesday is the day that we get our account statement from God.  And, lest we imagine God as some sort of manipulating micro-manager, remember that the bank doesn’t send you a financial statement in order to make you feel guilty about how you spend your money or to berate you for failing to keep a rainy-day stash in your account.  No, the bank sends you a statement simply so that you can see the facts of your account, the realities of income and expenditure. 

And in many ways, that’s what we are being called to bring to mind on this day.  We don’t have it written down in black and white, of course, but we can use this time, in prayer together, to discern the reality of our human interactions over the past year and compare that reality to our personal, often faulty accounts. 

And that is the work of Lent.  Over the next forty days, let us reconcile our lives to the account God has for us.  Let us confront with searing honesty the places in our hearts and minds where we have not lived into our full potential as God’s beloved children.  Let us count the ways in which we do harm to God’s creatures and fail to serve God’s kingdom in this world and let us count the ways in which we have worked and are still working towards God’s dream for us all.  In this Lenten season, let us spend time, together and as individuals, reconciling our lives to God’s will. 

And if you’re wondering how we do that, hear the words from the prophet Isaiah: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bead with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly… you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.” 

Isaiah reminds us that when we do this work of reconciliation, by the grace of God, we become reconcilers – not just of ourselves or for ourselves, but for all people in all places.  We become the “repairer[s] of the breach;” we embody the message of reconciliation that God calls us to proclaim. 

And it is right that this work starts today, on Ash Wednesday, when we are reminded so starkly that we “are dust and to dust [we] shall return.”  This insistence on the inevitability of death is not meant to be morbid or depressing.  Rather, it is part and parcel of the work of reconciliation.  Remember that other somewhat-unlikely definition of “to reconcile”?  To “cause to accept something unpleasant”?  Tonight, we are reconciled to our own mortality, and that can give us a real sense of motivation for this kingdom-effort.  If we are to become God’s reconcilers, the “repairers of the breach,” we better get to work.  “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” says St. Paul to the Corinthians.  The work of reconciliation is necessary work, fulfilling work and urgent work.  For our time is limited, and it is also shot through and through with God’s abundant grace.  Amen. 

[i] Merriam-Webster online dictionary, “reconcile.”  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reconcile