Erwin McManus tells a story about an experience he had while rafting (in his book Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul). In the calm water the rules about a tight/snug life jacket “made about as much sense as a seat belt in a parked car” but after the raft had flipped in the rapids and he was fighting to keep his feet up and his head above water the rules made complete sense. He describes the thoughts of fear and regret as he looked for a way to get out of the rapids, all while struggling to keep his feet up and his head above water, and in the midst of it all “it was as if I could hear a voice inside of me both crying out and confessing without shame, ‘I want to live!’” A few pages later he says, “I am convinced that in all of us there is a voice crying out, a confession waiting to be declared without shame, ‘I want to live!’”
Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but I am increasingly convinced that if we forget that this relationship we are in—we being the Church, we being the Bride of Christ—if we forget that this relationship we’re in is nothing more than a matter of the heart, then we are missing the whole point and we are giving away opportunity after opportunity to live an abundant life.
In my church tradition we frequently voice a prayer of confession that begins with the most important thing we can ever confess: “We confess that we have not loved you (God) with our whole heart.”
I spent several years away from Church in my teens and early 20s. When I returned to the church it was in a tradition where we had weekly confessions. As we made our confession we stood before a large icon of Christ, with the priest standing at our side. One Saturday I was standing there, looking into the eyes of the icon and I quietly offered, “I don’t know if I have anything to confess this week.” I mean, I had been an impatient father and husband on more than one occasion, and I had been a less than charitable human on more than one occasion, but why bother Jesus with that? So I said, “I don’t know if I have anything to confess.” And the priest, standing next to me, quietly said, “Maybe, Daniel, that is where you need to start.”
We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart…
Why do we say that? Because the Shema says, “Hear, O Israel…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.” And Jesus, when asked what the greatest Commandment is says, “The first and greatest commandment is this: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (He’s reciting the Shema, by the way.)
And if you didn’t notice it when the scriptures were read this evening, there is a theme woven throughout:
Joel says, “Return to me with all your heart;” in the psalm David says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; “ and in Matthew Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Each one of these texts reminds us, “Don’t forget, this relationship is a matter of the heart.”
One pastor mentions, “A commitment of the heart is not simply an emotional response. Since the heart was considered the seat of thinking and willing, it implied total dedication.” And if you think about it, when we see a musician playing a certain way we say they’re playing from the heart, or when an athlete puts forth a stellar performance we say that person really put their heart into it.
So Lent, this season where we prepare ourselves is all about cultivating God’s Christ-revealed love in our hearts. Regardless of the disciplines we take up, or the things we set aside, we’re really letting the Holy Spirit take some farm equipment to the soil of our hearts. It’s all interior work.
So why then do we mess around with such a visible thing as ashes? I mean, Joel tells us to rend our hearts not our garments, and Jesus says not to put our piety on display for everyone to see; and isn’t a big ashy smudge of a cross doing exactly that?
Truth be told, I’m not sure the ashy smudge of a cross is a display of piety. “Most of the time we need to think, and others need to think, that we are decent persons…the Ash Wednesday liturgy stage-manages us into public exposure: we are not what we seem.” Piety on display boldly declares, “Look at my holiness!” The ash says, for the world to see, whether we want it to or not, “Here is my brokenness, not my piety; here is proof that I am not as put together as I would like you to think I am; I am ashes, I am dust, and I need you to forgive me. I need resurrection.” And maybe from somewhere deep inside, the ash gives voice to the confession, “I want to live!”
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