To watch a video of this sermon, click on this sentence.
Can you hear the sound of the shofar? It is the trumpet of ancient Israel. It calls the assembly together on high and holy days.
This trumpet, this shofar … it is sometimes quite hard to hear. You may have to get quiet, and I mean really get quiet. Silence your phone, and your watch. Notice your breathing. Let your breathing slow down, and get deeper. Notice the deep fatigue that makes itself known at the exact moment you stop moving, stop talking, stop multitasking, stop over-functioning. If you sit long enough in silence, you may feel droopy, sleepy. You may want to nod off. You may also feel the urge to check your phone, or just get up and fiddle with something. Notice that fatigue, and that restlessness, and greet them in peace. They are your friends, even if you can’t or shouldn’t do what they want you to do. Try to gently set them aside. Try to sit still for a while.
Can you hear the shofar now?
The shofar’s call is an echo sounding inside you, a vibration of your own true self, the quiet yet persistent voice of your conscience.
You may not like the sound.
The shofar draws you to the throne of the One God. You: you in all your complexity, you who have made a mistake, or ten, in the last few hours alone. You who raised your voice and hurt someone’s feelings; you who sent an email that was unwise to send; you who stood by while someone did a bad thing; you who turned away from someone you love; you who have just started giving in to the dull drudgery of daily life in late winter; you, a sinner.
The shofar is sounding for me, too, of course. I am a sinner. I am in need of your prayers and God’s mercy as much as anyone else here.
If we sit still even longer, we can begin to hear that the shofar is not sounding for just one person. It is calling out to all of us, together.
We are sinners. This is the unhappy truth that we hear in the lonely call of the shofar, sounded for us in the words we just heard, proclaimed by the prophet Joel. We have sinned and fallen short. We have done things, and left other things undone. Sins have been committed on our behalf. Today is the day when we hear that shofar, and turn to follow it into a public square, into this public room right here, and assemble together before the throne of the One God.
It is hard for me to preach these words. They sound gloomy, and they proclaim a truth that is out of fashion in many of our churches. Long, long gone are the days when a preacher could pound the pulpit in righteous fervor, convicting the faithful of their sins and driving them to their knees in penitence. I don’t want to do that; I will not do that; please do not tolerate it if any preacher ever tries to do that.
But I do want to pick up the word “sinner,” and hold it in my hand. I want to show it to you, and let you look at it, turn it over, reflect on it. I want to invite you to wonder about it. We are many lovely things: we are created in God’s image; we are beautiful in all kinds of different ways; we each have gifts that make us unique and bring us together in joy and love; we are good and decent folks. God finds us delightful. And… we are sinners.
When we hold onto this word for a while, we might start to notice that it is not a bad word, or a swear word, or a dirty word. It is not a way to make ourselves feel ashamed. It is not a negative thing at all. Taking up the name “sinner” offers us a way to participate more deeply in God’s grace. It can lead to life being better, richer, lovelier, more merciful. It can take us deeper in our spiritual journey. It can be one of the things we carry in our backpacks as we wander through the wilderness toward Easter.
Here is how that works. If I harmed you, and then did nothing about it, that harm could become a problem that you may not easily be able to solve. You could do your work of acceptance about what happened: “Stephen hurt me,” you might say to yourself, “but I am not going to be imprisoned by this pain. I am going to do the work of acceptance, and move forward with my life.” That is possible. It may be the best choice you could make. If I am not sorry, then the work of acceptance is certainly better than offering me cheap forgiveness, or staying locked away in resentment and anger.
But if you simply did acceptance and I did not make amends, then it is unlikely that you and I would stay in close relationship. And there may be something hollow or sad about the whole thing, a lingering hard feeling, or a faint regret, or an unresolved frustration. Years from now, if you heard about me or saw me on social media, you might recall what I did that hurt you, and you would notice that though the wound is healed, there is a scar there. Maybe it tingles or itches when the weather changes.
But what if I come clean, and confess to you what I did, and truly apologize? And I mean a real apology. Not, “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.” Not, “I’m sorry you think I did that.” Not, “I’m sorry you’re so sensitive and touchy.” When I really apologize, I take full responsibility for my actions, and I express real remorse for them.
This gives you more options for what you want to do next. If I am willing to repair the damage I have done, then you could still choose not to engage with me about it. You could still stand apart from me, not seek further relationship with me, and do healthy acceptance work the same way you would have done had I not said anything at all. Or, you could allow me to help you by making amends. We could even develop our friendship beyond what it would have been had I not done something wrong.
Our faith is an ethical faith. That’s because God is ethical: God calls the human family into a serious moral arena. The prophet Joel’s shofar calls us together, and when we come together here, we become an assembly of conscience.
We may end up even better than we were before we sinned. A while back on our calendar, in Christmastime, we addressed God this way in one of our prayers: “O God,” we prayed, “who wonderfully created and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature…” Listen to that lovely language: God wonderfully created human nature. But God then yet more wonderfully restored human nature. We are better than we were before we sinned. Relationship repair, done right, makes us better than we were before.
Now, let us be careful with our theology. (One never knows when a seminary professor is listening in…) God does not need sin, let alone repentance and reconciliation, to do yet more wonderful things. Sin and evil are so little, so puny and petty, compared to the fiery God of Israel. But God is so great, and God’s mercy is so abundant in the universe, that even human sin becomes an occasion of grace, an occasion for God to bring order from chaos, and to re-create this good world.
Come, then, into this public square. Come and confess your sins, known and unknown. Confess them quietly and humbly, the way Jesus today bids us to do. Confess them alongside your neighbor, seated right next to you. By the power of God, all of the ashes of our sins will be kindled into a new fire of resurrection, a fire of new life that will blaze in our hearts forever.
***
Preached on Ash Wednesday at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, Virginia, February 26, 2020.
Joel 2:1-12, 12-17
Psalm 103:8-14
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-16, 16-21
Work consulted: Janis Abrahms Spring, How Can I Forgive You? The Courage to Forgive, the Freedom Not To.