Homecomings
In recent years, I have begun to receive invitations to my High School reunions. And with those invitations to reunions, I have experienced the mixed bag of emotions that goes along with it. For some people, going to reunions is an activity that is eagerly looked forward to. They want to see all their friends, they want to catch up with people and be caughten up with. For others, reunions are preceded by intense dieting, strenuous exercise programs, frantic calls to find a date, and generally just large amounts of stress. They worry about what people will think of them and whether or not they lived up the expectations others had for them. But my guess is that most people, experience a mixture of these emotions. There’s excitement to see how people are doing, and the chance to reconnect with old friends. But that is also mixed with a bit of nervousness, a bit of wanting to impress people with how far you’ve come in life and how much you’ve accomplished. Reunions are indeed a mixed bag of emotions
These various emotions associated with reunions and homecomings are due to the underlying process of rediscovery. As we are intentional about gathering together and seeking out one another, we find that time and circumstance has changed us. We have each become new and different people than we were years ago. We have learned and grown, made mistakes, been hurt, our passions and priorities have changed and we are only a shadow of our past selves.
When we change, our relationships also change. The change in us changes the way we perceive others. It changes the way we understand the world around us, and this new perception and understanding alters how we choose to interact with others. But we often don’t recognize this change in ourselves, because it is gradual and happens over time, so we don’t realize how much we’ve actually changed until we get together with someone we haven’t seen in awhile. And then we find that the process of rediscovering who they are, leads us to rediscovering who we are.
This process of rediscovery is what we are invited to during the season of lent. Lent is a time when we are invited to be intentional about rediscovering God and ourselves. In Joel we hear God’s earnestly invitation for us to come to a reunion, we hear God earnestly calling us home. Listen again to verse 13: Return to the Lord your God, for [God] is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relents from punishing. What a wonderful invitation to return to God, to come to a reunion with God.
When Joel spoke these words to the Israelites, there was a famine in the land. People were hurting, and hungry. Some scholars believe the Israelites must have sinned and brought this destruction upon themselves, that this destruction is actually punishment from God. Other scholars point to the lack of any direct accusation of sin in the text to suggest that the Israelites sin is not to blame for this famine. The debate is not whether or not the Isrealites sinned. The Israelites were sinful to be sure. We all are. We all have moments where we don’t live up to the standards God has set for us. The presence of sin in this situation is not in questions. Rather, the debate here is whether or not this destruction, this famine, is punishment from God for the Israelites’ sin. Some scholars say yes, others say no. We certainly have biblical support for both sides of the debate. And we have support for both sides of the debate in our own lives. We know that our own brokenness and hurtful actions have consequences, that we hurt ourselves and those around us when we act in inappropriate and selfish ways. But we also know that not all destruction can be contributed to the sins of people. Sometimes disaster strikes in our individual and corporate lives and we are left wondering what is to blame. And we know the bad things certainly do happen to good people.
I personally think it’s a good thing that the text is ambiguous about the cause of the famine. It allows this text to touch and speak to more people. Whether or not the people’s sin has accounted for the famine, God sees the hurt and hunger of the people. And God calls out to them, inviting them to rediscover who God is. Regardless of if you are experiencing the hurt and brokenness that sin causes in your life, or if you are hurting from things way beyond your control, God calls you and invites you to rediscover who God is. God hasn’t changed. God is still gracious and merciful. God is still slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God hasn’t changed but the people have. The Israelites are not the same as they were last year, and so God invited them to come home, to rediscover who God is.
Like the Israelites, we are not the same as we were last year. We have changed and so our understanding of God and our relationship with God has also changed, even though God is still the same. So each year we are invited to intentionally rediscover who God is. We start our journey in lent with reflecting on our current understanding of God, because it is through knowing God, that we come to know ourselves. It is in rediscovering God that we rediscover who we are called to be. And it is through relationship with God that we are able to come to terms with the tension between who we are and who we are called to be.
As a result, Lent is also a time to reflect on who we have become. We are asked to be honest with ourselves about the areas of our lives that have changed. And in light of our new understanding of God, we are asked to be honest with ourselves about what areas in our life we need to change. Because all of us still have growing to do, all of us are still trying to rediscover and live into the image of God within us.
So as we set out on our journey of rediscovery, we are given a physical sign, a physical reminder of our identity to help guide us in the process. We are marked with a cross of ashes. The ashes come from burning last year’s palm branches. On the one hand, they remind us of our own mortality. They remind us that we are formed by God from the dust and one day our bodies will return to dust. But the ashes also remind us how quickly our Palm Sunday praises fade into shouts of condemnation. They remind us that we still have sin in our lives. That we still act in ways that are contrary to what God wills for us.
But the ashes also help us remember our baptism. Like the water or oil that was used in your baptism, the ashes are placed in the sign of the cross on our foreheads. The ashes make the cross visible for us to be reminded that we have been incorporated into the body of Christ. The visible cross reminds us that we children of God and we have been incorporate in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This visible cross calls us to be continually striving to live more fully into the image of God within us. These ashes are for us a visible reminder of the tension between who we are and who we are called to be.
So tonight, and during these six-weeks of Lent, I invite you to intentionally come home. Return to God and rediscover who you are.
Amen.
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