Ash Wednesday

"Pam Stout has not always lived in fear of her government. She remembers her years working in federal housing programs, watching government lift struggling families with job training and education. She beams at the memory of helping a Vietnamese woman get into junior college.

"But all that was before the Great Recession and the bank bailouts, before her son lost his job and his house. Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated — even manufactured — by both parties to grab power." (The New York Times, Feb. 16, 2010)

There is said that one of the more interesting Chinese curses is, "May you live in interesting times." One look at the News on the TV or Internet; one phone call from a worried friend or relative who has lost their job, or who has given up finding a job after months of unemployment; and we can all agree that we live in interesting times. And part of that curse is to look for somebody, anybody to blame. If somebody can be held responsible, then we can build ourselves a map of how we get here. And then all we have to do is to turn around, and walk back in the direction of where we came.

Having somebody to blame is more comforting than the truth: That disasters of this magnitude were years in the making, spanning administrations of both parties. It is more comforting to construct a single chain of cause and effect, rather than confront the truth that if success has a thousand fathers, so in fact does failure. But to find a simple explanation, and a single villain, is easier for us to wrap our heads around, to gain control over, and to find comfort in.

That need for control and comfort lies behind our Old Testament reading. The people of Judah had returned to their country and holy city, Jerusalem, after decades of exile. But their joy proved all too brief. Nature abhors a vacuum. And their native land hadn't been empty for the past 70 years. Neighboring tribes and nations had moved to fill that vacuum. And they had no interest in making room for the returning Jews. In the years after their return, the people of Judah faced constant harassment from the other tribes in the area. Their holy city, Jerusalem, had been burned to the ground. And any efforts to rebuild its walls faced attacks from their enemies.

So they practiced self-denial, constantly. When we hear in tonight's reading, "we have fasted," it might be more accurate to say, "we have starved ourselves." They have starved, and borne the abrasive sackcloth. And yet they said, God has not seen them starving. God has taken no notice of their self-humbling. Isn't God supposed to respond when people fast, and beat their breasts and wear scratchy sackcloth?

God's response, through the prophet, responds that the only reason they starve themselves is to serve their own self-interest. What good is their fasting is they one day they fast, and another day they quarrel and point the accusing finger? The word for "point" in Hebrew comes from the word for "shoot." They fasted one day and shot accusing fingers at each other the next. Their self-denial was just another way to control God, to manipulate the Almighty into giving them what they wanted.

Yes, they were scared, vulnerable, beset by enemies, and unsure of their future in that land. So what were they to do while their fortress walls remained broken? Each of them were to be repairers of the breach. When one army besieged a city, they tried to create breaches in those walls through which they could flood into the city and destroy the inhabitants. At times like that, only the bravest and strongest could stand in the breach and hold off the invaders long enough for the defenders to prepare their defenses, or their counter-attacks. Those who stood in the breach were to give their lives for their people. Before the breach could be repaired, it had to be defended. So, those who died defending the breach were also repairers of the breach.

Jesus Christ stood in the breach between us and God. On days like this, we are reminded that the breach between us and God is more like a gulf. But Jesus Christ stood in that immense breach. He knew no sin, so he could stand with the God whom we rebel against and are alienated from. In Paul's words, he became sin so that he could stand with us on this side of the breach. He himself did not commit sin, but he identified with us sinners in every way imaginable, even unto the ultimate loss of control that is physical death. He did not try to manipulate his way out of death. He became as we are, in our fear and our powerlessness. He who knew no sin became sin, and so reconciled the sinners and the sinless One.

Jesus is always in the breach, always ready to repair it after we have tried to widen it. And he invites us to join him in that breach, as an agent of reconciliation. The breach is not a safe place to be. It is a place of uncertainty. It is a place of conflict and opposition, even death. But it is the only place where we also find eternal life.

I invite you this Lent to self-denial. I also invite you into the breach. Do not just give up soft drinks, or certain foods. Give up the search for easy answers. Give up the frantic attempt to change what you have no power to change. Give up the search for enemies to blame for our problems. Don't starve yourself this Lent. Instead, look for the places of conflict and oppression. For some of us, that place is going to be the St. Clair prison in March as we go in for a Kairos weekend. Pray that through us, Jesus will repair the breaches in the souls of those who God is leading to that special time. Seek out the breaches of the soul, yours and others'. Seek out the breaches on Sand Mountain, in Alabama, the United States, in Haiti.

I heard today that our Presiding Bishop and Haiti's Bishop agreed that there should no Lenten season in Haiti this year. Haiti has already experienced the terrible breach of Good Friday. Now we must help her people experience something of Resurrection. Lent is a time for stepping into the breach. But Lent is not about the breach. Lent is about stepping beyond that breach, into the joy and hope of Resurrection. I invite you into that breach.