Earlier this week, faithful all around the world gathered together to share in communion and to put on ashes at the start of Lent. Ash Wednesday is a unique observance in the course of the church year. We get ready to go to church, just like any Sunday, but when we leave, we display our faith on our faces. You might wonder when the tradition began, and you might wonder how this practice would profit us. It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. But not much does these days.

I don’t think I will ever need to cite a news article in order to remind you of the extreme polarization of our political discourse. There are some Americans who voice their support for an unprovoked, unfounded invasion by one country of another. They now insist Ukraine is the party to blame. Anti-authority sentiments around the country have fueled vaccine suspicions in half of our population. People resisted not only a vaccine to help us in the recent pandemic but are also increasingly skeptical about other vaccines, which fight measles, and the flu. Now they’re in charge of our health policies, and we are facing the worst flu season in a decade.

This new century’s cultural shifts, dysfunctional party system, and unparalleled wealth inequality have led individuals to question the conventional wisdom and to seek out alternatives – alternatives to the structures and institutions we have relied on for decades, alternatives to the alliances forged a hundred years ago, alternatives to partnerships and participation altogether. With so much change, it’s hard to make sense of it all. I don’t think our effort to make sense of things is limited to political discourse. I think we are each trying to make sense of our entire lives.

Making sense of things, getting a clear view of what one ought to do next, is what Jesus did at the start of his public ministry. Baptized in the River Jordan by John, a voice from the cloud thundered in approval of God’s Beloved, and the Spirit like a dove descended upon him, and Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. But he didn’t stay in the busyness of the crowd to form coalitions or to hear what might be expected of him. Led by the Holy Spirit, Jesus entered into the wilderness, for solitude, prayer, fasting, and determining what kind of life he would lead. He wanted to hear God more clearly, so he withdrew from the world.

For me, I’ve tended to feel God’s presence most keenly on long walks in the woods. I shared with you before how on a cold morning one year in seminary, I walked up the side of a mountain in the cloudy February silence. I was alone and planned to meet my friends a few miles south of me. My thoughts of term papers eased away as I took in the sound of nothing but the pricks of tiny icy snow flakes falling on the dry brown leaves all around me, and I stopped. I saw and felt a light snow swirl to the ground and noticed that it wrapped around me as if I were being hugged by a Giant’s hand. I stood preoccupied there until the snow stopped.

On that trail I was convinced that in that moment I was beheld by God and took up all God’s attention: God’s eyes were fastened on me. And all of sudden, I believed not just in my mind but in my heart in someone who loves each of us absolutely and pursues us beyond the world’s end. It was one of the clearest moments of hope that I have ever had.

And what about you? Where do you find your hope? Where in the world would you find hope and strength if all the world can disappoint you, fill you with fear, weigh you down with grief, flood you with sorrow and dismay? Where do you find your refuge from it all?

Do you mistakenly think that you’ll find renewal in the worldly treasures you and I seek? Has your treasure ever been a sense of control? Do you know someone who feels strong when she pushes others down, maybe not with fists but with words or with cold silences? Or maybe you know someone whose treasure is a substance, something addictive, like alcohol or drugs? Such treasures promise to numb our pain, to mask our insecurities, to quiet our anxieties, and to boost our confidence. But like moths and rust and thieves and disease, these treasures only end up destroying our lives and stealing our souls.

Or perhaps you know people whose treasure is actual treasure – money – which is sought and hoarded more than what any could argue is necessary, so much so that the rich are keeping resources from the poor, in order to satisfy their own desires. They evade and resist remitting funds to any cause that promises to heal and repair the world, (WHY?) because they imagine themselves better off without the poor, without the afflicted, the half-dead and destitute who have been beaten down by the ruthlessness of the people of this world and robbed of their freedom joy given them by God. To the rich I ask: While you feast and fatten yourself, do you look on, as others fail to feed their families? Or do you prefer to deny their existence and suffering altogether?

And in the end, do our so-called treasures help any of us to find lasting peace? Do we ever feel rested and content? Are we able to sleep at night? And do we wake each morning, grateful for another sunrise and hopeful for what we might be blessed to do with our hours of daylight? Do we feel inspired, as if God has breathed life into us for a purpose?

Or, like me, do you find you only have a short-lived peace, a fading joy, as you rush to cling more tightly to the treasures of this world? Do you follow your impulse to control others and your surroundings? Do you feed your addictions – now unmanageable and shameful? Do you gratify your greed, now paired with callousness toward the needs of others? And, do you find your habit of self-justification becoming more and more frantic, as you feel more compelled to defend your treasure-seeking as unavoidable, excusable, or at the very least, common? You’re not alone, after all. Everybody does it, all over the world, one year to the next.  

Lent is for leaving behind our treasures and our coping mechanisms, so that we can hear God speaking softly to us, and we can finally rely on the Source of all peace for our peace, the Provider of joy for our joy, the Light of hope for our hope. How can you listen more to what God is saying to you?

Perhaps you could set aside time in the week to practice paying attention to God’s presence.  If, like Jesus, the Holy Spirit were driving you, how would you rearrange your day so you might hear God’s prompting more clearly? Would you withdraw from the crowd of voices and opinions on televisions and computer screens clamoring for your attention? Would you unsubscribe from your podcasts, would you remove your news radio from your favorite stations, would you take a fast from social media updates, and would you program your tv channel guide to skip your network television news? Could you try to do that, for forty days?

How do you imagine you would you feel if you didn’t hear anything? I remember one day last fall, when I ventured out from my home and walked the trails around Camp Manidokan in Harper’s Ferry. I ventured to places I hadn’t been before, and as I walked by a narrow stream, I was surprised to discover the path grew steeper than I had imagined. I followed it for an hour and a half, meeting no other people on that walk. Eventually I found my way back to the camp, and at the end of the day I returned home, but I was disappointed for having failed to hear at all any word from God.

Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, maybe because he wanted to make sure he would know with clarity his purpose. For my part, I cleared a single day in my schedule for God to speak to me. What should I have expected? An epiphany? A revelation?

God doesn’t want our carefully measured portions of time, our scheduled piety, our distracted and divided attention. God wants us “to bring good news to the poor … to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:16-19). God wants us to commit the time needed to be part of such a world-changing movement – a universal transformation, which will occupy our attention not only for a day, or even 40 days, but which will demand our best effort until the end of our days. To live a life of love is the only thing worth doing.

With something of that scope before us, it’s easy to ignore the call and put it off until tomorrow. But how many tomorrows can we use up before it’s too late? This is the question we face each new morning, but especially at the beginning of Lent, with the imposition of ashes on our foreheads. It reminds us that we will never know how many more Christmases we have with loved ones. We will never know how many more chances we will have to say, “I’m sorry.” We will never know how many more cuddles with little ones we will be granted, or how many more mornings we will awake to see new mercies from our Creator.

Lent reminds us that we are promised nothing in advance – no warning, no countdown. Every minute matters, because we have been given power to heal and to restore, to repair and to uplift. And the promise for us in Lent, in entering the wilderness of our treacherous hearts and discerning what is of God and what is of our own ego, is that we do so with the Holy Spirit directing our path. The Holy Spirit leads us into the wilderness, and also through the wilderness. The Spirit, the presence of God around us and before us and behind us and within us, is the gift of God we receive, even before we are willing to open our eyes and see what’s inside us. 

It’s my prayer for you that you would know, not just in your head but in your heart, to seek God’s presence in order, if not to make sense of this world, then to make out what steps to take next, what small goals to pursue, and what values to uphold. Because this Lent, your lives will be changed just a little more, and your prayers will be answered even more than before, and you yourselves will be, more and more, a new creation.

So will you withdraw from the crowd this Lent? Will you unplug from the so-called purveyors of the news who hope to capture your attention and to monopolize your opinion? Will you, in the silence, for these forty days, listen for the One who irrefutably speaks truth to you, and to me, and who brings good news to all the world?

I pray you will.

Amen.