February 21, 2007 – Ash Wednesday
There is a Web site called, “Post Secrets.” Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. The website wants people to reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before Some of the postcard are very simple things such as: I love dancing in the rain or You’re the prayer inside of me. Sometimes though the secrets are more intense then those two examples, sometimes they are about family dynamics or someone’s worst dream or even about a time when someone was raped. This website allows for people to post whatever they have been harboring inside of themselves sometimes for a while, with the hope to make a difference in someone’s life. This website gives the opportunity for people to empty themselves of something they have been holding in on the inside. They are able to get rid of something in their lives, which may have been impacting their relationship with others.
Today we begin our forty-day journey of emptying ourselves. We hear in the reading for today from second Corinthians Paul telling the church in Corinth that the servants of God have not placed anything in their way, which would hinder their ministry in Corinth. In this verse Paul has reminded the people of Corinth that the servants of God have tried not to put obstacles to block them in their journey with God. Instead, Paul and others have commended themselves in everyway to help develop and build other’s relationships with God. The people Paul is talking about are those who have endured through many things and no matter what they have been through they still are in relationship with God, even helping to build other’s relationship.
For the next forty days we are being called to empty ourselves, to take away the distractions we often place in our lives or even sometimes place in the lives of those around us. Paul has reminded us about those distractions we can sometimes place in front of ourselves is what keeps us from being reconciled with Christ. In the beginning of this reading Paul has pleaded with us to be reconciled with God. To spend time on our relationship with Christ, letting go of all those things we often put in our way of really becoming closer to God. Lent is a time for us to put the focus back on our relationship with God. It is a time for us to empty ourselves of those material things we have put our focus and priority on in our lives.
Lent is a quiet time for us to gather in prayer looking deep within ourselves for what we are missing in our lives. It is a time for us to look deep within our own relationships, questioning and pondering where do we have room to grow. For the next forty days we are challenged to spend time on reconciling our relationship with God. We are to take away those obstacles in our life, which often get the priority. Some of us will go for forty days without eating chocolate, gossiping, or even fasting on particular days. We will work for the next forty days to take those things we often put our focus on so that we may focus on our relationship with God. We are called to a new place, a new place of emptying ourselves so that we may fill that space within us with the love of God. So take time today to look deep within yourselves at what the obstacles are in your life that are keeping you from reconciling with Christ as we begin our Lenten journey with the Exhortation.
