Lent

Our congregation commemorates and follows the traditional liturgical seasons of the church year.    And this past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday.   There’s always something striking about this service.   It’s pretty sobering to mark a person on their forehead with ash and say “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”  

Those are the words that God says to Adam in Genesis 3 as Adam is being kicked out of the Garden of Eden.   God has some words for each character involved in the whole “Forbidden-Fruit incident”.   To the serpent the Lord says something like: “You’ll be more cursed than cattle and wild beasts.   You’ll have to slither around on your belly from here on.”   Further, God places enmity between the serpent and the woman – and between all the offspring of both the serpent and the woman.             

Then God turns to Eve – “You will give birth in more pain now.  You shall bear children in pain.”  There’s more… that her “urge” shall be for her husband (is the meaning of this obvious, or does it mean something else?), and he shall rule over her.   ‘Nuff said.

Then God addresses Adam – and remember “Adam” is not a name but a condition.  “Adam” means “Earth-Person”, or “Person from/of the Earth”.    To Adam:   

“Cursed be the ground because of you; by toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life.   By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground – for from it you were taken.   For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”   

Always pretty powerful.   Especially so when marking the cross of ash on the foreheads of children.  

All of these 15 years of ministry, I feel like I’ve walked a line between stepping into and assuming part of a tradition that has already been developed, and “being my own person” in the middle of it.    I know some pastors who embrace the customs of the liturgical tradition; from the formal and ritualistic (what they call “high church” – incense, vestments, hand gestures during worship, etc.) to the customary (the black clerical shirts with the white collar).   And I happen to know pastors who pointedly try to avoid the traditional customs as much as possible – by NOT wearing the black shirt, or not wearing vestments on Sunday morning.  

Saying I have a love-hate relationship with the tradition is too strong.    It’s more that while I have an appreciation of the tradition – and tap into all the depth and meaning on many occasions, I also appreciate that I can walk a new path, and make sense of the world of faith and the Spirit in a way that speaks to me more uniquely.   My contrasting positions sit between the Easter service of the congregations I have served (and still serve), filled with joy and celebration as well as tradition… and the times I’ve presided over communion in a worship space up on a Montana hill in the Rocky Boy Chippewa-Cree reservation – or in their new Lutheran church building that’s only a decade old now.      

I love Easter celebrations!   The energy, the Spirit, the joy… can’t beat it.   There’s also more of the traditional elements as well – we tend to use the liturgy as found in  the “book”.   There’s more organ music that normal and I’ll often wear some of the formal attire – alb, chasuble, and stole.    

In Montana, if I led worship, I mostly wore a just a stole over jeans and a “nice” T-shirt or sweatshirt – mostly because I was there primarily as a summer worker on a mission trip.   Although I did follow the pattern of the service, I really enjoyed the freedom of being able to not only dress as I felt most comfortable, but speak and do as I felt most comfortable.    We didn’t do anything unrecognizable as Lutheran worshipers, but there was a freedom – there seemed to be less stricture.  Now granted I had the freedom that comes with being a visiting pastor there on a mission trip, but it seemed freeing to me none-the-less.   I learned in these experiences that there is something liberating about worship in the Spirit – of being in the moment enough to be able to go appropriately “off-script”, of learning to listen to the energy and Spirit of the moment in worship.       

 And yet… there’s something about tradition.   I remember years ago, in a former parish, I was in the office after church one Sunday talking with a few people – the church office seemed to turn into a place to congregate after church.  We were having a discussion about church-stuff – what’s important, etc.    I made the passing comment that what I wear, or how I wear it, on Sunday morning in the grand scheme isn’t really that important.  (This was not too many years after my first trip to the reservation.)   One of the women present responded that, yes they were important.   That comment has stayed with me over the years.    For some, the vestments and tradition and ritual speak to a different part of our hearts and souls.  

Now this congregation was, and still is, a very (emphasis font) traditional place on Sunday mornings.   There are candles, there’s bowing, there’s an order for what goes on the altar – when and how.   Perhaps I think my comment reflected my need to balance tradition with some degree of freedom from the tradition.   

Here in the church where I am now, it’s a very open place.   Sunday mornings are not constricting at all.    Now, there is a respect for tradition for sure, but there’s also present the liberty to walk to a different way; musically, liturgically, etc.      

Summers around here are pretty relaxed in the Sunday-morning-worship sense.   Prior to last summer, I did wear the alb (the tunic-like piece of clothing that goes over the clothes clergy wear to show up) for Sunday mornings.    But I like not wearing it sometimes – and summers are understandably like that; less formal, more relaxed.   So this past summer I got into the habit of not wearing my “habit”… sorry couldn’t help that.   What I mean to say is I stopped wearing my alb.   I’d preside over our Mass wearing a stole over my neck, in my black (usually) clergy shirt and a pair of dress pants and shoes.   Heck, sometimes I even wore jeans.    So, I suppose sorta traditional to some degree… but without the other clothing accoutrements of liturgical worship.   And it felt freeing!    It felt good that I could wear, or not wear, and either way seemed right.  

Well, summer ended and we came back to the more normal way in style and organization.   Except I didn’t go back to wearing the alb.   As summer was ending, it still didn’t feel right for me to go back to wearing my alb.   So I listened to this, and hadn’t worn it… until now.   

Ash Wednesday came, and it felt right to wear it again.    I felt like it was right to step back into the more liturgically appropriate attire.   Like it or not, what we wear says something about us.   I hadn’t stopped wearing the alb to make a statement, but my not wearing did in fact make one.    Not sure what it is yet… but there is one. 

Then comes Ash Wednesday…  the beginning of Lent; the season of introspection, of penitence, of self-reflection.    I wore my alb for that evening’s service.   It felt right.  It felt right to consciously step into the tradition again.    “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”    It felt right to take-on, to bear, to put on, the clothing of the tradition in a more conscious way.   As I’ve said at funerals before, sometimes when we as a community can’t find to words to say, when we might otherwise be fumbling to organize our thoughts, the tradition has formed them already.   They’ve been formed and forged over many, many dozens and dozens of generations of people experiencing pretty much the same things; joys, sorrows, births, deaths, growing up and growing old, and everything in between.   

I remember visiting an elderly woman in a nursing home many years ago.   She’d been struggling with Alzheimer’s for years up to that point.   What could we really talk about?  Not much.   I do remember I did say a few things, commenting on some pictures in the room… but she was pretty far gone cognitively, so things didn’t make much sense.    But before I left, I said I would pray – I stated praying the Lord’s Prayer.   I began, “Our Father, who art in heaven… “   and she picked up with me... “hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”   She said it all with me, by memory, no problems.    Sometimes the tradition helps us find the words, helps us find our place again, so to speak.       

It’s right to wear the alb again for this Lent.