Posted on 02/24/2007 1:25:19 PM PST by hiho hiho
To start, I note that Ash Wednesday marks our One Year Anniversary of attending Christ Church Hamilton Wenham, and our first year in Anglicanism generally. One year ago yesterday Sarah and came to XC (Christ Church), which was my very first liturgical anything. As I have noted here before, one of the elements that I found missing in my Christian experience up to that point was the mention of sin.
As I became more and more aware of my own sin, and, subsequently more aware of my ability to alter my actions, thoughts, and sinful desires, I longed to be a part of a body of Christians that were honest about this reality. Within the culture of many Charismatic churches, there is this theology that states, rather flatly, that if sin exists in your life, the Holy Spirit wouldn't use you, that your encounters with God would be fewer and farther between, and that to be in any kind of leadership, one had to have attained some level of freedom for sin (well, certain sins). We could talk about sin, but it was always in the context of getting it out of your life so that God could use you. While I think that the desire to get sin out of the life was right on, I felt like one had to jump through these holy hoops in order to make, to attain to some level of devoutness, where the HS would then fully use you, and you would then be that anointed leader, teacher, miracle worker, etc. What I began to discover was an innate dishonesty in the system. Sure, it was easy to point to things like sexual sin as those which needed to go. "God wont use you if you are looking at porn every night..." and so on, and so on. But what if one doesn't look at porn, and is spiritually proud of that abstinence? That's just as much a sin as looking at porn. Further, why is one motivated to not look at porn? Is it because one longs to be as devout as so and so, so that you can keep company with him or her as an equal. You can see were this line of thinking takes us.
Thus, when we stepped into the darkened sanctuary of XC, and heard over and over again the statement that all of us were sinners, that though redeemed by Christ, we yet struggle with sin, and that even in our attempts at righteousness and pious, we sin, all of this was fresh air to my soul. Yes, I am a sinner. Yes, I come a sinner, day in and day out, to the cross of Christ, and throw myself down on His mercy. And there is the point of all this talk of sin, really...the mercy of God--the love of God. His love and mercy are meaningless if sin is not part of the conversation. At the heart of all this recognition of our persevering sin is grace, sweet, wonderful, merciful, beautiful grace. When we read the Litany in the Ash Wednesday Service in the BCP, I was cut, for I saw before me a list of those things which I do, over and again, and I knew that I was no longer among those who hid their sin, but among those who knew of only one attitude: confession, contrition, repentance, and a humble dependence on God.
Last night was a reminder of all those things...that I am dust, only a man, and a man who needs God in everything. I am dust. Dust. Yet in my weakness, I am carried by Christ. He died for me while I was yet in my sin. Now, as I am no longer defined by it, I am still in need of His grace and mercy, His help, His aid. Here is praxis, here is how to live our Christian lives: humble submission and repentance, paired with a longing that our sin would not rule us, that our actions would please God, and that only through His help can we be holy as He is holy.
This one year marks one of the best years of our lives. We are growing (I hope) in the Lord, and we are hungry to do His will, and to live lives of quiet piety, not for the show, not for mere formalism, but in an attempt to respond to His grace, love and care. In the attempt to answer His imperatives in the Gospels, to follow Paul's teachings in his letters. My prayer is that this Lenten-tide will be one of genuine contrition and meditation on the reality of our lives, that we are selfish and proud, and that we care much less for the things of God than we ought. And, with the Lord's help, that we might do something about it.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen
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