The Freeze of Lent
by Daniel J. Webster

"I think it is safe to say Christians need never fear the commercialization of Ash Wednesday," writes the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor in her book, Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation. "Hallmark will never spend much money on research and design, and shopkeepers will not dress their windows in sackcloth and ashes. There is no apparent danger that repentance will ever catch on with the culture at large, especially since it does not sell all that well in church."

The Ash Wednesday liturgy does not draw a lot of people. Some of us don’t like to be reminded that one day we will return to dust. Some look back on Lent with disdain of rules about not eating certain foods. Some find the language of the Ash Wednesday service – about "acknowledging our wretchedness" and claiming to "have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb" – to be very negative and too far to one end of the sin spectrum.

"Bent as we are either on excusing sin or pounding it into the ground," Taylor writes, "it is no wonder that a third kind of church is so hard to find – not church-as-clinic nor church-as-courtroom, but church-as-community-of-transformation, where members are expected and supported to be about the business of new life."

Repentance and its modern meaning have been co-opted by the televangelists and street corner preachers who have emphasized the sinful side of humankind. The co-creative side, the side that God seems to have intended at creation, goes unpublicized and unpreached in too many church communities.

Repentance is what happened to nearly every person who encountered Jesus in the gospels. They changed the direction of their lives. They became more aware of the world around them. They became more willing to do something they had not been doing before the encounter with the person of Jesus.

Rev. Thomas Keating, OCSO, in one of his videotaped talks on centering prayer, discusses something of an epidemic of low self-esteem in our modern society. He refers to Psalm 22 in that talk, "I am a worm and no man," or as it has come to be characterized as "worm theology."

Ash Wednesday’s language can overemphasize that condition if we stay stuck there – frozen, if you will – in the first part of the service. The prayers that continue following the imposition of ashes include an extended confession. And then we actually call upon God to be open to us changing the direction of our lives:

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our
indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our
neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those
who differ from us,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of
concern for those who come after us,
Accept our repentance, Lord. (BCP, p.268)

Transformation is what Taylor is writing about. Transformation is what Keating is all about in his presentations on centering prayer. Transformation is what Matthew Fox teaches in his focus on creation spirituality.

"To refuse to use our creativity to transform with or to settle for superficial uses of our imagination and artistry–this would be a sin…," writes Fox in Original Blessing.

"A recovery of creation-centered spirituality will bring an excitement back to the adventure that faith was meant to be. It will invigorate lives of people and their institutions, awakening them to their spiritual potential," contends Fox.

It is Fox’s deeply-held belief that the traditional fall/redemption story of salvation is only part of a much bigger picture. He says the emphasis on that aspect of the story has led to a kind of "privatized salvation" where professed belief by an individual guarantees eternal life. His picture is much bigger and involves all of humankind who have the opportunity to participate in God’s continuing creation which for him at its core is justice.

He draws upon hundreds of people from throughout history to support his assertions calling it "a family tree of creation-centered spirituality." He relies heavily on writers of scripture, both Hebrew and New Testament. He draws from Merton, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Hildegarde of Bingen as well as Gandhi, Walter Brueggemann, and Krister Stendahl who Fox quotes: "It is important to revive and revitalize the biblical meaning of judgment (krisis) as that establishment of justice which by necessity means mercy for the wronged and loss for those who have too much."

Lent is about self-examination, prayer, fasting, self-denial as well as repentance. It is about looking at our lives. If we are not careful we may concentrate on the side of us that is like a frozen waterfall, going nowhere and doing very little.

But if we allow ourselves to move gradually toward the spring thaw that always comes as Lent moves into Holy Week, then we may be just like the water that was the dream of the prophet Amos:

"But let justice roll down like
   waters,
and righteousness like an
   everflowing stream." (NRSV, Amos 5:24)

The Rev. Daniel J. Webster is Director of Communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. A media producer with an extensive background in television and radio, he has served churches in Utah and California since his ordination to the clergy. Dan can be reached by email at dwebster@episcopal-ut.org