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"Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me,
Philip?" (John 14:9) So Jesus responded to Philip's question
about wanting to know and sense the presence of God.
It is a good question for all of us as we once again make our
Lenten journey to Easter. How would you answer if asked to share
your thoughts about God? What thoughts come to mind when we think
about God? Do we take the time to think about God? Do we believe
there is a God? Are we more confident this year than last, that
there is a God who knows and is concerned about us? Does our
belief in God make any difference in our lifestyles?
Amid the many, busy and distracting events of our lives, the
quiet hours of Lenten worship are certainly needed. It is a
needed time for solitude, for reflection and meditation as we
journey through our particular wilderness to Easter. Yes, to look
at how we are doing and why; yes, to evaluate our relationship
with God. Lent is that traditional time of the year when we are
urged to probe into the deeper corners of our being. Lent is a
time "to be still and know that I am God."
But one would hope that our quiet time with God would have
some explosive results. Our journey to Easter should not be all
peace and tranquility:

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Lent is a season for crash helmets. It is a season for deep self-
examination, intense emotion, purging the soul and reorienting
life by discovering anew not only what sort of power it is "we so
blithely invoke," but also about the dark powers which are at
work in human experience. Lent began as a time when candidates
for baptism would like gladiators preparing for battle,
discipline themselves for the spiritual warfare ahead.1

This year we are making our pilgrimage to Easter through
readings from the Old Testament. Most of these readings are
centered on or around the "covenant" that God made with Israel. A
covenant is an agreement or contract that God initiates. Through
the covenant, God speaks and the people of the covenant listen.
It is because God has spoken that we know what God wants.
Covenant thinking directs our thought to God and what God has
done for us and what God expects from us. To have our thoughts
directed to God, to listen to God is more helpful than intense
navel gazing which can lead to the problem of our gospel reading
for today, and that is spiritual pride. But lifting our eyes and
seeing the faithful activity of God on our behalf can pull us out
of ourselves into more faithful, useful and joyful living.
We begin our Lenten journey with the prophet Joel. We know
very little about this prophet. Joel's book contains no calendar
references and it is completely silent about kings or empires.
Yet the style and content of the book would suggest that Joel is
one of the later prophets, probably living and working about 400
years B.C., during the time of the Persian Empire.
Chronologically (because of its late date) this is not the best
place to begin our Lenten sermons on the Old Testament. But with
its clear and ringing call for repentance, this book makes a good
spiritual entry point for the season of Lent. Because of this
clear and needed call to repentance, many Christian denominations
are hearing this text at their Ash Wednesday services.
The book of Joel is filled with references to a great and
destructive plague of locusts. He paints a picture of utter

destruction that is left by these hungry pests. They come in huge
clouds, sweeping over the whole land, and making gardens and
fields like a desert.

Fire devours before them,
and behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden
before them,
but after them a desolate wilderness,
and nothing escapes them ... (2:3)

The prophet saw in this terrible calamity a forewarning of the
coming day of judgment, the day of the Lord. Disasters of this
magnitude have a theological meaning for this prophet of God. It
is not just nature speaking, but the God above and behind nature.
In this terrible locust invasion the people of God are being
warned about the seriousness of their situation. This prophet
sees calamities as a vivid reminder to return to God in
repentance.
Joel follows in the time-honored tradition of the prophets of
old. Take Amos, for example, when he preached this warning to his
people:

"I gave you cleanness of teeth in
all your cities
and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,"
says the Lord.
"And I also withheld the rain from you
when there were yet three
months to the harvest;
I would send rain upon another city;
one field would be rained upon,
and the field on which it did not rain withered;
so two or three cities wandered to one city
to drink water, and were not satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,"
says the Lord. (4:6-8)

In our text for this Ash Wednesday worship, we read the call
to repentance in these words:

"Yet even now," says the Lord,
"return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments." (vv. 12-13)

The consistent message of all scripture is that the only way to
escape God's judgment is through repentance.
Fasting, weeping and mourning were the usual expressions of
repentance, but they became a pious performance rather than "a
broken and a contrite heart." (Psalm 51:17) And so the dramatic
call, "rend your hearts and not your garments."
"Heart" in Hebrew understanding has more to do with one's will
than one's affections. To "rend the heart" is the call to change.
It is a strong exhortation to subdue the will. The "tearing of
garments" was part of the usual ritual for mourning. (2 Samuel
1:11) It was a visible expression of grief and subject to misuse.
"Look how sorry I am!" "Rending one's garments" is a way of
repenting loudly so all people can see what great "repenters" we
are. It is repentance growing out of pride. Both our Old and New
Testament lessons for today speak against a repentance for show.
Of course, it is also easy to "rend one's garments." We can
pray and fast and give up things for Lent. We can for a period of
six weeks even show compassion for the poor and maybe increase
our contributions. But frequently these efforts are only skin
deep and once again the result is a kind of cosmetic piety
whereby we fool others and maybe even ourselves.
But how can we "rend our hearts?" How can we change our way of
thinking? How can we change the direction of our lives? How can
we change our basic attitude, the orientation of our lives? That
is what true repentance is about and that is what it means to
"rend our hearts."
The old story is told of the Sunday school teacher who asked
her class of boys, "What must we do to receive the

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forgiveness of sin?" One of her boys replied, "Well, first you
must sin!" Here is one of the big hurdles for the spirit of true
repentance and that is our need for it. The concept of sin does
not have much going for it in our modern climate and its
idolatrous desire for self-affirmation. We may have made some
mistakes or bad decisions because we were wrongly positioned in
our family, but surely these little things couldn't separate one
from God?
Several years ago the country was caught up in the drama of an
18-month-old girl being trapped in a deep and narrow abandoned
well. For three days the country watched and waited as television
crews in pictures and words reported this race with death. But
finally the second shaft was finished and the little girl was
saved -- cold and hurt -- but alive. And the nation, with parents
and rescuers wept with joy.
However, a few months later much of this good will and joy
changed into envy, hate, greed and suspicion. Movie people came
to the little Texas town and groups began to fight among
themselves as to how the story should be told and who was to get
the credit and receive the profits.
Such is the power of sin. That sin is original in us is not a
popular idea. I would much rather deal with my sinful activities
than a sinful "me." But the truth of the matter is that I am not
sinful because I do bad things, but I do bad things because "by
nature I am sinful and unclean."
One of the most vivid and persuasive examples of sin in our
century is the Holocaust. Here sin was engaged in the
unbelievable task of destroying the people of God. It is easy to
focus on the demon Hitler, but the truth is that most of the
world was involved. Hatred for the Jews has been around for a
long, long time and we Christians are guilty of promoting and
feeding these fears and suspicions.
We read in Elie Wiesel's novel, The Oath, these words, "With
every approaching Easter, the Jews tremble." Robert McAfee Brown,
professor emeritus at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley,
California, makes these comments concerning Wiesel's observation:

"Why? Because as Good Friday and Easter approach, Christians have
frequently taken up cudgels against Jews, holding them
responsible for Jesus' death, and feeling called upon to avenge
that death by killing Jews. Persecutions, pogroms, forced
conversions, mob violence, burning of ghettos -- all of the tools
of the anti-Semitic trade have historically been given license
for expression the closer the Christian year gets to Easter.
'Born in suffering,' Wiesel writes elsewhere, 'Christianity
became a source and pretext of suffering to others.' "2

The Holocaust insanity was accomplished by well-educated
people growing up in a well-endowed cultural, technological and
Christian environment. And even more frightening, the world found
many reasons to turn its back on this insane event.
Such is the power of our fallen nature. We look for
scapegoats. The presence of sin enables us to take credit for our
own success and comfort because we are "better" people, and to
blame poverty and suffering on the lazy, sinful victims. We look
for evil in other people and in other nations, all the time
ignoring the beam in our own eyes. We know that the Bible tells
us "that all have sinned," but we all know that there are
differences in sinners. We are not as bad as most!
Do we need to be reminded of Isaiah's admonition, "I am a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips)" (6:5) Do we need to be reminded that when it comes to
sinners, the Bible has two basic distinctions -- repentant, or
unrepentant?
Repentance is coming to our senses like the prodigal son and
seeing ourselves as we really are -- warts and all. Repentance is
facing up to the powerful desires within us to deceive -- to
deceive others and ourselves.
But repentance is not only recognition, it is also
repudiation. I like the insight by the old revivalist, Gypsy
Smith, who said that the difference between conversion and
repentance is the difference between waking up and getting up!
Frequently getting caught will produce feelings of remorse,
anguish, regret and sorrow, but unhappiness is not repentance.

Genuine repentance means that the direction of our lives has
changed. It means we have come to our senses and we arise and
return to our God. We ourselves must be changed!
And we can't do this on our own. We can "rend our garments,
but not our hearts." Our bonds of captivity are too strong to
break on our own. In our sin, we simply do not have the power to
direct our own repentance. Power to repent comes from God's
decision to save. I doubt very much if the prodigal son would
have gone home to an elder brother, but going home to a loving
father is an altogether different matter. The relationship of
love makes all the difference.
So also with the people of Israel. Their prophet Joel not only
tells them to "rend your hearts and not your garments" but goes
on to say:

Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and repents of evil. (v. 13)

The people of God were reminded of their history, a history of
their faithful, loving God. A God who called them into a covenant
relationship. A God who patiently put up with their whining and
complaining unfaithfulness. Yes, that is their history -- the
history of steadfast love continuing to love a stiff-necked and
stubborn people. God is not against a sinful people. Rather,
God's vision and purpose is one of mercy and promise.
God is not a harsh judge looking and waiting for us to make
mistakes and then pounce on us. Joel's God is a God of mercy.
Jesus' God is one of compassion and mercy. Sometimes the message
of Lent and Easter can come across as though the cross was
erected on Calvary to please God. But this is a pagan idea.
Christ was not nailed to the cross to change God's heart, rather
it was just the other way around. The cross is there because "God
was in Christ reconciling us into himself."

The Calvary event happened because "God so loved the world, he
sent his Son."
Here is power to change the direction of our lives. Here is
power to grow in faith. The history of the people of God and our
own history warns us not to underestimate the power of sin in our
lives. In Matthew's gospel the warning is given so all can
understand it, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart
be also." My life will follow that which I believe to be the most
important. This warning needs to be heeded, but it would be even
more disastrous to push God out of our history and our lives and
ignore God's power to change us. God's love can pull us out of
ourselves. God's love can become our "treasure." In the
relationship there is power to change.
We do not have to stay the way we are.

1-The Editors, "Forward," Journal for Preachers, (Lent, 1986, p.
1).

2-Robert McAfee Brown, "Jewish Contributions to a Christian Lent:
The Impact of Elie Wiesel," Perspectives, (Feb. 1986, p. 4).