Sermon: “Rend Your Hearts”

Text: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Ash Wednesday (B)

February 25, 2009

Scripture introduction.  Our reading for this evening is from the Old Testament prophet Joel.  The word of the Lord from the prophet begins with a shout of warning because a great army is approaching—more about that later.  Then the prophet tells the people what they need to do in light of the impending disaster.  One of the things is to declare a fast.  We Presbyterians don’t have a lot of experience with fasting, which probably brings to mind some of the practices of our Catholic brothers and sisters.  I remember that even in my public elementary and high schools, we always had fish sticks on Friday.  I wasn’t quite sure why; the only explanation was that it was because of the Catholics.  Now that the world has grown so much smaller, some of us might even think of the Muslim fasting during Ramadan, when the faithful neither eat nor drink from true dawn until sunset.  In Christian circles, with the publication of books by Richard Foster and others, the last twenty years or so have witnessed a re-birth of spiritual practices like fasting.  However, these practices generally are undertaken by individuals.  For example, Alan Harder and I have been working with someone who, as a spiritual discipline and as an aid to prayer, undertook to fast from any nourishment for forty days.  Last time I checked, she was at thirty days, and counting.

In Old Testament times, however, fasting was often a matter for the group, even the entire nation.  The priests would declare a holy fast in times of famine or pestilence or war.  The fasting might be accompanied by people tearing their clothes in a demonstration of dismay.  Then they would put on sackcloth—we would call it burlap—and cover themselves with ashes.  As the invading horde approaches Zion, the prophet calls for just such a fast, but also cautions the people that it cannot be an outward gesture only.  In our translation God tells the people to rend their hearts and not their clothing.  However, most interpreters agree that the intended meaning of the verse is that we should be rending both, or at least that outward expressions of penitence are useless unless it comes from our hearts.[1]  For the ancient Israelites, the heart was not the seat of emotion, but rather the place where intellect was centered.  Joel was telling the people that fasting and ashes were significant only if these practices accurately reflected their true thoughts. 

Sermon.  In my Old Testament course back in seminary, we students used a mnemonic device for remembering the central message of each of the twelve minor prophets.  Some clever student years before had made up new words to the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and instead of a “partridge in a pear tree” each prophet was given an object that was a clue to his message.  I can’t remember the words of the song any more, but I do remember the object associated with the prophet Joel.  It was locusts—yes—the insects.  For Joel warns of a vast swarm of locusts that would come upon the nation.  Perhaps in the Midwest we have a cultural memory of swarms of grasshoppers destroying whole fields of grain.  I have never experienced such a horde, but those who have say that their munching approach roars like crackling fire.[2]  And there is no way to stop it—not even with modern technology.  One may hope to hold off an invading army of humans, but there is no way to stop the onslaught of a swarm of locusts.  No wall or moat can protect the precious crops.  When they eat and move on, nothing is left but a “desolate wilderness.”[3]  The phenomenon gives meaning to the phrase “biblical in proportion.”  The ellipsis in our reading tonight eliminates the powerful poetry that details the pending assault of the marauding insects.  You might want to read it on your own at home. 

Beginning with verse twelve, Joel, quoting the Lord and also offering his own inspired prophecy, tells the people what they should do in light of the coming invasion.  “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.”  [Or, as we have noted, rend both.]  If you do, writes the prophet Joel, “Who knows?”  “Who knows whether [God] will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him.”[4]  I have mentioned in other sermons the Hebrew word—shuv, turn—that Joel uses here.  This word is at the heart of Old Testament prophecy.  The prophets tell us, “If you keep on doing what you are doing, bad things will happen to you; and do not expect that God will protect you.  However, if you shuv, if you turn from the way you are going, then “who knows?” God may also turn and come to our aid.

We can’t tell from the context of Joel just what it was the people were doing that displeased God.  In other books of prophecy the people’s sins are much clearer.  In a way, that makes the message stronger for us modern folk.  When the biblical prophets are too specific about the sins of the people, it’s easier for us to avoid the same criticism.  “Oh, well, I never have done that.  Surely, the prophet isn’t talking to me!”  But with Joel’s lack of specificity, we can supply our own sins.  And they are, literally, our own.  We own them.

Each of us has committed acts for which we need to repent.  We Presbyterians, perhaps as strongly as any other Christian denomination, have acknowledged the power of sin to infect even the most upright persons and the most charitable institutions.  No one is immune.  Thus, whether we fast or use ashes or give something else up, Lent is a time for searching self-examination—an occasion for us to admit to ourselves and before God the ways that we have fallen short of the ideals of Christian discipleship.  Even in upstanding congregations like our own, all the traditional sins are present—unfaithfulness to marriage vows and other promises, covetousness, bearing false witness, and even—perhaps especially—idolatry, that is, giving our highest loyalty and attention to things instead of to God.  Joel would say that as the ashes make their mark on our foreheads, our minds within should be naming those specific sins to ourselves, repenting of them, and resolving to put them behind us.

As modern Americans, we do not often consider an aspect of sin that would have been very familiar to the ancient Israelites, that is, corporate or collective sin.  I wonder, can we accept the fact that when we are members of groups that commit sins or that benefit from unjust systems, we share some of the guilt?  The children of Israel had no doubt about this.  That is why they had so many purity rituals.  If one person became impure, then that impurity could affect the entire group.  In that case, a sin offering was required for the group.  Let me give just one example of a corporate sin—racism.  Even if—unlikely as it seems—a person never committed an act of prejudice or looked down upon others because of their race, that same person may have received economic, educational, or other privileges because persons of other races were held back or disadvantaged.  If that person benefits from an unfair system—we might call it a system of white privilege—don’t they have some collective or corporate guilt in spite of their own innocent behavior?  Are they free simply to continue enjoying the benefits of the system, or do they have a responsibility to try to correct it? 

Lent is not only a time to examine our individual lives.  It is also an opportunity to evaluate the structures, systems, and institutions of which we are a part and ask whether collective repentance is called for.  Especially because Lent is a religious observance, we might begin by asking whether our church been guilty of wronging or oppressing anyone.  What about the companies we work in?  Or our economic system?  And what about our nation: we rightly associate ourselves with its many good qualities; do we also share in its sins?  If we are part of sinful systems, and I submit to you that we are, we may not always be able to change them.  But we can be honest about the effects—good and bad—of these systems and attempt to improve what we can.  In the meantime, we will be following long-standing biblical tradition if we add these collective sins to our Lenten meditations.  Groups need to repent—just like individuals.  And we can ask God’s forgiveness for the groups we are a part of.

Perhaps the most direct Lenten lesson we can draw from Joel is that our worship should be thoughtful and sincere.  We may not wear burlap clothing.  And our ashes will probably be gone before we go to bed tonight.  Most of us will not fast during this season.  But we still have religious rituals.  We come to church.  We serve on committees.  We sing in the choir.  Joel wants every act of worship to reflect our true devotion to God.  As we read in Deuteronomy, and as Jesus quoted approvingly, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”[5]  Of course, we all go through dry times spiritually when the very best thing we can do is to continue going through the motions of faith.  Faith often catches back up with us when we keep moving forward.  But in general, we might do well when we are getting up on Sunday morning to come to church—not drinking that extra cup of coffee we would like to have, not listening to “Meet the Press”—to ask ourselves just why we are doing it.  During Lent maybe we can begin to acknowledge explicitly that we worship because we need to, because on our own we are nothing, because we want to acknowledge God’s great goodness, because we want to follow Jesus.  The more we think about it, the more our religious practices will accurately reflect the true intentions of our minds.

Finally, we can take comfort in Joel’s insistence that God is not about locusts and punishment but really about love, forgiveness, and acceptance.  Yes, the gnawing danger of the locusts is ever-present, but so is God’s power and desire to deliver us.  “Rend your hearts and not your clothing.  Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”  Honestly, thoughtfully, during Lent and always, let us turn to God.  God is always turned toward us.