Sermon for 2nd Lent
Not The Lent I Wanted
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
It was the Third Sunday in Lent, 2020, last year, that was the Sunday on which we began our online weekly worship services. We pulled that first service together just days before, just as everything was shutting down. Samantha, Jose, Jeremy, and I pulled it together with Evan White as our camera operator. We did it live on Facebook and then, with Maxine’s and Carolyn’s help, put that recording up on our congregation’s YouTube site.
Now nearly 60 online worship services later, yes, I said nearly 60 online worship services later, now nearly 60 online worship services later that first effort looks pretty “down and dirty,” as they say, but we were and are still proud of it, considering how quickly we were able to react.
Of course, last March we had no idea that we would still be offering worship online-only one year later, but that is the case. We seem to be, we are, in a Lenten season that has lasted for a year. With more Lent to come.
We pastors, we actually like Lent. A time of reflection, of pause, of remembering who and whose we are. We pastors, we actually like Lent.
We like Lent because it is a season that belongs to the church alone. Christmas, well, you know how commercial that holiday can be. Easter is better, but there is still that bunny and all of that candy and those eggs.
Lent, however, belongs to us Christians. No one wants to secularize it, or, if they tried, even could. The world is not much interested in a holiday, if you will, that marks the death of the savior of humankind.
Some folks try. Some years ago, I was part of a pre-screening of Mel Gibson’s then new film, “The Passion of the Christ.” Gibson was there to introduce his film, a tribute to his very conservative Roman Catholic faith. After the screening, I wrote a review that was picked up by many newspapers and even People Magazine in which I said the film was “the Gospels meet Ben Hur meets Braveheart.” It was and is not my favorite film about Jesus, not by a long shot.
As I said, the world is not much interested in a holiday that marks so much death.
Regardless, I usually like Lent because it gives us the opportunity, the excuse if you will, to slow down and reflect, to look both inward and outward and to evaluate our lives. As we say on Ash Wednesday, it is a time for us to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return, to try to reflect on what really is or should be important in our lives. To refocus ourselves on what is or should be important in our lives.
However, I never imagined, no one ever imagined that we would be in the midst of a Lent that has lasted all year, a seemingly never-ending Lent. A seemingly never-ending Lent with COVID-19 deaths now topping 500,000 in the USA alone and economic destruction for individuals, families, businesses and even nations. There are literally ashes everywhere.
You may have seen an article in the Los Angeles Times a week or two ago, an article about Diego Pablo who is the long time and now overworked cremation supervisor at the Hollywood Forever cemetery here in Los Angeles. I was reminded of this article by a Lenten reflection written by Pastor Angela Denker, a reflection which helped me greatly with this sermon.
According to Brittny Mejia’s story in the LA Times, Diego Pablo had long worked alone at the Hollywood Forever crematorium, burning bodies into ashes for grieving families. However, there are so many bodies to burn this year with the devastation of COVID-19, so many bodies that the cemetery has had to add a second crematory worker to help burn the bodies.
The article notes that, unlike too many Americans, Pablo has excellent job security these days in the midst of a pandemic. He is not a first responder, but certainly a “last responder” to this terrible disease. And, like the first responders and others who are employed to clean up after others more privileged than themselves, Pablo cannot take a vacation or get away from this important work. Instead, he lives with the pandemic’s toll each day.
Not long ago, Pablo contracted the virus himself, perhaps not surprising considering his work. The virus spread through the apartment he shares with his two cousins. Pablo survived but not without a lot of heartache.
Pablo told the LA Times that, after contracting the virus, he thought it might help him feel the pain and tears of the families whose loved ones he is cremating. Instead, Pablo notes that “nothing comes out. I feel nothing. Sometimes I worry that I have a hard heart. A cold heart. I think that is what has helped me do this job for so long.”
Pablo and his new assistant cremated 58 people in January, up from just 17 last January. A nearby crematorium had to shut down temporarily because their constant burning violated California clean air restrictions, even though those restrictions have been temporarily somewhat lifted to allow for more cremations. Another mortuary stopped allowing family members to observe cremations – it just took too much extra time, there are just too many bodies and so many ashes. The fire of death rages and it is no surprise that becoming cold and hard to death is the way Pablo must cope with his important work.
So, Pablo keeps working with his heart alternatively breaking open and snapping shut. There are just so many deaths, so many ashes. There is work and bills and food and rent. Life these days.
Thus, this Lent, this year-long Lent, is so different from past Lents in our lives. Lent is usually at least an annual reminder of our own mortality. This year we need no such reminder. Death surrounds us, haunts us, dwells in the bodies of those first and last responders who guard our days.
This is just the way it has been for nearly a year now. We live in the ever-present shadow of a global pandemic. And this pandemic has spawned so much more – violence, tension, political upheaval, distrust, depression, suicide. And, on top of all of this, in the midst of all of this, the twin crises of climate and racism have really come home to us across the USA and around the world.
This is not the Lent I wanted. This is not the Lent any of us wanted. Like so many of you, I long for some return to what I remember as “normal.” When we can gather in-person again for worship. When schools and jobs can reopen safely. When extended families can gather again in person. When we can travel, eat indoors in a restaurant. When we might feel safe again. So many things we long for.
And yet, perhaps, this is the Lent I needed, the Lent we all needed. A time to be in solidarity with Pablo and the millions of others who have lived in the shadow of death for so long.
This year Lent is about God’s unimaginable ability to pull life out of death, God’s unimaginable ability to pull life out of death, creation out of dust, green buds from brittle branches, forgiveness out of anger and fear.
Lent this year is about the gift of hope.
We already know, we are assured, that God can embrace the imperfect you and me. This year, in a Lent coupled with too many ashes and too many deaths, the gift of hope is that God still dwells in our midst. In the acknowledgement of suffering, death and pain, God is glorified. In the cross of Jesus Christ, our ashes, the ashes of loved ones long dead and newly lost, in the cross of Jesus Christ our ashes merge with the promise of new life that rises from the cremains of our lives.
This is not the Lent I wanted. This is not the Lent we wanted. This is the Lent we have received. It is the Lent of a God who walked himself to death and grief and pain and shame, refusing to avert his eyes so that when I enter into grief and death myself, when we enter into grief and death ourselves, we find God right next to us.
This is the Lent we did not want. But it is the Lent we have. And it is the Lent we all need. It is the Lent of God’s unimaginable ability to pull life out of death, creation out of dust, green buds from brittle branches, forgiveness out of anger and fear. It is the Lent of hope. It is the Lent of God always right next to us. It is the Lent we need.
God is right next to us this Lent, this year, always.
Amen.
(Adapted by a reflection by the Rev. Angela Denker)
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
February 28, 2021
