February 21, 2021 – First Sunday in Lent
What is self-examination?
What does your prayer life look like?
On Ash Wednesday (this past Wednesday), we began the season of Lent, a period of 40 days, not including Sundays, leading up to Easter Sunday. These forty days remind us of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted. They remind us of Jesus’ humanity. Traditionally, the season of Lent has also been a season of repentance — of turning towards God and away from the sin that can drag us down. For us, Lent can be a special time of the year when we focus on our humanity, devote some time to self-reflection, and practice turning towards Jesus, who waits for us on the cross on Good Friday. This Lent, I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the spiritual practices, or spiritual disciplines, that can help us to do these things as we seek to grab hold of the new life promised to us through Jesus at Easter.
The psalm appointed for Ash Wednesday is Psalm 51. If we want to grow in our relationship with God, it’s important to be honest both with God and with ourselves about where we are in our own lives. The psalmist does this in verse 6: “You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” As we grapple with our struggles, shortcomings, weaknesses, and failures (our sin), we can accept the forgiveness God offers (vv. 7, 9) and make changes to grow in faithfulness and happiness (vv. 6, 8, 10-12). This is where the spiritual discipline of self-examination comes in.
The writer of the psalm shows us some important aspects of self-examination. It’s easy to go to either extreme: denying any wrongdoing or avoiding thinking about it OR over-criticizing ourselves, punishing ourselves, and having low self-esteem. But the writer of Psalm 51 does neither. The writer is honest about his sin and brings it to God in confession, knowing that God is “steadfast in love” and “abundant in mercy” (v. 1).
The psalmist asks, too, for forgiveness. Hyssop was a plant used for sprinkling liquids to purify. The word translated as “purge” in the New Revised Standard Version literally means “unsin.” The writer is asking for his sin to be undone. But it isn’t just about forgiveness, about not being guilty, or avoiding punishment. Self-examination and repentance are starting points for transformation and growth in holiness and happiness.
And the psalmist knows that he needs God’s help to change and he prays for a clean heart, a new and right spirit, willingness to keep going, and wisdom. These are not things that we can give ourselves. It is not a one-time change. The practice of self-examination can help us see where we need to be asking for God’s continued help.
Today’s readings call us to become connected to God in new and exciting ways, and as we learn a rhythm of prayer – the breath of our Christian life – we do just that. Many times, when we gather, I am asked to say an opening or closing prayer, or to pray over the food that we are to eat. But how often do we pray outside of meals or church? And how do we define prayer in our lives? When it comes to spiritual exercises like prayer – which we can certainly precede with self-examination to discern what it is we pray for – the more we do it, the stronger and healthier we become. Prayer is something that every one of us can do. We all deal – at one time or another – with being the “good” pray-er or the “bad” pray-er. But Scripture teaches us that the power of prayer is in praying honestly and that it ought to be a regular practice, rather than an as-needed event. It isn’t about getting it right, but rather developing our prayer life as a discipline.
As our faith deepens and we develop the exercise of prayer regularly in our daily lives, it can become second nature to us – as natural as breathing. The Holy Spirit is the breath of life, and when we develop this discipline more fully, the “spiritual breathing” comes to us more easily.
In Psalm 29 today, the psalmist writes: “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you… Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me” (vv. 1a, 3-4a). Putting our trust in God to let God show us the ways and teach the paths is prayer. God leads us in truth and teaches us, if we but ask. Even when our prayers don’t seem to flow how we want them to, if they are rooted in the Spirit, who hears our heart and our faith and not just our words, then they connect us to God in fellowship.
Sometimes our human desires don’t fall in line with God’s will. You might remember Jesus praying in the garden in Gethsemane, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Mt 26:39). It is okay to express our pain and our desires to God, but part of growing in prayer is recognizing that at times, God’s will for our lives may not be the same as ours. Matthew’s Gospel goes on to finish that quote from Jesus as saying, “Yet not what I want but what you want.”
Prayer is not a one-way talk to God; it is a conversation with God that goes both ways. We listen, learn, and become receptive to God’s will for us as we pray. We can be intentional about asking and listening for this. And as we grow in our life of devotion and meditation, we can become more open to understanding the heart of God.
As I preach for the next five Sundays, I’ll be finishing with some questions. Most of the questions will focus on your personal practice, but I’ll always end with a question to start probing how this might look in our community. If you want these written down for you, they’re on the sermons page on our website, and they’re also displayed on the screen for you to read as I am preaching. Here are this week’s questions for you to ponder as you try on a new spiritual discipline:
- How do we make sure that we are committing to growing our prayer lives?
- What would it be like if prayer became an ongoing conversation for us and not just something we do every so often?
- Are you making daily space in your life for prayer and listening to God?
- What daily rhythm or practice can you do to begin practicing this more in your own life? Would an alarm set once a day to spend ONE minute praying to God help you?
- What does it look like for us as a community to begin helping one another to become dedicated and stronger in our prayer lives?