Scripture:
Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old,
nor will be again after them
in ages to come.
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.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for the Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
~Joel 2:1-2, 12-13
We begin with the shrillest of voices. Blow the shofar, our text says, referring to the ritual ram’s horn used to announce the movements or victories of armies, or maybe the anointing of a king. Blow the shofar, the prophet insists, but not for any of those reasons. “The Day of the Lord” is coming, they announce. “Tremble.”
Following on verses describing an advancing army of locusts, who will run up walls, and darken the moon and the sun, is this threat: God will speak. The Lord will utter the divine voice, and it will be great and terrible—who, in the end, can endure it?
And after this terrifying vision, the voice calms. No longer shrill, it becomes the voice of a mother, entreating a child to be good.
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.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for God is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing. ~Joel 2:12-13
“Return to me.”
One of the hymns I grew up with had the lyrics,
Come back to me
with all your heart
Don’t let fear
keep us apart
In a few minutes you will hear me announce the Lenten disciplines, which, traditionally, are prayer, fasting from whatever it is in our lives that displaces God, and charitable giving—helping those who are in need.
But anything that’s called a “discipline” has always sounded a little like military school to me—strict rules, high standards, and uniform markers of excellence from person to person.
Funny, isn’t it, that the word discipline is, of course, related to the word, disciple, which we take to mean, a follower, an adherent. But the core meaning is really about learning. A disciple is a learner; think of the images you have seen throughout your life of people sitting at Jesus’ feet, as he teaches.
A discipline, is a practice that teaches us something.
I grew up, again, with the notion that we had to give up something for Lent. (Just as an aside, the hardest thing I ever “gave up” for Lent was wearing earrings. I will never do that again.) I don’t remember a description of exactly why we needed to do that, but I definitely got the feeling it was about pleasing God. That, if we didn’t manage to get through to Easter with our promise intact, that if we drank the soda or ate the cookies or had a beer, well, God would be very disappointed in us. I certainly can remember being disappointed in myself.
But I don’t think we adopt disciplines during Lent for God. I think we do it for ourselves. We do it to learn something about ourselves. To learn how it feels to leave a space in our lives—in our day, in our week—for God, one that goes beyond the familiar spaces we make for God in worship and service.
Someone has written, we adopt disciplines to “help us engage the reality of our need to be transformed.”
She continues, “Prayer, we have been told, is for the good of our souls, fasting for the good of our bodies, and almsgiving for the good of our neighbor.”
Come back, to me, pleads God. With all your heart. Have we wandered from God? We may not even be aware.
But God pleads, Come back to me. So, let us return.
Thanks be to God. Amen.