Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2014 | 12:10 p.m.

A Meditation for Ash Wednesday

Edwin Estevez
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 49
Genesis 3:19
Mark 1:14–18
2 Corinthians 5:20—6:2

What’s your prayer life like?

If it’s anything like mine, the words sporadic, inconsistent, underwhelming, falling asleep, too busy all come to mind.

In fact, as a pastor—or “paid Christian,” as our Pastor-Elect Shannon Kershner referred to clergy this past Sunday—most of my prayer seems to occur right in this Sanctuary and Fourth Church campus, thanks to my colleagues and our members who pray in our meetings and worship services.

Associate Pastor for Evangelism Hardy Kim and I are facilitating a prayer series with Young Adults on Sundays at 12:30 p.m., and many of their questions and challenges are my own: Is it okay to pray for a parking spot? Is it too bold of me to ask the God of all possibilities to divinely intervene and allow me to catch the 66, or the Blue Line train, or the last plane to San Diego? Actually, can I pray that God send me to San Diego?

Beyond some of these common questions in regards to prayer, my prayer life is challenged by two things. First, it is in the solitude and quiet of prayer where I must face my humanity and, by definition, my inevitable death. The Psalter lesson tells us the wise and the fool die together and leave their wealth to others.

Mortals they are, “like the animals that perish.” It’s the old “you can’t take it with you.” Lent is about facing our mortality, recognizing the truth of the Genesis passage in our lives: we are made out of dust, and to dust we shall return. Lent is about our lives being fragile and fleeting.

A prophetic and insightful voice, James Baldwin wrote in his Fire Next Time that “perhaps the whole root of our human trouble is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have.” In avoiding the question of our mortality, Baldwin argues, we sacrifice our beauty.

In prayer, I discover the secrets of my heart—my greatest pains and joys, dreams and sorrows, regrets, laments, and disappointments. I realize how many things I’d like to change about myself. I want to make my weaknesses disappear; I don’t want to be trapped by the same patterns, the same mistakes; I don’t want to be burdened by my past, paralyzed by my present, hopeless about my future. This requires that we forgive ourselves.

When we realize that we are dust and to dust we shall return, this isn’t simply a statement about our impending death, but also about our beauty—all of creation is made out of this dust, and God makes beautiful things out of dust. In this Lenten season, in your time of prayer, confront your mortality but also your beauty; as you seek forgiveness from God and others for the wrongs you have committed, also remember to forgive yourself and embrace your forgiveness--for you are wonderfully and beautifully made by God out of dust.

There is a second thing that challenges my prayer life and a second thing which I want you to walk away with today. My first challenge to prayer is in facing my humanity, my mortality; my second challenge is in facing God. Our Corinthians passage tells us “we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” The Reverend Dr. John Boyle, in a book he coauthored with defense attorney Jeanne Bishop, titled Forgiving God, identifies reconciliation as a two-way street in which we’re asked to honestly bring our questions, doubts, our anger and protest. In other words, as we seek forgiveness from God and reflect on our sinfulness during Lent—the ways we hurt and humiliate one another—I also encourage you to reflect on whether you need to forgive God.

I say this because I wonder, in the Mark passage where Jesus calls the disciples, saying “Follow me,” do they know what they’re getting themselves into? Probably not, or they might have said “no thanks.” No thanks to persecution, isolation, and death threats. At many points in their walk with Jesus, they must face disappointment. Jesus is not who they thought he’d be, who they wanted, who they imagined, or who they will always understand. They must have felt disappointed with God and even feel abandoned by God and cry out with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Can you identify with feeling disappointed with God? Perhaps you have felt abandoned by God; God hasn’t come through in the way you had hoped or answered prayer in the way you would have liked.

I challenge you, over this time of Lent, to reflect on those moments—the ones in which you’re disappointed in yourself, aware of your own mortality, and the ones in which you’re disappointed in God and wondering about God’s absence—and let go. Don’t invalidate anything or make less of it; just let go of your expectations, your disappointments, and your judgments and forgive yourself and forgive even God. Then we can go about the work of forgiving one another and can be surprised by the God we encounter. I pray that we all encounter the God beyond our expectations in this season of Lent. Amen.