Catechesis

Joining us tonight are the five members of this year’s Confirmation Class. There was a time in Christian history when these folks would have been called not "confirmands" but "catechumens." "Catechesis" is a Greek word meaning "teaching" or "instruction." Traditionally, the season of Lent was the time when those preparing to make a public profession of faith received intensive instruction in what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

I hope tonight’s liturgy is instructive. There won’t be a multiple choice test at the end, but it should tell us something about the nature of our faith in the Triune God. At the risk of giving you answers you could just as well discover for yourself, let me suggest some themes to consider.

First, our worship tonight reminds us that we are creatures. We were formed from the earth and to earth we shall return. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Like all the rest of creation, we are finite. God made us; we did not make ourselves.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but to many people today it’s not. Judging by the way many people behave, you get the idea that they think they are self-made, not God-made, and therefore accountable to no one but themselves. We need look no further than the "inconvenient truth" of global climate change to see what happens when creatures behave as though they are gods.

The ashes of Ash Wednesday remind us of who we are. "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." That word need not come to us as a rebuke. It’s simply a reminder of who and whose we are.

That’s the first thing: we’re creatures. "A little less than the angels," to be sure, but creatures nonetheless.

The second thing we can learn from tonight’s liturgy is that we’re sinners. That, too, shouldn’t come as any great surprise, but it’s worth mentioning, don’t you think? The litany of penitence we’re about to take part in provides a long list of particulars, but it hardly scratches the surface of our sinfulness.

Sin, after all, is not primarily about deeds, it’s about orientation. For the Apostle Paul especially, sin meant "rebellion against God." Individual "sins" – lying, stealing, cheating, gossiping, and all the rest – are but manifestations of a fundamental misalignment. Our lives are not "right with God." We fall short of God’s best hopes for us. We live in ways that break God’s heart.

When our own hearts are broken by someone else, we tend to lash out – to slam the door in the other’s face. "That’s the last time I’ll have anything to do with you," we shout, and off we go to lick our wounds and nurse a growing grudge.

But God doesn’t work that way. God is God, remember? We’re the creatures. When we break God’s heart, God reaches out. And that brings us to the third thing we can learn from tonight’s liturgy. The Gospel is all about the reconciliation that comes about not by our reaching out to God, but by God’s reaching out to us.

The Reformers of the 16^th century threw out Ash Wednesday and the entire season of Lent because they thought people were getting the wrong message from them. They feared that people had the idea that if they looked sorry enough, and gave up things they enjoyed for six whole weeks, God would forgive them and they’d be reconciled to God.

I had a friend in high school who always gave up the same thing for Lent: almond Hershey bars. She continued to eat plain Hershey bars, but never the ones with nuts. She was religious about that. That’s how silly things can get when we start thinking that, by our efforts, we can earn God’s forgiveness.

Lent is not so much about our seeking God as it is about God seeking us. Paul puts it this way in tonight’s Epistle reading, "I entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

For Paul to say that Christ "knew no sin" means that Christ was in perfect alignment with God. To say that "he made him to be sin" means that Christ experienced that misalignment, that estrangement from God that makes our lives such a misery. Christ’s death on the cross was the ultimate expression of God’s reaching out to us. Through the cross Christ we creatures, we sinful human beings, became "the righteousness of God."

In Christ, God is reconciling God’s self to the world – correcting the misalignment, opening the door that we have slammed in God’s face, bridging the gap between a sinful people and a righteous God.

Paul begs, entreats, beseeches the Corinthians to stop fighting amongst themselves and to reconciled to God. He pleads not on his behalf, but on behalf of Christ. "I entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

Reconciliation between us and God is possible only because God has made the first move. We cannot save ourselves through repentance. Repentance is our response to grace. Repentance doesn’t make grace possible; grace makes repentance possible.

The Lenten journey that starts tonight leads us to Jerusalem, where Jesus suffered and died on the cross, where he who knew no sin was made to be sin. It also leads to the waters of baptism, where we die with Christ and are raised to new life with him. The cross and the font – the two go together. To separate them is to miss the great mystery and the awful grace of the Gospel.

So, catechumens, take note. First, we are creatures. Second, we are sinners. Third, we are reconciled to God not through our efforts, but through the cross of Christ, which is God reaching out to us.

There is much more to learn, of course. But for that you have the rest of your lives.