Lent through Joel 1: First things first, Christian, its all about the heart, all of it.

Yesterday (yes, I know...typical tardiness) was Ash Wednesday. Rather surprisingly, I was asked to preach at the Ashing service.

Well actually, I was asked to offer a short reflection.

So I really shouldn't have rolled my sleeves up (metaphorically) to do some actual investigation of the text. I chose to preach on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.

As I lay in bed this morning, contemplating the rest of Lent, I was struck that there really was so much I had wanted to say, but couldn't even hint at, let alone say.

So I've decided to try and extend my reflection on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 across the forty days of Lent. Each day I will explore, briefly, another aspect of this reading and what it might say to us as we journey through Lent.

So here goes...ready?

God doesn't want part of your heart, he wants it all. You are to be wholehearted.

As I lay awake in bed on Tuesday evening, having drafted my sermon, in those few moments before I drift off to sleep, and that's genuinely about a minute normally, I felt a prompt deep within me that I had "missed the point."

Sure, I'd noticed that God speaks directly, in the first person, only in verse 12 of Joel 2.

"Even now, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."

Now as it was Ash Wednesday two things had preoccupied me: the idea of a return, and the combination of prayer-aids (fasting/weeping/mourning). But it was as if God told me to re-read the sentence. I was planning on saying, "God wants your heart."

But that's not what it says - unfortunately.

That would have made the call very fitting for Valentine's Day. When so much money is spent by couples on gifts and meals, while constantly holding back some of their heart, awaiting a better option, another heart to pursue. (Not all I appreciate!)

It's easy to give some of your heart. To be part time, to offer some commitment.

But God is patiently asking for nothing less than all our hearts.

And that is why I need Lent.

There are parts of my heart I don't want to give God, sins I cherish and cling to, attitudes of self-righteousness that allow me to justify my moods and tempers. I even use some religious habits to protect me from really giving myself to God.

Lent then is the season of the year where we step into a wilderness, we try to wean ourselves off those things that seek to control or dominate. We acknowledge the things that have a piece of our heart.

I think Joel offers some insights into how we might do this. Perhaps you'll accompany me as we work through this call to return to God with all our hearts.

Moths and Ashes

So today is Ash Wednesday.

For the uninitiated this is the first day of Lent. It's an amusing scene in our house the few days before Lent starts. We often opt to give things up in Lent, which is an increasingly popular aspect of the season, even for non-Christians. As usual, we've decided to quit chocolate. To compensate we've not stopped eating it for the last week; Cadbury Creme Eggs mostly...but anything we can get our hands on. I've become especially partial to Malteser Bunnies. Not for another 40 days though...

Despite this, I have been growing increasingly worried that a chocolate fast rather misses the point. Why, after all, do we give anything up? And what good will it do?

One of the perks of my job is a degree of flexibility about working hours. As a result, I have visited Ilkley this morning, firstly for a coffee with a friend, but secondly to attend St Margaret's Communion Service with the imposition of ashes. This is a sombre service during which all present have a cross marked on their foreheads with ashes. The ashes are made by burning up the palm crosses from last year's Easter season.

The sermon was given by my friend, Chris Phillips. He too asked that we should all question our motives during Lent. And this was challenging, not least because his words uncovered some dangerous thinking I'd succumbed to about ashing.

You see, I'd always imagined that (a little like Good Friday walks of witness) by getting ash on my forehead it would be a natural conversation starter beyond the walls of the church. People might laugh or mistakenly advise me to wash better, but I would then be able to speak of my faith.

On the contrary, one Bible reading during the service stated clearly:

"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them" (Matthew 6:1)

It was pointed out that wandering around with ashes on my head, might, in fact, be a sign of religious pride. I might genuinely end up speaking of God, but how might my ego, my pride me stroked and inflated.

Ashes serve two purposes: they are a sign of penance, and a symbol of our mortality. Talk of signs and symbols is, of course, to speak of sacraments. But imposition of ashes is not a sacrament, but it is (as Chris pointed out) 'sacramental'. I may be doing something with commonplace objects (ashes) but the act speaks of a deeper reality, and by taking part I am reminded. As the ashes were imposed on my forehead, these words were spoken to me:

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ"

By submitting to this rite, we are reminded that we have sinned, that we have not been faithful to Christ. Admittedly we do this every time we say the words of the confession, so why is this any different? It is because we simultaneously reminded that we will die.

It is incredibly unfashionable to speak of death.

But Lent is a season that is about death: the death of Jesus, but also our own death.

And this was made all the more poignant during the service when one of the congregation, a beautiful old lady called Joyce, who was too infirm to walk and kneel at the altar rail, was administered to where she sat. Seeing a (relatively) youthful priest gently, but firmly impose the ashes on this elderly lady, while saying those words, nearly brought me to tears. How must it have felt, for Joyce, who is plainly closer to death than most, be reminded of her mortality, but also her sinfulness?!

How does it make you feel to be reminded that you are sinful and you will die?

Meanwhile, during the sermon, I noticed a butterfly, or perhaps it was a moth, fluttering about, over the gathered assembly. Amusingly, the Matthew reading had just referred to moths:
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth nor rust consumes...For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt 6:19-21)

As I studied the delicate butterfly/moth I smiled.

They are so fragile, but beautiful. They are so transitory too - their lives are brief.

And how much like them am I?

Our morning prayers contained these words from 1 Timothy: "We brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it" (1 Tim 6:6)

Our lives are so brief, so transitory.

But they can be things of beauty. The prayer of confession has us repent for 'marring your image in us'. When we sin, we somehow damage the person God designed and longs for us to be. We do this in so many small ways, without noticing. We fail to love God as we should and so our very image is damaged. We are caught up in the business of storing up treasure that will be eaten by moths!

And so much of our straining, labouring, toiling is about a false image we want to maintain, to try and keep people in the dark about who we really are.

Which rather brings me back to ashes.

I wanted people to see me with my little mucky cross on my head, not in order to evangelise, but in order to persuade people that I am better than I really am. I want to give up chocolate so that people will think I'm a better person than I am. It's all about posturing and pretending.

The reality of ashes was lost to me: I am grateful to have been reminded of my true nature.