“Again”

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

It’s the first Sunday Lent again. Can you believe it? I feel like I’m back where I started – another socially distanced Lent preaching to a camera in an empty sanctuary. It was just over a year ago that our world changed overnight, and everything went virtual. I used to see you every week, and now it's been more than a year since I've seen some of your faces. We’ve done socially distanced Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, and Epiphany. And now here we are again, in Lent. This season has traditionally been about penance and fasting. It’s a season of abstaining from good things so that our hunger for them reminds us of our hunger for God’s goodness. In years past, I’ve given up TV, social media, or ice cream. Once I even went vegan. Those experiences of fasting were meaningful for me in a time when life was full and rich. Fasting from something helped transform my hunger for Easter morning into a hunger I could feel in my body. One year, my church in Seattle stopped doing the passing of the peace during Lent to add more time for silence and solitude during the service. It took me a while to realize how much I missed it, but by Easter morning, I was practically jumping around the sanctuary shaking hands and making eye contact with everyone around me. 

         But this year, we can’t exactly give up passing the peace, can we? We haven’t even shaken hands with anyone in a year, let alone given a hug to another church member on a Sunday morning. If you’re like me, this year does not feel like a year to give something up. So much has already been given up that I cling ever tighter to things that bring me joy. I’m not giving up ice cream this time.

         This Lent feels different, but it’s also a reminder that Lent was never just about fasting. It is not a season to put a religious sheen on a diet. It’s about something more. On Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis said, "Today we bow our heads to receive ashes. At the end of Lent, we'll bow lower to wash the feet of our siblings. Lent is a descent both inwards and towards others. It’s about realizing that salvation is not an ascent to glory, but a descent in love.”

         Lent may feel different this year than it has in years past, but it is not fundamentally different. It is the same season we have been through many times before. Throughout this Lenten season, you’ll see references to the theme, “Again & Again.” You’ll see it in the devotional booklets, the labyrinth, and scattered throughout the Sunday liturgies. It’s a theme that feels appropriate for a year that felt like Groundhog’s Day—repeating itself over and over again. During Lent this year, we are reminded that life does not move in a straight line but in cycles that come around again and again.

         Life, like the calendar, is a never-ending cycle of seasons. In her book, “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat During Difficult Times," author Katherine May describes how our life seasons can mirror the seasons of nature around us. She says, "wintering is a metaphor for those phases in our life when we feel frozen out or unable to take the next step." Does a winter season from your own life come to mind? Perhaps it was in the wake of a divorce, miscarriage, or death. Perhaps it was a season of depression or mental illness when the "simple" acts of carrying on with life all just seemed too much. Perhaps it was when you hit your “pandemic wall” when the difficulty of this year finally caught up to you. In our fast-paced, capitalist society, your worth is tied to what you can produce. We are told to be productive year-round—always improving, always growing our wealth, always being productive members of society. It's not just humans we expect this of. We expect our lawns to always be green and to have access to the same fruits and vegetables at the grocery store year-round as if they too are always meant to be producing. But no plant is in season all year long. And neither do you need to be.

         Nature is not nearly as resistant to winter as we are. Bears, hedgehogs, and even bumblebees spend the winter hibernating. They sleep for the better part of the winter months without any concern for productivity. They rest because to try to be productive when their world is covered in snow would be a waste of energy. Look at the trees outside your window. Do they have any leaves on them? Mine certainly don't. I finished raking those months ago. It's February now, so here in Ohio will still have three more months of barren trees showing no signs of life. They will not grow new leaves or flowers. And that is exactly what they are supposed to do right now. Just because we cannot see the signs of life doesn’t mean it isn’t there. In winter, it’s about what is happening out of sight, under the surface. The trees are not dead, they are just not producing. Not every season is supposed to be productive. Not every season is supposed to move us forward from good to better to best. Winters happen, and they are not something to fear or resist or triumph over. Winters are a season of rest and of gentleness when the world is harsh.

         Although after three weeks straight of freezing temperatures and snow on the ground, I certainly have a deep appreciation for what a winter of the soul looks like, the winters of your soul might not always mirror the actual winter around you. Katherine May describes a winter of her life that began on a blazing and beautiful September day when her husband fell suddenly ill. It can be isolating to go through your own winter season while the rest of the world carries on without noticing. 

She said, “It feels like everybody else is carrying on as normal and you’re the only one with this storm cloud over your head. It’s a very particular feeling because it brings up loads of emotions… not just sadness, but also a sense of paranoia, a sense of humiliation, a sense that we’ve uniquely failed. And actually, whenever you start talking to people about your own winterings, they start telling you about theirs, and you realize what huge community there could be if we talked about this in a different way.”

         Our soul's winters can be hard to endure, especially when the rest of the world doesn't notice. I think that Lent provides a unique time for us to "winter" together. To admit that life isn't always a linear path of achievement and excellence. Lent is a time to face the reality that we cannot go on producing and achieving day in and day out. At some point, for more than a few hours or an eked-out vacation, we must rest. Really rest. We must admit that we are exhausted and need time to recuperate because life itself is a chronic condition. In the midst of the winter of our soul, we need to practice extra kindness to ourselves. To let go of the expectations of clean houses, perfectly behaved children, impressive resumes, or the notion that we alone can change the world. 

         Throughout this last, frankly terrible year, I have often heard people say, "at least I don't have it as bad as so-and-so." And you know what? That is probably true. No matter who you are, there is someone is suffering worse than you are. They might be around the world or down the street, but yes, someone does have it worse than you do. But that doesn't mean that your pain and suffering are trivial or don't matter. Your pain is legitimate. Comparison is more than just the thief of joy—it can be the thief of lament as well. If your response to your own pain is to delegitimize it because someone has it worse, you rob yourself of the ability to lament and then to heal. Downplaying your hurt does nothing to help the hurt of others. It's fruitless and it is not what God wants for you or for anyone. You are allowed to through your own winter season without any comparison to the winters of others. You are allowed to say, “this is too hard and I don’t know how I will get through it.” 

         The thing about winters—snowy ones around us or painful ones within us—is that they come again and again. They cannot be avoided even by a yearly trip to Florida. But something else is also true—again and again, spring comes. It comes with fits and starts—a warm day where you plant your jalapeno seedlings is followed by May frost that kills them. Ask me how I know. But still, even with cold snaps and trees whose leaves seem like they never will come, spring finally arrives. Winter does not last forever in Narnia or Dayton or in the darkest nights of your soul.

         Author John Green told a story of his young daughter Alice proclaiming, during a long Indiana winter that “when it’s cold it feels like it will never be hot again and when it’s hot, it feels like it will never be cold again.” We are forgetful people. In the blink of an eye, we forget that the snow will not be on the ground forever. We will shed our winter coats and in the sweat of summer humidity, we will wonder if it will ever be cold again. Our tendency toward forgetfulness is precisely why we return to seasons of the church calendar every year. No matter how many times we have heard the stories, we need to be reminded. If this is a summer season for you, Lent is a reminder that life is fleeting and following Christ will cost you something. If this is a winter season, Lent reminds us that God does not abandon us in our suffering and pain. Lent reminds us that Jesus walks by our side all winter long. Lent reminds us that Easter will come. It may not come gently. Easter may come like a baby’s entrance into the world—with pain and tears and blood. But still, Easter is coming. 

         We are a forgetful people and so we need reminders that God will show up for us. In our scripture passage from Genesis, we are told that God made a covenant with Noah and his descendants and all creation. This covenant is with every living creature—the birds, the pets, and the wild animals. God is for all people and creatures. There are no exceptions or boundaries to God's love. But in the text, we also see that God knows our forgetful nature, and instead of chastising us and telling us that our forgetfulness makes us failures, God meets us right where we are at. God says, “you’re prone to forget! Here’s a sign that will show up when you least expect it! It will come at the intersection of storm clouds and sunshine it will remind you that I show up in difficult places too.” Again and again, God meets us in places that seem to complicated, contradictory, and fragile that we can scarcely find the words to name them. We are reminded of Jesus’ baptism, where God meets him at the edge of the wilderness, a vulnerable place for Jesus. Before he has does anything to “him worthy of God’s love” he is wrapped in God’s love and affection—“you are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It is not our actions that cause us to be claimed as God’s beloved. It is always within us.

         God meets us at the edge. God met Jesus at the edge of the wilderness. God met Noah at what seemed to be the edge world as he knew it. God meets us at the edge—the edge of our sanity, the edge of our breaking point, the edge of our winters. Again and again, God will meet us. 

         If you’re feeling forgetful or feeling unsure if God really will meet you this time, then look for the reminders. We show up to church or to prayer not because we always believe but because we need reminders of why we believed in the first place. It's why the labyrinth is a theme that will carry us throughout Lent. The labyrinth is a single path that winds around and around toward the center. We've created a labyrinth in the Pavilion for you to come to walk through each week of Lent. Hopefully, later weeks will be warmer than this one. The labyrinth won’t change, but you will. You will walk the same path each time you come and each time, you will have the opportunity to talk and walk with God. To remember our Emmanuel- God is with us. 

         In this long and let’s face it, isolating and barren season, remember that winter doesn’t forever. Again, spring will come. Again, Christ from the dead. And again, God will meet you just where you are at.