Ash Wednesday 2010

The Rev. Susan J. Latimer

Before my Freshman year of college, I had never been outside of the state of California. When I chose a college clear across country in the Northeast that changed very quickly. At Yale I sang in a new a cappella group called Redhot and Blue, named after a little-known (and rather bizarre) Cole Porter song.

Redhot and Blue was the first co-ed informal singing group at Yale, and we quickly became well known. We sang original arrangements of 30’s and 40’s music, mostly – things like “Two Sleepy People” and “42nd street”.

By my sophomore year, all 18 of us went on tour from New Haven down the East Coast. We had our base in Georgetown, right next to D. C.

We toured during our spring break – all two weeks of it – which was always in March.

Of course, that meant that the entire tour occurred during something else that always happens in March – Lent.
That year, I decided to give up sweets for Lent. One other person in the group decided to give up sweets as well.
No one else was giving up anything, for any reason, as far as I could tell – in fact, the most of them were more into the excesses of everything that college students might get into. I’m not telling any tales!

It was all well and good for me to give up sweets, except that when we were on tour, we often sang for our supper at places with really fine food.

We sang at the National Press Club. We sang for groups at country clubs and other exclusive places that most of us would never have seen the inside of in any other way.

And everywhere we went, we were fed.
Really really good expensive food – and really really tempting desserts – every day.
I’m not sure how, but I actually managed to avoid all desserts that Lent. By Easter I was several pounds lighter than I had been, and certainly than I would have been. I felt good about myself and quite self-satisfied.

Several years later, in an unhappy and difficult period in my life, Lent came around again.
This time, I thought, I will give up something else.
Sweets were really easy for me to give up, after all.

So after some careful thought,
I decided to give up complaining for Lent.

After all, I thought, how hard can that be?

Well………let me tell you…..

Suffice it to say that I failed miserably.
I simply could not give up complaining, no matter how hard I tried.
I did keep trying, putting up a valiant effort for several weeks, and then I got so disgusted with myself that I just plain gave up.

But then, when I had completely given up, when I had apologized to God for my failure, something wonderful happened.
I felt closer to God in this failure than I ever had in the success of a dessert-free Lent.
When I let go of my illusion that I could completely control my life, by myself, I was set free to feel God’s amazing, unconditional love for me.

Last night Hunter Hall was full of food and folks – a wonderful party with scrumptious food and really really wonderful desserts!

And here we are, tonight, at the threshold of yet another Lent.

By coming here, tonight, you have begun the spiritual journey of Lent.

We enter Lent every year just as we are, with the trappings of whatever our life is like right now. If we have lived long enough, we have known failure – failure in love, failure in school or work, failure in relationships. If we have lived long enough, we have been wounded by others, and we have wounded others, by what we have done and by what we have left undone, whether we realize it or not.

It is those very failures and wounds, though, that can help us realize our need for God.
It is those very failures and wounds that can help us draw closer to God.

Martin Smith, former superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist,
says that what we are called to give up in Lent is control itself.

Perhaps, then, Lent is not so much about “discipline” as surrender. Perhaps Lent is more about letting go than about doing things “right”.
Perhaps Lent is meant to help us surrender to God,
so that we can experience the true freedom that God wants for us.

In a few minutes we will have our foreheads marked with ashes in the sign of the cross.

This Ash Wednesday service gives us all the chance to face our own mortality.