Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent

March 13, 2024

Invitatory

Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading:

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:

for our blindness to human need and suffering,

and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.

For all false judgments,

for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors,

and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us.

For our waste and pollution of your creation,

and our lack of concern for those who come after us.

Restore us, good Lord,

and let your anger depart from us;

Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,

That we may show forth your glory in the world.

Litany of Penitence: Ash Wednesday

“In the New Testament there is no single question put to Jesus which Jesus answers with an acceptance of the human either-or [of good and evil] that every such question implies. Every one of Jesus’ answers, to questions of his friends and enemies alike, leaves this either-or behind. Jesus demands that the knowledge of good and evil be overcome; He demands unity with God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Meditation - Peter Vanderveen

Has it ever occurred to you, when relating to someone how you spent your day, that, over and above your recounting of getting this or that task done, what you truly accomplished was “the work of salvation?”

Or, more bluntly, how would you react if someone announced that this was, in fact, the work of her day? Would you ask what, exactly, she meant by this? Or do you think you already know what “the work of salvation” is? It’s certainly not clear to me.

According to the Litany, salvation begins not in anything we ourselves can do but in God’s choosing to “restore” us. And again, it would be appropriate to ask what is meant by this. The answer that immediately follows is that our restoration is the result of God’s refusal to judge us – for anything, ever. And this should be startling because, with exhausting stubbornness, we just can’t seem to let go of the idea that God’s most basic function is, ultimately, to act as a judge. This, we presume, is what God must do because this is simply who God is; and, because this is so, the end resolution to all the world’s problems, which we depend on, is God’s act of rewarding some and punishing others.

If you doubt this, say anything to anyone about religion and watch how fast the topic of judgment comes up. Religious people, it is presumed, judge others because this is what being religious means. It’s a mode of being better than others. And a little bit of devotion, with a little bit of service, doing good, goes a long way toward earning a reward.

It’s easy to race through the Litany, then, as if it’s merely a prod to get us to do more better. But if you pay attention, this is not what it asks. Repentance isn’t a matter of getting things right or changing the world. It’s finding ways to be caring and attentive and charitable and merciful to whomever we encounter deep in the mix of all that is good and bad. For none of these traits demand judgment; they “overcome” it. And this is how we ask God to consider us – without anger.

In our time of ceaseless polemics, such restoration can reveal to us what salvation may truly be.

Prayer

You come to us, O Christ: you are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. All times and seasons are yours, and in you all things hold together and are brought to completion. Draw us by your Spirit into communion with you and one another and make us and all things whole and free in the full force of your deathless love.

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