The Honey Pot

A Homily for Ash Wednesday 2009, offered at St. Luke's Church in Westville, NJ

There’s an old Irish story about a mother who came to visit a fat priest to ask for help.
“I am in despair”, the old woman said. “My son spends all of our money on honey, which he eats straight from the pot. We are penniless. Please come and tell him to stop.”

Weeks passed and the priest did not come. The mother thought that the priest must have forgotten her request. So she went to see him again. As soon as she came through the door, she was amazed at the sight of him.

“You are so thin!” she exclaimed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I have given up buying honey and eating it from the pot,” the priest replied. “Now that I know that I can stop, I will come and tell your son to stop as well!”

Welcome, my friends, to a new Season of Lent! It might not seem very exciting right now, but I hope that we will all come to see this season as a time for re-birth and renewal, a time for spring cleaning of our spiritual house.

As this old Irish story suggests, it is difficult for us sinners to talk with others about sin. I myself can offer you no real insight into the process of becoming Christ-like. But by the grace of God I have been able to view a few clear glimpses of the truth of God, which I hope to pass along faithfully.

One of those is right here in Paul’s letter. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” You could spend a lifetime chewing on the deep truths of that text.

Can you imagine for a moment living a life like our Lord, without any personal experience of sin? Do you know that feeling inside, when you realize clearly that the decision you just made was the wrong decision?

If you had a chance to read the first chapter of our Lenten book by Frederica Matthewes-Green, you may remember her discussion of our common feelings of uneasiness, disappointment, loneliness.

I don’t know how anyone can live in this world without this sense of uneasiness. I mean, I think we all feel that something is wrong with the world. If you don’t, then I would be a bit worried. I would argue that it is a sign of health to recognize that something is wrong with the world and humankind as presently constituted. Because we have seen in Christ a vision of how life is meant to be, we then feel the distance between that vision and our present reality. When we draw near to God and experience God’s amazing love and goodness, then we know how weak and timid our love is by contrast.

It has always been the case that the closer to God a saint becomes, the more she is aware of her own brokenness. It is the great Saint Paul who called himself “the chief of sinners”, this coming from the one who had met Christ in person on the road to Damascus.

So that in him we might become…We might become. My friends, we have the chance to become something amazing. It will take hard work, there is no doubt. But commitment and hard work aligned with the power of the Holy Spirit is a life-changing combination.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That’s the whole story right there in one simple sentence. That’s all of it – the whole story. In this One, in this Messiah, we have the chance to become something greater than we ever dreamed! By constantly changing our direction, and claiming this grace available in Christ, we can change, and like the fat priest who ate too much honey, we can become a lamp-post pointing the way for others.

God has opened this door for our sake. Our Lord laid down his life for this. The Holy Spirit has come upon us for this very reason. So that we might live for God.

So let us make a fresh commitment tonight to this path of love, power and goodness with God. Amen.