First Sunday in Lent
February 18, 2024
Psalm 25:1-9

Last Sunday morning, at 6:15, this brick was thrown through a window above the glass doors into Trinity Episcopal School. The window was shattered. Susanna, who is on our housekeeping staff, who unlocks the building on Sunday mornings, who turns on the lights, picks up our donuts, and makes our coffee; also had to clean up shards of glass in the hallway.

We know that it was at 6:15 in the morning because it was all captured on our security cameras. You can see the guy throw the brick, and apparently he misses the first time. So he comes back, picks the brick up again, and throws it a second time. Shattering that window. And not even through the door, but through the window above the door. It’s not like he was trying to break in and steal anything. Apparently, he just wanted to break something.

This obviously was a headache for the school and the church. The replacement window, made of safety glass, was not cheap. While the teachers and administrators ought to be focusing on teaching and education, instead they were dealing with police reports. All because of this brick and some guy who chunked it. 

But this brick also represents a theological and spiritual problem. Because I do not want to forgive the person who threw this brick even though, as a Christian, I know that I should. Especially being that it’s the First Sunday in Lent; the time given to us by the Church for introspection, for confession, for repentance. And yes, for forgiveness.

Over the next forty days, our time together at church will be more penitential as we unload to God; as we confess what we have done and what we have left undone. And when we make it to end, through the cross on Good Friday and to the empty on Easter Day, it will be as glorious as ever. I will put on my seersucker suit, and eat an undisclosed number of deviled eggs, and smell all the Easter lilies. Because it’s a celebration of the fact that, in Christ, we are forgiven. Just like our psalm from this morning said, “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.”

And that’s why this brick is a problem for me. I will take all the forgiveness I can get. But I have a real hard time forgiving. I want to catch that guy. I want to see him apologize to Susanna. I want him to pay for the new window. I want him to have to talk with those nervous parents and teachers. Right now, I don’t want forgiveness. I want retribution. 

And I’ve been doing this long enough to know what comes next. We now have safety glass. We’ll double check our cameras. We put better lights out on the lawn here. We’ll do all that stuff.

The same in our lives with Jesus. We can recite the Ten Commandments all day long. We can put up big statues of them on Broadway. During the season of Lent, I know many of us will give up chocolate and commit to saying our prayers and coming to church more. But more rules won’t save us. More rules won’t transform the human heart. Lent can be a classic example of “work avoidance.” When we check the boxes and go through the motions; instead of actually coming face to face with the teachings of Jesus.

So the problem is not really the brick, is it? The problem is the human heart. The problem is both the human heart that willed this brick to shatter that window; and the human heart that refuses to forgive. That is the power of sin in our lives.

Forgiveness is about the human heart; both the one who forgives and the one who offended. And that’s what makes it so hard for me. Because I wish there was a checklist, I wish there was an easy three step process to forgive. Lord knows, I tried this past week. But every time I look at this brick, I start seething. I want forgiveness for me; but not for him. Which only means that it’s my human heart that is yet to be transformed.

And I know that in the grand scheme things, this brick is small potatoes. After all, it is just a sermon illustration. I mean, there are people who have done terrible things to us and those whom we love; and because of those actions, our lives will never be the same. What do we say about mass violence at a Super Bowl victory parade, about gross negligence that causes death, about the taking of hostages and the bombing of civilians? We just had a shattered window that was repaired in a day. So what about the shattered lives, shattered countries, a shattered world? I want retribution.

So sometimes I wish that Jesus wasn’t so dreadfully inconvenient; as he teaches us to pray, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” 

The words we often skip over in that prayer are the important ones here – “our” and “us.” This is not a personal prayer. When I say that prayer, I am not asking for my little sins and offenses to go away; I’m not asking to help me forgive that guy who threw the brick. No, we are praying for something much bigger. We are praying for nothing less than the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying for a time in which all the crimes, horrors, and evils of humanities will be made right. We’re praying for heaven to come to earth.

This is the path of Lent. This is not just a 40 day personal journey to wellness. This is not about trying to do your New Years’ resolution that you failed at, but this time with a spiritual twist on it. No. This is about the journey to the cross when all the sins of humanity will be taken up by Jesus and offered to God in perfect sacrifice. Forgiveness – receiving it and giving it – is not about forgetting. It’s about remembering – remembering both the offense and the grace of God. That’s why we still have crosses in our churches. Because the ultimate sign of sin should not be forgotten, but that it should be remembered.

So what I’m having to learn this week, is yes, I need to pray that my sins are forgiven. Lord knows I’ve accumulated plenty of them. And I need to work on praying for the person who threw this brick. As I’m certain, that each of us in this room have something to work on; to forgive and to be forgiven. 

But I also need to pray about the deeper problem; that we are all beholden to the power of sin. I need to start praying for a world in which throwing a brick to smash a window is inconceivable. I need to start praying, and working for the kingdom of God in which there would be no need for the forgiveness of sins because there is true love among all people. Lent is not necessarily a sad, dreary time, it’s time to pray and work and get our hearts ready for the renewal of the world. It’s a time to confess our sins and shed our burdens, and yes, even to confess to God that we don’t want to forgive. So that more and more we live on earth as it is in heaven. “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.”

So whatever you do during Lent, I hope that it’s about more than just you. I pray that whatever you do during this season of Lent, to prepare for Easter, is about living in the kingdom of God here on earth.

And this brick. Well, I suppose it is police evidence now. But it is also evidence, like the cross, it is evidence of where we have been, and where we hope that God will take us. Both to be forgiven and to forgive. Evidence that the Lord’s compassion and love are everlasting.  

References

Wright, N. T. Christian Origins and the Question of God. 2: Jesus and the Victory of God. Nachdr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 271.