Lenten Reflection for 2nd Sunday of Lent

A number of years ago, right around this time of year, I was heading off to work in the early morning and I approached the toll plaza at the entrance to the Mass Pike in Natick. Probably without thinking, I peered ahead trying to see which booth my favorite toll collector was in. I spotted him leaning out of his doorway with his inimitable style and I steered my car into his lane. I didn't know his name---- didn't really know anything about him other than that he was about the age of the students with whom I work, that he exuded tangible warmth every time he greeted me and that, judging from the chatty exchanges I regularly witnessed between him and other drivers, I wasn't the only one who experienced him that way.

Without consciously recognizing it, the swift encounter with this friendly, good-humored young man was a part of my day that I looked forward to. As I stuck my hand out to grab the ticket I smiled up- ready to receive whatever funny greeting he would throw out. Just like always, he flashed me one of his grins and delivered one of his bantering lines. Maybe he told me to stay warm, or to have a good day or to knock them dead. I have no idea. The thing I do remember was the dark black smudge on his forehead where I saw the unmistakable trace of a cross. Ashes. My toll collector was a Christian and he was willing to greet hundreds of us on that winter morning with a rough dirty cross smeared across his forehead. It meant the world to me and I've never forgotten it.

One and half weeks ago, many of us at Holy Cross crowded into the Chapel at some point during the day, to be marked with the same sign. Ashes. In the form of a cross. Do you know that at Holy Cross, more students come to services on Ash Wednesday than any other day of the year? More than the first Sunday in September, more than the pre-Christmas mass- more than Palm Sunday, more than the last mass of the year.

Why? Why is it that we attach so much importance to this small ritual that sets us apart from so many others? Have you ever thought about it? Why are we willing, on this one day of the year, to rearrange our meetings, our practices, our work schedules or to inconvenience ourselves- so that we can be marked visibly with the stark reality of the cross? For one day of the year, we wear our faith unadorned in silver or gold or precious stones. For one day of the year, we stand out, we look odd, imperfect, we even embarrass others by the indiscretion of the sign- the unavoidable unattractiveness of it.

Why? We come here, I believe, because we want to start again. We want to know again- in the deepest part of ourselves- that we are part of something bigger, that with Lent we really can turn away from sin and believe the good news. I think we want desperately to believe- that if we try hard enough, if we pray and fast and sacrifice and give alms, that we will get closer to God and we believe that somehow Lent has the power to give us that. And we're right.

In the readings for this Sunday's Liturgy, we are reminded that Lent brings with it a continual summons- an ineluctable call to live our lives as though the cross was as surely imprinted upon our foreheads as it was on Ash Wednesday.

Long ago, God called Abraham to do the unthinkable:--- to abandon everything safe---- everything he knew and loved--- for the unknown. And God promised him that God would be with him through it all. A part of that promise involved God asking Abraham to trust God and to follow God's call to a terrifying place- a place of surrendering that which was most precious to him- his own son. In the second reading, St. Paul speaks to us as surely as he spoke to the Christian community in Rome:

Brothers and sisters:
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son
but handed him over for us all,
how will he not also give us everything else along with him?

And isn't something about that, when read in tandem with the story of Abraham and Isaac, terrifying to us? Like Peter in today's passage from the Gospel- we would rather stay on top of the mountain and live in the moments that are easy and clear. We would rather prolong those, dwell in those. This other stuff- this God who takes Abraham to the land of Moriah and asks for the unthinkable - this is what we really fear. I think that this is what we, too often, secretly, deep down believe: that God is going to ask too much of us, that God is going to take away what we love and what gives us joy.

But if we stop to allow St. Paul's words to take root in us, we might notice his emphasis on God "being for us." The God whom Paul proclaims is the One whose love for us knows no bounds, the One who is willing to do anything to win us, including handing over God's own child. And it is the child of this God who "takes" and "leads" Peter, James and John to a place where they glimpse something they cannot understand but which changes them permanently.

The Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote that Christ came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower.

The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so for the follower. No, no. The follower aspires with all his strength, with all his will to be what he admires. And then, remarkably enough, even though he is living amongst a "Christian people," the same danger results for him as was once the case when it was dangerous to openly confess Christ. And because of the follower's life, it will become evident who the admirers are, for the admirers will become agitated with him.

On Ash Wednesday, we separated ourselves from the admirers and threw our lot in with the followers when we renewed our baptismal promises and asked to be marked with the imprint of the cross.

God will put in front of every one of us this week, countless opportunities- as numerous as the stars- to follow in the imprint of Christ. May we not pass them by. May God continue to call us to a holy life this Lent. And may we inspire one another to be Christ's followers- this week-----not His admirers- his followers- trusting that the God who loves us enough to give us Jesus, yearns to take us to a place where God "also gives us everything else along with him."