On Ash Wednesday the Church once again summoned us to a 40-day season of self-examination and repentance.  We were asked a two-fold question-- to look closely at who we really are - when our hearts are open, and all desires are known to God.  We were also challenged to change, to turn aside from those things that keep us from our truest selves, where we're most intimately connected with one another, and with God. Lent admonishes us to pay attention, to be honest, and to do something redemptive about what we see.

It's daunting to preach during Lent, since without deep humility Lenten preachers will die in the ditch of hypocrisy, having pointed an accusing finger, when their lives are in no less need of self-examination and redemption.  I've learned to welcome the penitential seasons of the Christian calendar, Advent and Lent, so to join you in the process of self-examination, and begin the turning away from whatever destroys the goodness of who we are.  My own journey with Lenten self-examination and repentance has deepened over the years into a profound awareness of the Holy Spirit hovering over my shoulder.  In the early hours of the morning, I can hear her say, "Um, excuse me-you forgot about that little sin over here".   Just as I think I've lapsed into heavenly perfection she cranks up the volume saying and "what will we be doing about this area of your life over there?"  However, it's her next breath, which I recognize as the voice of the Shepherd to the lost Sheep, saying, "I am with you ... no matter what. Go deeper with self-examination and repentance yet know that you will never, ever be alone when you do.  God's compassion and mercy are deeper and broader than the worst of your sins."  It's this voice of the Spirit that the church invites you to discover for yourself in Lent. 

It's only when I'm aware of my own failings, the ways in which I've erred and strayed as a lost sheep, that I dare try during Lent to serve as your shepherd, your pastor, your rector.  I simply cannot, and will not, ask you to examine and fast, if I don't participate in self examination, fasting and the hard work of repentance, just as I urge you to do.  

My own Lenten journeys lead me to discover and examine more than I care to look at, however in the long run this hard and painful work is crucial.  For example, this Lent I've confronted the need to open up my heart and soul to one against whom I've harbored a sense of betrayal and deep hurt.  And I am now waiting the time with prayer and trepidation for our meeting together.  God has promised her Holy Spirit will be with me when I do, "with sighs too deep for words," and yet with love that knows no bounds.  

The other essential part of my Lenten discipline as your rector is to examine closely the health of the body of Christ that is St. Thomas' Parish, and to examine not just all the things we have to celebrate together, but areas I believe we need to explore in the spirit of confession and forgiveness.  This season of Lent I've been struggling to make sense of the effect of a deep wound we inflict on one another -- the heart breaking phenomenon of gossip, talking about others behind their backs in ways intended to injure them and demonstrate our own boasting self-righteousness.

It's a phenomenon that troubled the earliest desert fathers and mothers of the church, as they were trying to learn to live together in the first monastic communities.  Gossip, they realized, was the most prevalent way we break the commandment that says, "Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor".   Dietrich Bonhoeffer told his seminary students trying to live in community with one another that the first and greatest service they each could perform for the other - and the hardest thing they would be asked to do - was what he named "the ministry of holding the tongue."

Throughout our culture we have an increasing bully-presence growing among the highest levels of civic society trickling down to schools and playgrounds that is spread through the intimidation of gossip.  At St. Thomas' I'm frequently made aware of the depth of anger and injury that gets expressed in the practices of gossip and cliquishness that plague us.  In my first four full years with you I've watched more than one person leave this parish, and I'm watching over several others contemplating leaving, solely because of what they perceive to be a culture of gossip and clique-forming at St. Thomas'.

Particularly since we're a community that proclaims with boldness all are welcome here, this Lent I invite us to self-examination as a parish of our appetite for gossip.  Any action like this, whether intentional or thoughtless, that excludes and sometimes maims people, needs both our corporate and individual examination, repentance and healing.