The Angle of the Mirror

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 24, 2008
Third Sunday in Lent

The Angle of the Mirror
Ephesians 2:1-10
Matthew 7:13-14

Hold a mirror straight in front of you,
arm’s length away,
and what do you see?
A reflection of yourself, of course.
Now turn the mirror forty-five degrees to the left or
forty-five degrees to the right,
and what happens?
Your reflection disappears from view
and in its place what do you see?
You see the reflection of the person
standing nearest you.

In this Lenten season
we are called to turn the reflection of the mirror
back on ourselves,
away from the angle we prefer,
the angle that reflects away from ourselves,
the angle that catches the reflection of others around us.

We are so quick to spot flaws and faults in others,
quick to judge others,
quick to condemn and criticize others.
We are so quick to do these things
even though our Lord teaches us not to,
even though Paul goes on at length
in letter after letter not to do such things.

Our focus is wrong, and Lent calls us to recognize it,
so we can repent,
repent,
and that means we must turn the mirror
away from the angle we’ve set it at,
the angle we find so comfortable,
and turn it back on ourselves:
turn it back on ourselves
so that we can do that healthy deep introspection,
that healthy deep spiritual housecleaning
we’ve been talking about the past few weeks.

In looking full view we are called to look at ourselves honestly,
remembering what scripture teaches us,
“if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves…”
(1 John 1:8)

In looking full view in this Lenten season
you should see a child of God
created in God’s image
and loved unconditionally by God;
but you should also see a child of God
who has strayed from the path
who is not all that God created you to be,
all that God wants you to be.

Only when we look full view
can we begin the healthy process of repentance
so that we can feel ourselves more fully children of God.

But oh, to turn the mirror on ourselves:
how difficult that is,
even painful.
When we look at the reflection of another
we find it so easy to chatter on about all his faults,
all her shortcomings;
but when we look our own reflection
we go silent.

For some, there may even be a powerful negative feeling,
that you don’t like what you see.
That should not be how you should ever feel about yourself,
because when God looks at you,
God not only likes what he sees,
he loves what he sees: unconditionally.
There is nothing you can ever do, or ever say,
that will cause God not to love you, not to like you.
The lesson of the prodigal son teaches us that.
Yes, we may do things that disappoint God
dismay God, or distress God
sometimes truly awful things,
but God’s love through Jesus Christ is unwavering.

We struggle because we find discipleship difficult;
we find walking the path that Jesus calls us to follow
harder than we expected it be,
harder than we’d like it to be.
Life is hard enough and complicated enough;
who wouldn’t want his or her faith life to be easy?
Who wouldn’t want a church where the focus
was always on making you feel good?
There are churches that do just that.

Yet Jesus never made any promise
that following him would be easy.
On the contrary he reminds us again and again,
that faithful discipleship is difficult.
Our second lesson is only one of a number of lessons
in which Jesus reinforces this message:
“Enter through the narrow gate;
for the gate is wide and the road is easy
that leads to destruction,
and there are many who take it.
For the gate is narrow,
and the road is hard that leads to life,
and there are few who find it.”
(Matthew 7:13-14)

“The road is hard that leads to life…”
Could Jesus be any clearer?
Discipleship is hard work.
Is it any wonder that we turn away?
Is it any wonder that our gaze
is so easily distracted by other things,
other people:
bright lights, fun, easy living?

And yet, this is Lent,
our season of atonement,
when we are called to turn our focus on ourselves
so that we can see where we have turned from God,
turned from Christ,
turned from the difficult road,
in favor of the easy path.

As Jesus traveled teaching, preaching, and healing
what one word did he speak more than any other?
Repent.
Repent.
How do we begin Lent each year?
By hearing John the Baptist call us to repent.
Turn from the life you are living,
and turn back to the life God calls you to live.
Turn from the life that is empty and ultimately destructive
and turn back to the life that is life.

Turning the mirror on yourself,
acknowledging where you have strayed
is not an exercise to make you feel bad about yourself.
On the contrary, it is an exercise
to help you know God’s love more completely,
God’s goodness more completely,
God’s mercy and God’s peace more completely.

We struggle with this though.
We all would rather hear the message,
“I’m okay, you’re okay.”
But that’s not faithful, or real.
The reality of our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ
was put more accurately by the wag who said,
“I’m not okay, and you’re not okay,
but that’s okay.”
It is okay, because none of us is perfect;
God knows that.

But God wants you to embrace the life he has called you to,
called each of us to through Jesus Christ,
and he wants us to turn from those things
that distract us from that life.

We cannot do that, none of us,
until we stop, take stock of ourselves
and acknowledge those things in our own lives
that do distract us.
That’s where we start our journey of Lenten renewal,
our journey that is ultimately a life-long journey,
that is transformational,
changing us over a lifetime
to what God created each of us to be.

The abundant life is yours to embrace,
mine to embrace,
each of us, ours, to embrace.
But there is work to be done,
a cost to all this.

The letter to the Ephesians reminds us
that we have received the gift of God’s grace
through Jesus Christ,
a gift that is ours,
given to us.
But it is a gift that has a cost.
There is no path to cheap grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it simply and rightly:
“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance.”
(Cost of Discipleship, 44)
If we want forgiveness,
we’d better expect to repent,
to leave the old ways behind
and embrace new life in Christ.
Cheap grace is not to look deep within,
not to work on repentance.

The Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall
has observed that
“To begin to move toward real life means,
for us, to come face-to-face
with that within and around us
which bars us from life.”
(Hall, God & Human Suffering, 128)
It means we need to look squarely at the reflection
that we see of ourselves in that mirror
so we miss nothing.
so we see all those things in our lives
that burden us,
that clutter and junk up our lives,
that are distractions.
that get in the way of real life,
the life to which Jesus calls us.

What are some of those distractions?
Who doesn’t worry about money?
Or popularity?
You may have a little too strong a focus
on pleasures from shopping, or gambling,
cigarettes, alcohol, sex.
It could be anger that smolders within you,
or resentment that eats away at you,
a sense of loss that still looms large,
a sense of hopelessness that you just cannot shake.

Once you identify those things,
you can begin your spiritual housecleaning,
and sweep away the clutter, the junk,
remove the distractions.
Only then will you be able to fit through that narrow gate.
that gate that none of us can squeeze through
if we try to take all baggage we carry with us,
all that baggage that’s so visible
if we would just look long enough, hard enough,
and honestly enough in that mirror.

Once you are through the gate, then what?
Wouldn’t it be terrific if Jesus was waiting there
holding open the back door of an SUV
inviting you to get in for the journey,
with your choice of DVDs to watch along the way?

But of course that’s not what Jesus does.
No, he tells us that even once we through the gate
the road will be hard.

But he does give us each an invitation.
The invitation to take on his yoke.
Now that doesn’t sound like much of an invitation,
but do you remember what a yoke looked like,
the kind that Jesus was referring to?
It was to yoke two oxen together.
And two is the critical number here.

Who is on the other side of the yoke,
in the opening next to you?
Christ, of course,
Take on his yoke and you are paired with him.
When the road gets difficult,
he will be there to help you on the way,
to keep you from stumbling,
to refresh you when you get tired,
to assure that you remain on the right path.
What could be a better invitation?

“We are being given the grace to become
the creatures that we are;
to trust the Lord and Giver of life
in place of a futile attempt to possess life.
Through [grace we’ve been given the] courage to become.”
(Hall,132)

The courage to become what we God created us to be,
not to chase after the image that we want to project,
the image we think society demands from us,
an image that we at times don’t recognize ourselves,
The “glittering image”,
as novelist Susan Howatch has called it.

“Grace is costly because it costs [us our lives],
and it is grace because it gives [us] the only true life.
It is costly because it condemns sin,
and grace because it justifies the sinner.”
(Bonhoeffer, 45)

What are you afraid of finding when you look in that mirror?
What is holding you back from embracing the grace
that is yours, mine, ours in Jesus Christ?

Look deep within,
see where you need to repent.
For you do need to repent.
We all need to repent,
We know that not because I say so,
but because our Lord Jesus Christ has said so,
and says so still.

See where you’ve strayed from the path.
See where you found the path difficult and opted to choose
what looked to be an easier path, an easier road.
Then turn and get back on the road
that Christ as called you to to follow.

Work on that the next few months
and then take another look in the mirror,
perhaps around Pentecost,
and don’t be surprised if you see
a very different reflection.
A more radiant you,
you glowing from within,
the fire of faith burning brighter, stronger
even on the narrow, difficult road.

And, should you choose to angle the mirror
45 degrees to the left,
or 45 degrees to the right,
the reflection you will see
will be the same either way,
for you will see your partner,
your Lord, Jesus Christ;
Christ beside you,
on the road together, every step
in this life
and in the life to come.
When you see that reflection
you’ll know as you never did before
the grace of God that is ours through Jesus Christ.
AMEN