Ash Wednesday: Put Down the Ducky!

(Read Isaiah 58:1-12)

Lent is often thought of as a time to give up certain things from chocolate to a favorite TV show, to even more important things, in an effort to free ourselves to focus on God and our relationship with God. The truth is that for many LGBT persons we’ve been giving up a lot about who we are and who we love in order to fit into other people’s ideas of what it means to be Christian that we often haven’t realized how much their demands upon us have kept us from being and becoming what God wants us to be, in fact, what God created us to be. Perhaps there ought to be more to Lent for us than just giving up something. Perhaps we ought to begin to focus on what we need to do to become authentic believers of God and give up all the entrapments with which others want to tie us down.

In this week’s commentary from “Out in Scripture” from the HRC website, Rev. Kharma Amos, pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Northern Virginia in Fairfax suggests, "If lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies want to give up something for Lent, perhaps we should consider relinquishing shame about our sexual orientation or gender identity, or letting go of guilt about the loving relationships that bring us joy, or emerging from the closets that keep us from living our lives openly, authentically and abundantly."

Perhaps we should think of Lent as the time to prepare for Holy week and let our imaginations take us on a journey with Jesus and the disciples as they travel to Jerusalem going where Jesus goes and doing what Jesus does. We may want to look at what repentance really means, turning away from habits and activities that lead us toward death and depression and instead turn toward the life-giving uplifting ways of Jesus Christ. Instead of emphasizing things we should give up, as I said last Sunday morning, perhaps we should look for new ways to practice discipleship.

I raised four children on Sesame Street, both the TV show and its songs. I have seven grandchildren who watch and listen to the same shows and songs now. So what’s that got to do with Lent and Ash Wednesday? Well, perhaps more than you’d like to think. In one episode Ernie wants to learn how to play the saxophone, but to do so he will have to put down his beloved rubber ducky. He must let the ducky wait while he learns something new. The ducky will still be there when he finishes. We too, must find ways to free ourselves and allow ourselves to learn new ways to be Queer Christians. We might find that when we free ourselves from life as we know it that we will find entirely new ways to be what God is calling us to become.

Isaiah 58:1-12 gives many suggestions for how we might add some new practices to our lives of discipleship this Lenten Season from feeding the hungry, finding homes for the homeless, giving clothing to those who have none. If we do these things then the Prophet says “then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom become like the noonday.” The Prophet encourages us to repair the brokenness in the world and become restorers of life. This is the kind of “fasting” that God truly desires of us during Lent.

Perhaps we all need to rethink what Lent means to us, what it is suppose to accomplish in us. It’s at least something to think about.