Once again, our downtown streets are humming with the “Grand Prix” races this weekend.
It’s tax season again. I read a story about a man who stormed into the postmaster's office, waving several pieces of mail. “For weeks I've been pestered with threatening letters,” he shouted, “and I want something done about it.” The postmaster calmly replied. “It's against the law to send threats through the mail. Who's sending these letters?” The man snapped, “It's the IRS again.” Moral of the story: don't mess with the IRS.
The word of God takes us back to the second century before Jesus. The wisdom of Sirach is a collection of advice about how to live well, choosing between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. The author here emphasizes that our words reveal who and what we are, for better or worse. He makes his point through the use of three different images: a strainer from farming; fire from pottery; and juiciness in a fruit. And you may be thinking: maybe it's best to keep my mouth shut.
Sirach may be asking us: do our words build people up or tear them down? Are our words constructive or destructive? Do we try to affirm people or are we always criticizing them? Think about it.
Next Wednesday, we begin the Lenten season (from Ashes to Easter): it’s a time to renew ourselves spiritually; to make sure our priorities are straight.
Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author, can be a good spiritual guide. Many of us had to read War and Peace. But he also wrote shorter, profound parables, good spiritual reading for Lent.
For example, A Confession describes Tolstoy's search for purpose in life. He discovered that the simple farm people of Russia found the answer to this question through their lively Christian faith: their relationship with the triune God and one another.
Perhaps Tolstoy’s masterpiece was the 75-page novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Ilyich, in exchange for luxury and status, has sacrificed his authenticity and integrity. The result is a spiritual barrenness. On his deathbed, Ilyich is terrified.
Most of the characters imagine what Ilyich's death means for their own benefit. His best friend competes with his widow in seeing who can pretend to be more devastated. The selfishness is obvious.
Ilyich's servant who attends to him is everything Ilyich is not: humble, poor, devout, and selfless. Ilyich manages to learn just before his last breath the purpose of his life. Tolstoy suddenly bathes Ilyich in light but leaves the reader in suspense about his salvation or damnation.
Superficialities are not a flaw reserved for nineteenth-century Russians. This short novel can be powerful Lenten reading because Lent is about asking who and what are our priorities. We follow Jesus who went into the wilderness for forty days to ask the same questions.
The twentieth century novelist Frederick Buechner gives us an examination of conscience in these questions:
“If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less? Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember? If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?”
This examination of conscience can be a pretty depressing business, Buechner notes, “but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.”
As we begin again the Lenten season, let us ask God for the grace to make sure our priorities are straight and pursue them anew. Amen.
