St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A Sermon preached by the Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr, Cape Town, on Ash Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Sending an SMS in the midst of a dinner conversation, daydreaming of sea and sun and sand when a deadline looms, catching a glimpse of a pretty girl or a handsome boy when your eyes should be on the road ahead, focussing on someone's manner and tone of voice as he offers constructive criticism of you, stepping outside for a long and leisurely smoke when the going gets tough – do you recognise these? Are you prone to these little episodes, turning a blind eye to what's happening as you lose yourself in something inconsequential? Do you find yourself easily drawn away from the matter in hand to make a list of things to do, imagine a wish list of things you want, or even a spite list of things you deserve?

I find I am easily distracted. I recognise the same failing in some of those I hold dear, and I suspect that you are on nodding terms with distraction too. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a distraction as something that diverts, draws the attention away, entertains, or provides an escape. Distractions distract, they pull me from reality and its demands, they tempt me with fantasy when facts are unpalatable.

Ash Wednesday spells doomsday for distraction. It is the day for listing all the fluff and whimsy that keep me from facing facts, that encourage me to deny truth, that seduce me away from what's actually going on. A smudge of ash smeared across my forehead as a sign on my collusion with distraction, my conspiracy with denial, my complicity with all the untruths that deceive me into self-righteousness.

Chuck Palahniuk, that rebellious American journalist and best-selling author who calls himself a transgressional writer, had this to say about distractions: “People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

In his inimitable way Palahniuk is usually right about our foibles and the blinkers we wear, But this time he is only half-right. The distractions we are called to list as Lent begins are not those that keep us from the messes we make of our days and weeks, the dramas that run like thunder-storms through our lives. No, the distractions we must list on this day of penitence and remorse are those that make us blind to the love of God. For underneath, above and around us, always and ever, no matter what or where, there is the enduring, unconditional love of God. It pulses in every minute, it penetrates every moment. And we are distracted. Now it's anger that blinds us, then it's a cheap thrill; now it's anxiety that unfocuses us, then it's envy and resentment. But we are always being distracted, and we lose the awareness that underneath are the everlasting arms.

Lent calls us to the awareness that in each moment, every day, we are being caressed by God's love. This is why we fast, to sharpen our awareness of this delight that surpasses every other. Lent holds before us the intimacy into which God invites us. This is why we take up the discipline of prayer, to become one with the Love that holds the universe together and who loves us, each one, wholly and forever.

In the stillness that Lent offers, by the austerity that Lent demands and from the abstinence that Lent requires, we discover an open space, still and deep, completely free and utterly available. There we see no longer in a mirror dimly but face to face. There we put away childish ways and become adult. There, beyond distraction, and free from diversion, we see the face of God and know ourselves for what we are and what we can become.

Pray that we awaken to the grace of God this Lent, that grace may lead us to that place where we can be still and know God.

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