Lent, pancakes and benedictions...

Michael was a young college student when he was asked to become Lake Shore Baptist’s part time Minister to Youth. He wore a sport coat his first Sunday on the platform. Rhea Grey, the senior minister, took him aside and explained the facts of worship life according to Rhea Grey. As a matter of respect for the Almighty and a custom for ministers, he was to always wear a black suit, white shirt and dark tie, the Baptist equivalent of ecclesiastical robes. Worship took place on holy ground at Lake Shore and Rhea expected everyone to dress their best as an outward sign of courteous regard for the One we worshipped.
Years later, an older couple friends of ours, Ed and Mary Torrence, invited us to dinner. As we shared our worship back grounds, this equable affable gentleman looked at me and asked, “Why do we have so many people come to worship in less than their best? I don’t care if blue jeans are their best but so many people come dressed as if they were working in a barn or going camping. I know they dress better than that when they are going to a party or to work, even. I think God deserves the same courtesy.” We laughed and agreed we were dinosaurs about worship dress code... lumbering leftovers from another time. And yet...Worship is serious business. We are attempting to touch the untouchable, to speak to One we trust will hear us, to ask for guidance and hope in lives that often need direction and desire.
Rhea also taught the five parts of worship to Michael, the call to worship, praise, confession and forgiveness of sins, proclamation, and benediction. All were a part of every worship experience at Lake Shore. Whatever the setting for worship, these elements were always present. One college student retreat had students climbing an old low spreading oak tree calling out the Word of God to each other and God under the bright blue Texas sky. Proclamation was a different sort of sermon that day.
One of the elements of worship that I dismissed as less than for years was the benediction. In my little country church, the benediction was short and sweet because everyone was eager to get home to Sunday dinner. The sermon and the choir special were the highlights of worship, not the ending. Then I became a member of a church, Crescent Hill Baptist, where the minister used the same benediction every Sunday. As a young widow struggling to find my footing in this unwanted new world of mine, those words were the words of hope that I waited for every Sunday. Assurance that all would be well... I was loved... I was known... I was forgiven. Benediction, the utterance of a blessing, became living water for my grief stricken soul.
Lent is the benediction for my liturgical year of worship. It is the ending, the death that must come before new life can spring forth. Lent offers me time to hear old stories, be a part of old rituals, to consider the year past with all my mistakes and accomplishments, a getting ready time for what is yet to come.
Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, is a lovely paradoxical beginning for Lent. On this day, traditionally, sinners confessed and were shriven (forgiven) of their sins. In preparation for the restricted diet of Lent, certain foods in the pantry were used up. These ingredients were used to make pancakes, or doughnuts. Fat Tuesday, a splurge of food and feasting, precedes Ash Wednesday with the mark of the cross on our foreheads calling us to remember and let go. They are two sides of generosity... the generous feasting on food is balanced by the generous letting go of all that has kept us from God. And in the benediction of Lent, we know there is enough to go around... enough food for the soul, enough forgiveness for our sins, enough death that can bring new life, enough new life that can bring me closer to God.
I share this benediction, used by John Claypool at Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, with you, as a reminder to us all that the first word is judgement but the last word is redemption. Both are necessary but grace always trumps judgement. Lent leads us home, home to our truest best selves and home to God. Then and only then, can we know the joy of being blessed and live our new lives redeemed and loved.

Depart now in the fellowship of God the Father,
And as you go, remember,
In the goodness of God
You were born into this world;
By the grace of God,
You have been kept
All the day long,
Even until this hour;
And by the love of God,
Fully revealed in the face of Jesus,
You...are...being...redeemed.

P.S. If you wish to hear John’s voice delivering the benediction, it can be found at an old address on the web from the 75th anniversary celebration of Crescent Hill Baptist. Crescenthillbaptistchurch.org/oldsite/claypool.htm