There Your Heart Will Be

“Yet even now…” Can you hear the weight of these words? Lean into the reverberation of this promise that hits like a cold splash of water on a blazing sun-drenched day. But you can’t hear these words from a place of strength or power. This prophetic utterance won’t resonate with those for whom “fine” is not a throw-off answer to the ubiquitous, “How are you?” tossed out at random, but is the shallow truth of the moment. To the one bowed down, however, by the finality of life or the brokenness of relationships of hurting, these words are a shock to the system, a life preserver floating on the storm-tossed waves: “Yet even now…”

Preacher, your privilege this auspicious moment is to enter into the pain of your people and offer them hope. As awe-inspiring as that sounds, however, it cannot be done without naming that pain. The text from Joel begins with a threat, a warning, trumpeting darkness and the armies hidden in the gloom. Our inclination is to skip these first two verses. Let’s move on to the promise; let’s start with the hope. Let’s make this faith thing easy. Those are the whispers you hear in your ear as you struggle for a message for this unusual service. Make it easy. Make it about giving up chocolate or saying a simple prayer every morning at exactly the same time.

Of course, giving up chocolate or a ritual practice of prayer can be healing; these can be the means by which we open ourselves to the Spirit. But they can also be ways of avoiding or shutting out the Spirit. Ash Wednesday doesn’t allow us that luxury. Perhaps that is why the attendance is often smaller on this Wednesday than it is on Sunday.

Joel engages in a dialog with God and with us and with his own understanding of this grace and judgment thing. Watch how the voice changes from first person in verse 12 (“return to me with all your heart”) to third person in the next verse (“return to the Lord … for he is gracious and merciful…”). Joel speaks with the words that God has given him, and then he adds his own pleading and encouragement. “Who knows whether [God] will not turn and relent and leave a blessing…” Joel doesn’t know; he’s not been given those words. But he knows because he knows the God who called him into this service, the God he has served faithfully. “Who knows?” Joel asks, but push him, and he would probably say, “I know. I know the character of God; I know the heart of God. And I know that God longs for your heart. This is the God I know. The God who leans into our hurt and brokenness and offers healing and hope.”

But wait, we might argue with the prophet, if that’s the case, why does God make it so hard to receive that grace? Why do we have to repent in dust and ashes? Why do we have to rend our hearts? Why do you say to us, “Tell the priests to weep and to plead and to beg God in order to get back in this right relationship?” Why does Joel advise us to bargain with God, even to threaten God’s reputation among the nations?

Verse 17 certainly sounds like some sort of invitation into a bargaining conversation with God. Joel speaks to the priests quite often, causing some commentators to wonder if he was from the priestly class himself. It is guesswork, of course, because nothing is said of the prophet himself. He is introduced in the book with only his name and his father’s name, neither of which is familiar from other contexts. The name Joel translates as “Yahweh is God,” which could be his primary message. While he talks about the sin of the people, he doesn’t really name the sin. But his name causes some to wonder if the sin is apostasy, putting someone or something in the place of God. The people were distracted from the worship of God. Oh, the forms were there; the rituals were performed. But Joel calls for more than the ritual. He calls for the heart.

“Rend your hearts and not your garments,” he proclaims. Make it real. Make it visceral. Repent with more than just the outward show of it, the mouthed words of repentance. In verse 17, then, he invites the priests to weep as they lead the people in worship, in repentance. He calls them to feel it too; to mean it too. And then, though it seems that he is telling them to convince God that it is in God’s best interests to redeem the people, it is more likely that he is reminding the priests and the people that their living reflects not just on themselves but on the God they claim to worship. They call themselves the people of God, so then how do they represent that God; how do they live their faith and proclaim their belief?

Joel’s call, and indeed the Ash Wednesday invitation, is to join with the community, the whole community, in a deep and heartfelt repentance that brings us together back into right relationship with God. This is not an individual call, but a corporate one. There are no exemptions, no excuses; all are called to gather and rend their hearts.