Homily for Ash Wednesday 2019 - March 6th, 2019 - Addiction and Recovery

I.

Kirk is a 24 year old man from the foothills of the Ozarks
 Christina, his mom, sits across from him at the dinner table
  in front of her biscuits and gravy that she had lovingly prepared
   and the little stack of stir fried asparagus sitting beside it.

And Kirk is furious.
 Not because of the dinner,
  but because his mom just took away his truck keys.

"It was just a speeding ticket!" Kirk screams,
 "Everybody gets them! And you just haul off and take away my truck?"

Kirk thinks back through the scene.
 He is cruising along the back roads in his old Ford pickup.
  He knows he is driving too fast, but he pays no mind.
   He knows these roads better than most people.
    And that's when he rounds a 90 degree turn
     and there is a state trooper, waiting for him around the corner.
      Busted.

He's driving fast enough that the officer asks him to step out of his truck.
 His mind blurry with rage and anger,
  he can't remember what happened after that,
   but all he knows is that he is angry with his mother.

Kirk can't even eat,
 he doesn't want to.
  Instead, he storms off to his room.
 
Christina looks down at the meal that she had prepared,
 uneaten, unfinished.
  She feels the emotions well up in her
   and she eats silently.

Because Christina knows the truth,
 the truth that Kirk can't see.

The reason that the officer pulled Kirk over wasn't because he was speeding.
 That wasn't what the ticket was for.

Through her tears, she looks at the citation listed
 and she looks at the words scribbled across the top.
  "D.U.I."

She musters up the strength that she has,
 and goes outside her little log cabin
  nestled up in the Ozark foothills.

She's had to deal with Kirk's addiction ever since he was in high school.
 How many times did she have to talk
  and warn,
   and lecture him on the dangers that he puts himself in
    the danger he puts others in
     all to feed his addiction?

Nothing worked.

She wasn't even sure that taking away Kirk's truck was the right call,
 but she couldn't stand the though of Kirk harming himself or anyone else
  if he was to get into an accident.

And what made her internal struggle worse,
 was that she knew what the base problem was.
  The alcohol wasn't the issue.
   The truck wasn't the issue.

Kirk has an addiction.
 An addiction that Kirk has struggled with
  continues to struggle with
   and might struggle with for the rest of his life.

It absolutely breaks her heart,
 because she knows her son.

Kirk is always the gentlest,
 kindest kid in town.
  He is a hard worker,
   learned that from his dad.

And Kirk tries so hard in fits and starts
 to get better.
  One week he will be back on his feet
   and swears up and down that he is never returning to drinking.
    Yet, again and again, he slips back into the addiction.

Christina hasn't heard from Kirk in a minute,
 so she goes back inside.
  And there is Kirk, sobbing in his room,
   and Christina goes over to him
    puts her arms around him and gently rocks him.

And she says what she always says,
 what she means sincerely,
  and what she desperately needs Kirk to hear and to understand.
   "I'm right here hun,
     and I always will be."

II.

How often do we think of God as an angry judge,
 holding the gavel and getting ready to drop it at the littlest offense that we commit,
  and we never think of God 
   as the parent of a child 
    with an addiction?

How often do we think of God as just angry and belligerent,
 watching you for any little screw up,
  and we never think of God as a parent at their wits end
   with their sons and daughters who just refuse to see and recognize
    that they have an addiction that is destroying their lives
     and the lives of the people around them?

Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,
 children of the Most High God:
  we have an addiction.
   And it is called "sin."

And our addiction to sin is so great sometimes
 that, just like Kirk, we simply cannot see what we are doing to ourselves.

Pride: the selfishness that bends our wills inward and calcify's our soul
 and separates our relationship with God and our neighbor
  because we don't think we need them.

Greed: the wanting and grasping passion
 that seductively convinces you that you are owner of what you want
  and that sharing with others is a sign of weakness.

Sloth: the laziness of soul that has nothing to do with watching too much T.V.
 but has everything to do with our unwillingness to lift a finger in self discipline
  so that the world can be made better by our work.
   But also, the underside of sloth, which is the constant workaholic drive
    that speaks the lie in your mind that you are worth nothing
     unless you work so hard that you satisfy your need to feel needed.

Anger: the selfish fire that is fed by our hate and disdain toward our brothers and sisters,
 who are made in the very image of God
  and yet who we count as cursed and undeserving of love.

Gluttony: the inward desire to consume food and drink until there is nothing left,
 and also the emaciation that comes from the denial of the goodness of the food and drink
  that we have been given.

Lust: the fanning of the flames of sexual desire
 and the distortion of the good gift of intimate relationships
  that were meant to be holy, life-giving, and binding
   and yet so often are bent and broken by our selfishness.

Envy: the active, sneaking, conniving passion
 that desperately wishes that you have what others have,
  even to the point of stealing and depriving others of their blessings.

These descriptions of the Seven Cardinal Sins
 the Seven Deadly Sins,
  are not meant to be a checklist of the ways that we screw up.

Rather, they are symptoms of a diagnosis:
 a diagnosis that we all know innately:
  we have an addiction!

III.

I am a sinner.

You, my beloved friends, are sinners.

We all, gathered here together tonight, are sinners.

But we are not sinners who have been left alone.

No.
 God, the long-suffering, loving, patient Parent
  who desires all of you to be healed of your addiction
   calls you to recovery.

Lent has never been a time to merely feel bad for your sin
 to merely slap yourself around
  and to wallow in the hopelessness of your addiction.

Lent is a season of recovery.

Recovery from the addiction to our selfish ambition
 our destructive tendencies that harm those around us,
  and the blindness to God's love,
   the love that never fails.

And we who are addicts,
 addicts to sin and the brokenness that is brought by it,
  are called to the recognition of one thing:
   we cannot get better by ourselves.

We need God.
 We desperately need Jesus.
  Because if it wasn't for the fact that Our Lord is always with us
   we would have no hope.

But, friends,
 Jesus Christ has sworn to you,
  beloved children of the Most High,
   that God will NEVER leave you nor forsake you.

Even when your addiction gets the darkest,
 even when your eyes are opened to what we have done to ourselves,
  even when we recognize how badly we have hurt ourselves,
   God never gives up on you.

Because you are God's child.
 A child that has made mistakes,
  that has been self destructive
   that has hurt others along the way
    that has grieved God's heart.
     But nonetheless, you are God's.
      And God, the PERFECTLY loving parent,
       will never forsake you.

Even in the depths of our blindness,
 Even when we, like Kirk, just can't shake our brokenness,
  even when God has to take away the truck keys
   to keep us from hurting ourselves and others,
    God still loves you with power greater than all our sin.

And when you lie broken on the floor,
 with tears over your addiction and your helplessness
  and you hit rock bottom,
  you will find that you have been wrapped in the arms of your Creator,
    and you will hear the voice of the Your Heavenly Parent say,
    "I'm right here, hun,
      and I always will be."

In the name of the + Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.