Religion: Looking Under the Hood

When I was 21 years old, I was considering buying a used Ford Escort from a man who was an acquaintance of my father’s. 

When we went to look at the car, I looked at its overall condition and mileage, then popped the hood to look under it. The man selling the car was surprised I did this, but it was natural for me, as I had grown up around my father’s automotive parts business, and I had worked at the manufacturing company throughout my youth. When I looked under the hood, I saw an engine, transmission, cooling system and more that were clean and in good working order. 

I bought the car.

We go through life with habits and routines that can serve us well in showing up for ourselves and others. And, it is important to also annually take time to “look under the hood” of our lives—ourselves, as individuals, and our common life. How are things looking? What needs cleaning or tuning up? What needs replacing?

Many faith traditions have an annual time of spiritual reflection, discipline and renewal: the month of Ramadan for Muslims; the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for Jews; and for Christians, the season of Lent. 

Lent began this past Wednesday, called Ash Wednesday, with a call to “Return to God with all your heart.” Lent sets us on a journey, with a goal that God has set out from the beginning: We are created to experience joy in communion with God, to love one another and to live in harmony with creation. 

Lent invites us to look under the hood at ourselves and our world. We are invited into a season of more prayer, fasting and giving to counter all the ways we diminish the God-given dignity of others as well as ourselves. 

Those who observe Ash Wednesday may have heard these words from Isaiah 58: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”

We quickly discover that we need God’s grace to make this journey, and to return again to the path every time we leave it. Looking under the hood can be uncomfortable, but in light of the grace of God, it is also hopeful. 

We are not alone in making the changes we need to make in order to draw near to God; God is waiting for us. Lent culminates in what we call the Paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, which gives us life and hope when we might otherwise despair.

Looking under the hood of our common life means refusing to ignore the idolatries, lies, oppressions and corruptions that mock God and harm our neighbors. We are called to humbly and firmly pray and act, in the same ways that some of our forebears whom we will commemorate faithfully prayed and acted in their own time: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, St. Patrick, St. Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and mystics and artists of every age. 

May God bless us with clarity, truth, courage and love in the journey of these days.

Rev. Anita R. Warner (pa*****@ad*************.org) serves as Pastor of Advent Lutheran Church in Morgan Hill and is a founding member of the Interfaith Clergy Alliance.