Ashes to Ashes

“GET REAL”
Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ash Wednesday Service
February 6, 2008


Lines from a poem by the 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi …

"Join the community of saints
And know the delight
Of your own soul.
Enter the ruins of your heart
And learn the meaning of humility….
Open your arms if you want the Beloved’s embrace."


Why do we do what we do?
Why do we get ashes smeared on our foreheads
and feel the winds change just a bit
as we enter this strange time called Lent?
I find it a bit amusing
that the businesses can’t keep their hands off of Lent, either
that steak places will run fish specials on Fridays
and Long John Silver’s does more business on Fridays
during Lent
Anything to make another buck, I suppose
So it’s even crazier that we’re talking about fasting
or “appetite denying disciplines”, as The Message puts it
fasting, doing without, sacrificing
giving to the poor, praying for others and for the world
all this in a world that is usually geared toward
as much consumption as possible
and getting us to consume as much as possible
so they can make more money
All this, purple and ashes,
talk of repentance and sacrifice
in the midst of a world where we’re always trying to get more
where we want more clothes, more cars
more toys, and for all of that, more money
Just a day after Super Tuesday
when politicians are spending millions of dollars
to get our vote
and New Orleans had the party of the year
I love the smell of a fireplace
or a campfire
I love after a campfire
the way you go to bed or your sleeping bag
and you smell like wood smoke and ash
and you wake up the next morning
with the smell in your hair
In the Bible, though,
ashes are related to sorrow and grieving
when Job had taken about all he could take
he sat down in ashes
and put them on his head
When the ancient Hebrews expressed their sorrow
over a death or a loss in battle
they would tear their clothes and put ashes on their heads
Or when they were sorry for something terrible that they did
they would heap ashes on their heads as a way of repentance
seeking forgiveness
I think of the ashes of 9/11
that covered people on the street,
covered cars, buildings, everything
We can still those images in our minds
of people walking around with that dark ash
in their hair, in their clothes
and I imagine that the people that survived that day
never forgot the feel of ash on their skin
So why would we voluntarily put ashes on our heads
here in church?
I also remember the first time my heart was broken
by a guy
I was 15
He was the one, I thought
we’d talked about getting married and moving to the Rockies
and listening to John Denver music
We wrote each other every day
we exchanged necklaces to bind our commitment
but it turns out he found someone else
I was so heartbroken
that I took all of his letters, all of his pictures
everything that reminded me of him
and put it in the fireplace
and burned it
It was somehow cathartic
to watch his image go up in flames
and be reduced to ash
I poked the ashes until they were completely out
all signs of embers nothing but black and gray ash
You understand, I wanted this dude gone
from my life and my memory!
We’ve seen the ruins of the Trade Towers
so much they’re imprinted on our minds
or the ruins of the government building in Oklahoma City
the ruined shell, the embers
When I went to Great Britain with my parents
in college,
we went to Coventry, England
and walked through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral
that was bombed by the Germans in the 40s
They left the shell of the once- majestic cathedral standing
still charred and broken, but still standing
and at the front of the ruins
where the altar would have been
was a cross made out of two charred beams
from the structure
at the bottom of the cross
was a new altar
into which was carved the words,
“Father, Forgive Them”
It was holy ground
I wasn’t alive during World War II, obviously
and yet I felt the sorrow of the atmosphere
the sense of loss, the sense of devastation
The ruins stand in the shadow of another, new cathedral
made in a much more modern design
with a tapestry from ceiling to floor
depicting Christ with angels bowing at his feet
One might wonder why they left the ugly charred remains
to spoil the landscape of what is now a beautiful new
monument to God
But I can’t help but think
that even in the midst of beauty and glory
in the midst of triumph and survival
there’s something in us that needs to remember
remember where we’ve come from
where we’ve been
and what we’ve left behind
And I think that’s what Lent is about
in this crazy world
where we spend billions of dollars to kill other people
or to vote someone into office
Where we spend untold millions
to play football
and buy advertisement space during that football game
while people a few doors down
are wondering how they’ll pay their heating bill
We need to remember, I think
that we’re not as strong as we think we are
we’re not infallible and indestructible
and we are not God
We need to remember
that we are only human
When God is mad at the first human beings
for disobeying him already,
and he tells them what’s in store for them
a life lacking in ease
and plenty
he tells them
“By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
And from this
comes the traditional lines from the service of burial
“this body we commit to the ground,
earth to earth, ashes to ashes,
dust to dust.”
When we get the ashes smeared on our heads,
the words are spoken,
“Remember…”
Remember
Remember that you are dust
and to dust you shall return
Or “repent and believe the gospel.”
Whatever words are spoken,
the point of being sullied by the ashes
and wearing the mark of ashes
is to remember that we are only human
that we are mortal
in other words, that someday we will all die
Well, that’s depressing!
Who wants to do that?
Isn’t it just the Catholics that try to make you feel bad?
We thought Methodists were more upbeat!
As much as death is a part of our entertainment
we don’t talk about it
we don’t like to think about it
Back in Pennsylvania, where Larry and I served
it was unusual to have a funeral in the church
funerals were kept to the funeral homes
and most people just came to the visitation time
leaving the family to attend the funeral
It felt like back there
we were trying to keep death hidden
keep it away from ourselves
even children of family members
were often left out of the funeral service
lest it disturb them too much
yet as one who grew up back there
it occurred to me that hiding children from the reality of death
made them only more scared of it later on
We live in a world where not only do we consume
as much as we possibly can
and spend as much as we can
but we spend millions of dollars
on surgeries and products
to keep us looking young
to act as if we can and will live forever
Growing up we did not talk about death
even when we attended funerals of people we knew
we did not talk about the person after the funeral was over
There was a sense that you had to get on with it
move on,
as if your entire world had not just changed
The Bible tells us that we are dust
and to dust we shall return
and yet even in our modern day practices
we do all we can to keep the body from returning to the earth
We have concrete vaults
and caskets sealed against the elements
So why do we voluntarily do this ash thing?
It’s ridiculous, really,
and absurdly counter-cultural
But it goes along with the great drama of our faith
and its roots
A faith that was born out of the flooding of the earth
and its restoration
the parting of the red seas
thunder, lightning on the mountain
when God gave the Ten Commandments
the slaughtering of animals
and the distribution of their blood
to act out the cost of sin
penitent acts in the temple
to ask forgiveness
and to try to come clean
Some of it may sound barbaric to us now
but as humans, we’ve always had to DO something
to express our longing, our need for God
to express our love and commitment to God
Now, we’re a whole lot neater about it
we don’t tear our clothes and throw ashes upon our heads
when a loved one dies
though we probably still feel like it
We don’t slaughter animals
in sacrifice for our sins
but we do drink juice and talk about drinking the blood of Jesus
we eat bread and talk about eating his body
and millions of people all over the world
walked around today with ashes on their foreheads
looking a bit silly, if we’re honest
but you know what, it’s about time we were willing to look silly
willing to see ourselves for what we are
human
Jesus is telling his followers,
BE REAL
don’t get up on stage and flaunt your faithfulness
do good, serve others, give to the poor
but don’t put your name in the paper for it
do it in secret if you can
do it because it’s the right thing to do
and by doing it, you’ll be a more generous, compassionate
person
do it –in this case—because ultimately it does feel good
to be good
to please God,
to spread a little light and peace
even if everybody doesn’t know who did it
Lent is a time to take a moral inventory
oooo.. that sounds harsh
but it’s technically a time to take a good look at yourself
at your life so far
to see where you need to go from here
And for many of us,
the ashes are also a sign of mourning
grieving the things and people that we’ve lost
sitting among the ruins left behind by those losses
There’s no more awesome reminder of our own mortality
than the death of a loved one
My first sense of my own mortality
was when my childhood friend Donna died
at the age of 21
of some still unknown cause
I was scared to death, no pun intended,
on top of my grieving
to realize that at age 22 I wasn’t immune to death
at that time in my life
I had no language for that
no place to talk about that
and deal with that harsh reality and fear
We just didn’t talk about it
Ash Wednesday is a time to look inside
to realize that as God’s people,
if we’re going to live in the Light
we need to face the darkness too
All of Lent moves us closer
to the journey of Jesus
who knew that to be who he was
meant that he would die too soon
trusting that that would not be the end of his story
Lent reminds us that we are people
of an alternative society called the Church
who seek treasures that won’t be reduced to ashes
but treasures that will last forever
even longer than these bodies that
we temporarily occupy
It can be a sombering thought
but it’s also good news
we may be dust,
but we are God’s dust
We came from God, and it is to God
that we will return
because God brings amazing things
out of the stuff of this earth
We begin the journey of 40 days
with ashes
but we will move these weeks
from ashes to fire
the fire of resurrection and new life
the fire of God’s incomprehensible eternity
We bear the mark of ashes
grieving our losses
grieving the state of our world
and how far away we are from what God wants
grieving our thirst for destruction
while God hungers for new life
grieving our hatred
when God created us for love
grieving all those who are hungry
when God wants us all to have our fill
We begin the journey in ashes
trusting that we, like Jesus, will rise from those ashes
into new life that can never be destroyed
But to get there
we need to make some commitments
we need to keep our eyes on treasures
that we can’t necessarily see
We need to face our own darkness
and offer it up to God’s light for transfiguration
Ashes, you will find, are messy
they fall down your face
under your glasses
maybe tickle your nose
or even tumble onto your lips
Ashes are messy
but life is messy, too
The journey with Christ is not a journey about
keeping up appearances
because Ash Wednesday hits us between the eyes
and forces us to face our mortality
while also casting our lives
into the future resurrection
Remember that you are human
Be real
be… down to earth
remember that you are dust
GOD’S dust… and to that dust you shall return.