Ashes

A sermon for Ash Wednesday, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God of grace, thank you for bringing us to this time and this place. Be with us here today. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

I love Ash Wednesday. I love Lent. I love Good Friday. I love this season of the Christian year because it’s the time of year that the church can be honest with itself. We can’t lean on the comfort of Christmas or the glory of Epiphany or the rebirth of Easter or the renewal of Pentecost or even the long growing season of ordinary time between Pentecost and Advent. During Lent, we have to look at ourselves not as we will one day with God’s gracious help be, but as we are right now. During Lent, we acknowledge that even though the kingdom will come one day, it has not come yet. During Lent, we are honest with ourselves.

We’re honest about the fact that, despite all our efforts, there are still hungry, poor, unclothed people in this world, people without what they need to survive, people who are sick who we have not aided or comforted, and people who are in prison who we have not visited. We’re honest about the fact that we have only managed to bind up a few of the brokenhearted. We’re honest about the fact that it’s hard to be peacemakers, hard to be meek, hard to seek after God, hard to love our neighbor, and, especially in times like these, it’s impossible to love our enemy. It’s hard to be a Christian and Lent is our honest acknowledgement that we need help to do it.

What is has been most difficult for me during Lent, though, as I’m engaging in all this honesty with myself, is to remember that being mean doesn’t mean you’re being honest. Being mean doesn’t mean you’re being honest, and I can be so mean to myself. I think of the hours that I have spent at my house and a voice inside my head tells me that I haven’t done enough to invest in my community. I think of the empty calories I’ve put in my body and that voice comes back telling me that I don’t do enough to take care of what God’s given me. I think of all the hours I’ve spent wrestling with my faith and how to share it and goodness, does that voice in my head have an opinion about that. I have a voice in my head that thinks that I should already be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect and that voice takes Lent as an opportunity to be mean.

But being mean doesn’t mean you’re being honest, and today is about honesty. Being reconciled to God is about honesty, as far as I’m concerned, because God is the truest truth, the brightest light, the most beautiful beauty. God is the one from whom truth and light and beauty flow. So if we’re going to reconcile ourselves to God, if we’re going to clear the air in the relationship between us and God, we’re going to have to do it by being honest, not by being mean.

Honestly, I have to say that, among other things, I’m still holding onto the hurt that came from my upbringing in the church, hurt that happened decades ago and hurt that I didn’t allow myself to feel until recently. I’m not done being angry about this hurt. In fact, I don’t want to be done being angry about this hurt. My anger feels righteous and powerful, which is the opposite of how the church made me feel, and I’m not ready to be done with it yet. When I was a teenager, the church taught me that my body was bad and that I had caused the abuse I endured and that I would be lucky if God could find me anyone to love me, which was a shame, because the most important thing that I, as a woman, will do is to be loved by a husband and bear his children. In all honesty, I am angry about the shame and the limitations the church put on me. Sometimes I feel like the church put me in a cage and then told me I was weak because I wasn’t flying.

Now, maybe you’re not holding on to hurt from the church, or anger at the church, like I am. Maybe it’s hurt or anger from somewhere else in your life. Or maybe it’s guilt that you haven’t done enough, or guilt over something you know you’ve done wrong, or fear about what the future might hold. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. You all have lived more life than I have and you know more about the ways that this world can come to stand between us and God. But what I do know is that each and every one of us has something that is standing between us and God, something that blocks us from fully knowing God and being fully known by God. For me, my anger at the church is a boulder that blocks almost the entirety of my path to God. I have to dodge around it, climb over it, chisel away at it, in order to find myself back in relationship with God.

But Lent is about being honest.

And being honest with God means admitting that this bolder exists.

Maybe more importantly, Lent is getting to a place where I want the bolder gone.

Lent is about clearing the path between you and God, so that no matter what debris the world has left in the road, when Easter comes, you can run with joy to meet your Lord and there is nothing standing in the way between you and the abundant life that God is waiting to breathe into you. Lent is about understanding that we are only given so much time in this world and that every minute of it we spend separated from God is a minute too many. Lent is about being honest with God about what stands in your way and asking God to help you move it.

You are not a bad person. No one is. No matter what you’ve done, no matter what has been done to you, no matter what you hold on to, you are good. God has said so, and so it is. But each and every one of us has lived in this world of hurt, this world waiting to be redeemed and reconciled to God, and so each and every one of us has something that’s standing between us and God, between us and life abundant. This Lent, be brave. Find that thing that stands between you and God and look it square in the face. You are strong, you are bold, you are good, you are loved, and this thing must be dealt with. Let today be the day you begin to deal with whatever stands between you and God.

I love Ash Wednesday. I love Lent. I love Good Friday. I love these days because we are honest with ourselves. And when we are honest with ourselves, change begins. When we are honest with ourselves, God begins again God’s gracious work within us. Ash Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday, these are days of bravery, days of looking into the dark parts of ourselves and our pasts and deciding that God is bigger than our monsters.

My friends, we are called to reconcile ourselves to God, to return ourselves to God. Take this time now, here, today and in place, to begin that reconciliation, that return. In times of reflection, go exploring in yourself and invite God along, so that you might know what stands between you and God. In our litany, listen to ancient words said anew, calling you back to God. During our confession, raise up to God those things that separate you from God and during the pardon, know that our separation is only temporary, and that God is always more willing to forgive and restore than we are to ask for restoration or forgiveness. And as the ashes are smeared on your head, remember that we are all dust and to dust we will return, but also remember that God gives us an infinity within our temporary days, and that these ashes are a sign of God’s great ability to make something out of nothing much at all. How much more, then, can God make out of us?

Amen and amen.

In this time of reflection, I invite you to begin thinking about what might stand between you and God. If it helps you to pray, pray. If it helps you to sit in quiet, sit. If it helps you to walk, walk. Take these few minutes to open your heart and mind to God, who is always faithful to draw us back in.