A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday 2013

I had my first experience with the imposition of ashes ten years ago.  I was a sophomore in college and attended Ash Wednesday worship with some classmates at the Roman Catholic church which also served as campus ministry for Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University.  I remember feeling nervous, I remember the ashes feeling gritty on my forehead as a stranger reminded me that I was dust and to dust I would return.  I remember not really knowing what to do with myself after worship that night, if I should run back to my dorm and wash the ashes off, or go straight to meet up with my friends at the snack shop back on campus.  But I also remember those concerns being wiped away as I was welcomed at the table of a congregation where I was not a member.  No questions asked. 

In 2006, I experienced Ash Wednesday for the first time at seminary.  It was the second time in my life I had ashes placed on my forehead…and it was different.  I had struggled with God and God had won, I had surrendered to a plan that was totally different from my own and in the three years since the first time I had been told I was dust and to dust I would return, my heart had changed. 

I now treasure this day.  It is one of my favorite days of the year.  It’s a day on the church calendar where it is socially acceptable to be sad, to lament, and to cry out to God from the depths of our sin and despair and really claim who we are as broken children of God.  We don’t have to put on false pretenses with hosannas and alleluias if we’re feeling the weighed down by our shortcomings or the general weight of the world around us. 

And it has a different meaning this year.  There’s something that feels heavier this year than in the past.  Last night we heard news that an ex-police officer’s rampage through California had most likely come to an end.  We still hear echoes of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and Aurora, Colorado, the bombing in Benghazi, the numbers listed of people murdered in 2012 and the first weeks of this year. 

It seems that death is surrounding us and demanding that we pay attention to it, and then we hear those words as ash is placed on our foreheads “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Somber words for the beginning of our Lenten journey.  Naming the reality of death and our own mortality, forcing us to remove those masks that we so often use to hide our true feelings from the world and get back to what it simple, what is basic…life and death. 

The practice of the imposition of ashes is not a new practice…in fact it is quite old.  In the bible, people put on ashes as a sign of repentance or mourning.  In the book of Esther, the Jews put on sackcloth and ashes when they learn that their lives are in jeopardy.  Job sits in a pile of ashes after his children had been killed and Job had been afflicted with painful sores.  In the writings of the prophets, the people are told to put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Daniel pleads to God for the sake of Jerusalem with prayer and fasting, dressed in sackcloth and ashes. And although the church did not begin the practice of Ash Wednesday until over 900 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, even in the earliest days of the church, the beginning of Lent marked a period of intense preparation for baptism which included fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. 

For those in the midst of preparation for baptism at the Great Vigil of Easter, these words from Matthew spoke to them in a way that is different from how they speak to us now.  It’s not about the question “what” but rather about the “why.”  Why the fasting, why the almsgiving, why the prayer?  Is it so that people will see you and praise you for what you are doing?  Or is it so that your heart is opened and prepared to cast aside the things that got in the way of your relationship with God so that God can enter your heart and fill it?   

Today, as we join the mourners and repentant of all times and places as we too put on ashes and hear the words, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” there lingers that question “why?”  Why participate in an act that visibly marks us as we go out into the world?

Isn’t this something that Jesus warned about?

But again, it’s about the why, not the what.

Are we allowing ashes to be placed upon our foreheads simply so that people will know that we identify as Christians and will praise us for our piety?  Or are we allowing ashes to be placed upon our foreheads as a visible reminder to ourselves of what Lent is about?

Ashes are a reminder that life is fleeting and that no matter what we do our how hard we try, our bodies will get used up, burnt out and they will become lifeless.  It is also a reminder of our sinful nature.  Adam and Eve were not the only two that have strayed from God. We all have, at one time or another turned our backs from the one who created us from the dust and breathed the breath of life into our nostrils.  Finally, these ashes and the words “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” is a reminder that we are fallen and broken and it is only by the grace and love of God that we are picked up, dusted off and sent back down the path that God has laid out for us.

Being reminded that we are dust, we are sinful and we are fallen and broken is not the happiest of reminders.   But then again, we are beginning a journey that will transform us into witnesses of a crucifixion.  It is a reminder that we need, however, because it brings us back to center and reminds us that no matter who we are or how hard we try, in the end we are all the same.  And it is a reminder that this is all we would be if not for the death and resurrection of Christ.   

And so we embark on this journey of forty days, this journey of lent.  We do so carrying a mark on our foreheads, a mark that we are sinners, a mark that we are fallen, a mark that we are dust.  But the shape of that mark is reminiscent of a mark we received at our baptism when we were addressed with other words: “child of God, you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”  It is a mark that we wear everyday and though it is not a visible mark, it is one that reminds us of who we are, whose we are, and why we are on this journey.  It is a mark that gives us the boldness to put on ashes and go out into the world to serve God and others not only in this journey of lent, but the journey of life.

Today we set out on our Lenten journey.  We start here by removing our masks and getting back to what’s basic.  We hear words of reminder that we are dust, which are also words that remind us that we dust people have been given life through the breath of God and the water of baptism.  We are invited to the table to receive bread and wine, without price, without condition, no questions asked, so that we may receive nourishment for the journey.  And then we are sent out on the journey, bearing the sign of the cross on our foreheads, proclaiming to the world who we are and whose we are.