Ash Wednesday 2007

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17a 2
Corinthians 5:20b -6:10
Matthew 6;1-6, 16-21



Crusader Lutheran Church
The Rev. Suzanne Rudiselle

February 21, 2007

Rockville, MD, February 21, 2007. The city is pulsing with life, gearing up again after the bad weather of a week ago. Too much time was lost. There are things to be done, places to go, people to see. Demands and expectations coming from different parts of our lives are in conflict with one another.” Sometimes it is hard to keep our moral and spiritual bearings. In the midst of the busyness, we yearn for a way of life that is simpler, whole, and touched by the presence of God.(Practicing our Faith, Dorothy Bass, p.x) We want to know what our faith has to do with living in this fast-paced world with all its complexities; how it relates to the work that we do and the people with whom we share our lives; and remember why it is that we come to church on a solemn occasion like this. Please note that we are few in number compared to the many who are still at their jobs, or out shopping or sitting, exhausted, in front of the TV.

We are here because it is Ash Wednesday, a day of repentance and of solemn remembrance of our mortality and of God’s grace. Thank God for this day and this season of Lent, and for a time to reflect.

We are not unique. Each society has had questions of the purpose of life and its relation-ship with the divine. People in each society recognize how far they have fallen from God’s ideal, and when the difficulties come - as surely they will - wonder about the judgment of God. Surely it is true in Judah in the 5^th century as the plague of locust attacked everything in sight. It was a “category 5” disaster. Our reading is abbreviated and omits the powerful descriptions of the particulars. They are tragically vivid. Before this ravishing hoard, “people are in anguish, all faces grow pale” as the plague spreads and nothing can stop the devouring, buzzing creatures.

The lectionary reading moves on to the words of hope and deliverance and redemption, - to God’s invitation for the people to return to God with all their hearts. “Blow the trumpets, sanctify a fast.” Signify to God that you are ready to receive God’s help as a sacred gift. God’s response will be one of mercy and steadfast love. “God will not leave the people without resources in their time of need.”

Then God calls to all the people, young and old, men and women, to “return to me with all your hearts, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” What hope! What a relief! God has not abandoned the people – this is what Paul later calls “the acceptable time” of repentance.

In Corinth a troubled congregation is at odds with its spiritual leader. The deteriorating relationship between Paul and the church, the rebellion against him and conflict within the congregation, means that Corinth is not a happy place. Not a “category 5, but a disaster in the making. Paul thought things were good within the church as he left them and moved on in his ministry. He now sounds defensive and frustrated as he lists what he has endured for the sake of these people. For every criticism Paul counters with his virtuous actions. He has been unfaltering in his faithfulness and wants them to “see the correlation between their trouble and complaints, and their inability to fully embrace the grace of Christ.” ( p. 160)

Is there is any such dissention in our churches? With the passage of time and the sophistication of our age, would we ever fuss with our spiritual leaders or each other? The truth is that as human beings we are fallible, and sometimes contrary, even those of us in the church. Paul’s words call us to repentance just as do the words of the Joel. He recognizes that the first priority is to be reconciled with God. How can we be right with each other if we are not first and foremost right with God? To be at odds with brothers and sister in the faith is to deny God’s grace, freely given to all. Listen to what Paul says again, “As we work together with (Christ) (him) we urge you not to accept the grace of God in vain. The grace that is ours as a magnanimous gift of God through Christ, is negated if we can’t get along! That is an indictment. Look at the way we have carved up the body of Christ – each group with its own version of the truth. Look at the way we denigrated others because they do not understand the gospel as we do. Where is our humility? Where is our contrite understanding that God alone is good and God alone has truth?

Lent is the time when we are more likely talk about our faith, recognize our lapses, and renew our spiritual practices. Lent is a time when we are more aware of our spiritual journey and the ways in which we have been side-tracked. Lent is a time when God says, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping, and with mourning.” In the “Sermon on the Mount” Jesus calls us to prayer, and fasting, and almsgiving, as well as weeping and repentance. Matthew’s account is like a “how-to” book for the faithful – a reminder that when we engage in these disciplines of renewal we do so as an act of love for God. In this season, we hear clearly that our disciplines of almsgiving are not to be done with a self-serving flourish which draws attention to us; our fasting is not to be done in a way that makes us look pitiful; and our prayer is to be neither babbling nor an exercise in eloquence. Our prayers and our actions are to be simple and honest so that we can renew our relationship with the God of grace, so that our actions spring forth from that relationship and that God’s grace is not in vain.

Augustine said that you have to start your relationship with God all over from the beginning everyday -everyday in the whole year. Especially in Lent, we begin again to renew our connections with the source of life. Anne Lamott, writing in her book, Plan B, talks about her sacred journey and the disciplines of connecting with God. In a particular crisis when she didn’t know how to pray, she decided to start with a simple prayer. “Hi!” she said. Just “hi!” trusting that somewhere, someone she called God would hear her cry and draw her closer. “Hi!” She felt not so alone – she felt better. The connection was there. And then hope was there. And then a different relationship with that other person was there. Many of us have prayed something like this, “Help me! Help me! Let me know that you exist. Let me know that you care even while I’m not getting what I want or think I need.” It’s not eloquent or even politically correct, but it is heartfelt, but God hears our cries.

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the traditional disciples for Christians, and ways in which we keep and nourish our connection with God. We cannot give up food without realizing the enormous importance it has in our lives – the time and money and preparation it involves. Nor can we do without even a lunch without realizing how many people go without nourishment for days, or longer. We give to our communities of faith and to the Community Ministry of Rockville, as we might tonight, because we believe in the mission and ministry of our churches and of other organizations that can reach out an touch the lives of those in need which we cannot affect on our own. We read scripture as food for our souls, as guidance for our living, as witness to the great truth that God is and God loves us, and somehow God is involved with the human enterprise of which we are part.

There is a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, why “on” our hearts, and not “in” them? The rabbi answered, “Only God can put scripture inside. But reading the sacred text can put it on your hearts, and when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.”
(quoted in Plan B, Anne Lamott, p.73) How can we look at the world and not have our hearts broken? In our fasting, almsgiving, prayer and study, as we renew our relationship with God in Christ, we must reach out in love. And in God’s mercy we are blessed and renewed.

Growing up in my New Jersey Presbyterian Church, I did not know much about Ash Wednesday. My Catholic and Episcopalian friends came to school with what I thought was dirt on their foreheads – I thought they should wash their faces. (There was no Lutheran Church in town at the time). I simply didn’t understand. My mother tried to explain to me that ashes were a sign of repentance- a sign that one was sorry for his or her sins. For far too long I lived by the motto I saw on a poster. It said in bold letters “REPENT!” And then in small letters on the bottom, it noted, “If you have already repented, please disregard this notice!” I thought if I said I was sorry once that should suffice. I didn’t know that repentance is as much an action as an apology; that it is relational and imperative in order to know God’s grace and be in union with God; that there will be many more than one occasion in each life for repentance.

Tonight some of us will have ashes placed on our foreheads as a reminder of our mortality, as we will hear the words, “dust you are, to dust you shall return.” The ashes of the palms that last year hailed Jesus as Messiah, signify the fickleness of our faith, as “Hosanna” changed to “crucify him”. Tonight we receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of Christ, a testimony of God’s forgiveness for our lapses and our willful disobedience. Tonight we look at the judgment that might have been and give thanks for God’s amazing grace. Tonight we linger in Christ’s company, giving thanks for his love poured out on us. And tonight we repent of our sins and recommit ourselves to a right relationship with Christ and each other, as evidence that his grace is not in vain.