Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Ash Wednesday 2020
Tonight, we commence the long and arduous journey of self-discovery and self-awareness that is the Lenten season. It is a time that will demand that we peer deep into our souls and figure out what is truly of God and what needs to be burned away and left scattered like ashes so that we might be made whole and holy in the sight of God once again. And these rituals of confession, of contemplation, of a willingness to leave behind parts of our selves that would have seemed so essential just a mere few hours ago are incredibly difficult as it asks us to make an honest assessment of who we are and whose we are and of all those places wherein we have fallen woefully short in our endeavors to be followers of the living Christ. And in doing so, we find that we are left to humbly repent before God and one another that we will do better, try harder, in the coming year. Yet it is in these moments of our weakness, in which we cast aside the false gods of ego and hubris that we truly see ourselves in the manner in which God does—a children of God, stripped to our very essence, as the Christian mystic Howard Thurman once wrote, before the God who created, redeemed, and sustained us. In these moments, fleeting though they are, it is critical that we gather in this place and at this time as a church family to offer each other support in our lives and our walk towards this time of reunion through death, to offer each other grace when we fall, and to gently guide each other down the road to the cross. The journey that Jesus began when he turned his face towards Jerusalem, is the same journey that we each will take over the next 40 days. Just as Jesus began to face the prospect of his own end, so we will also begin to look at our lives, and ponder our own deaths, ponder that part of us that needs to die to allow Christ to grow in us, and to allow us to grow in God. And this death can be scary. It can be scary because it is hard to think that there is a part of us that we need to let go, that we need to sever. It is scary because it becomes increasingly difficult to stand with Jesus in these moments. To join our Jewish brothers and sisters in the elements of mourning that is symbolized by the ashes that will adorn our foreheads in just a few moments. A practice we all must undertake in one form or another because we are all born into brokenness, darkness, sin. We are all stuck in the mire of the evil of the world and we need to find a way out—because absent a way out, we just become swallowed up by, suffocated in, subsumed in the pain and suffering that goes on throughout the world and that is a burden that no one should carry all the time. So it is that Lent provides the means to that. Lent provides, a time and a space within the Christian calendar to take account of ourselves and our relationship to God, and our relationship to God's creation. Lent offers us time for reflection.
More than that, more than simply reflection, this Lenten season, as with every Lenten season gives us the space to offer repentance. A chance for forgiveness. A brief taste of the peace that surpasses all understanding. And yet to experience these moments of repentance, forgiveness, peace, we must, too, spend time each day in prayer and meditation that we might be silent as we peer into the darkness hoping and believing that we will still see a light. And so it is that Jesus' own words considering prayer ring loudly as we enter this time. Don't go out into the church and the street corners and scream out your prayers so that others might hear them, don't use big fancy words so that others know that you are more pious, more holy than them, but also don't be where others can gain access to the depths of your soul, don't be where others can prevent you from diving deep into the darkness. But go into your room, and shut the door. Go into your room and get away from the noise, and the hustle and bustle, go into your room, and get away from all the distractions of life, all the things that vie for the place of your soul. Go into your room and be wholly with God.
I have often been struck by the way in which people think they have to sound a certain way, or act a certain way, or be holy in order to come to God in prayer, when in reality, it is the exact opposite. In the end, there are no words that have to come with prayer, there are no actions that have to be taken in order to offer a prayer, there are no people, who are so unholy that they cannot come before God, in the solitude of the moment, and softly, quietly, let God slip in. Prayer is anytime we abandon all the restraints of the word, anytime we abandon the restraints of ourselves, anytime we are able with our words, or our actions, or our souls, to touch the face of God. "Truly I tell you," Jesus said, "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your father who sees in secret will reward you." We have come to a time in the Christian calendar when we need those times in secret, we need those times in quiet, we need those times of repentance.
But, we also seek forgiveness because we need forgiveness. We seek forgiveness because we know that we as a faith have sinned against God and against one another in word and deed, in actions done and those left undone. We have allowed trivial matters to weave together rancor and distrust amongst our brothers and sisters in the faith. We have allowed our quests for purity and fealty to close our doors and seal off our hearts to the outside world and its needs and its deepest desires. Far too often we have failed to be inviting communities that seek to be a shelter from the storm for the poor and downtrodden in our community and those Jesus called the least of these in the world and in every time and age. And so as a Church we need to seek forgiveness for our sins. But it cannot end there. It cannot end there because we also have membership in the larger human race in which nation fights against nation and sister against brother. Where bombs are dropped and bullets shot in hopes of bringing a lasting peace. Where we are pitted against one another in a quest for greater security and wealth, where cultures topple other cultures, and religions fight against one another, while families are torn asunder. Throughout our world, people go hungry because we as a race cannot figure out how to share the bounty. Throughout the world, women are abused and relegated to the role of second-class citizens. Children are abused and treated as chattel, people who don't look the same, believe the same, love the same, are treated without grace, without love, without hope. This goes on everyday and it is so overwhelming that many of us are forced to turn a blind eye because we cannot take the pain. And all that e can do in that moment is to humbly and with contrition in our hearts, seek forgiveness.
Only then, after we have sought to enter a time of repentance, after we have sought to gain forgiveness, only then can we hope for peace. Not just a peace for ourselves, but a peace for the world. Not just a peace for ourselves, but a peace for the church, not just a peace for ourselves but a peace for our nation, and our state, and our fair town. And yet it is a peace that brings us back to the darkness, to the hope, to the presence of God. It brings us back to the place to which we will soon follow Jesus. To the praetorium, to the hill, to the cross, to the lifeless body of Jesus, our brother and our savior staring off into oblivion breathlessly declaring, “Father, into your hand I commit my spirit” and knowing that would be enough. In the end, like Jesus, all we can do is trust in God to bring about a completion to God’s good work. In the end, we are only left to trust in God to bring about the reconciliation of the church and the world. In the end, we are only left to trust in God to bring about redemption, and resurrection, and peace. We do what we can, we repent when we must, we seek forgiveness when we have moved away from the will of God, we act in ways that we believe better the whole of creation, and then we allow God to do whatever God will to bring about peace. We have come together on a journey for the Lenten season. We have come together as a community and we welcome all who would enter those doors to join us on our journey. And we know that journey will not be easy. We know that in the end, we will go through a time of sitting on the ash heap and pondering our own worthiness for the gifts bestowed by God. We will spend some time in silence, in prayerful consideration of our relationship with God and with the rest of humanity and with the rest of creation. We will spend time walking with Jesus on Palm Sunday and wondering how the crowds could have turned so quickly, and wondering on which side we would have been. And finally we will walk with the Messiah to that place of the skull, and in some way we too will die with him. But for now, let us walk, arm and arm, brother and sister, picking each other up when we fall, carrying each other when we can no longer walk, and singing in one voice, “My joy cometh in the morning!” as we walk towards the new day of resurrection. Amen!
Image borrowed from: https://media.swncdn.com/cms/CW/holidays/63872-ash-wednesday-thinkstockphotos-902323194-azer.1200w.tn.jpg