Loading...My family owns a small fishing cabin on a stunningly beautiful lake in central state NY. For me the place is filled with many fine childhood memories. One year my older sister and I thought we were of age to take the canoe out on our own. So we worked up the nerve to go and ask Grandpa if we could take her out. And after a stern warning to not go out beyond the boundary of two docks just off the shore line, we gladly slipped the canone into the cool water.
It was amazing. There is simply something about being out on the water like that that is so captivating: the shimmer of the sunlight cast across the rippling water; the swells of whitecaps kicked up by the northern bluster; the horizon of the opposite shoreline with its deep green lines etched across the beautiful blue sky. This was the highlight of our summer vacation. My sister and I are out on our own canoe ride! This was our moment!
But before we had too long to get caught up in the rapture of joyous adventure, we heard a shrill cry from the shoreline. It was grandma yelling out to us! We had drifted well beyond the boundary of two docks! We were in way over our heads! Terror ran through us.
My grandmother's voice pulled us back to reality. Caught up in the thrill of the moment, we had forgotten to keep watch; we’d forget to heed my grandma’s words of warning. We were unaware, adrift; and it was the voice of our loving grandma’ that call us back to attention. Luckily my grandfather was coming in from one of his many morning fishing trips in his motorboat; he threw his anchor in the bow of our trembling cannone and towed us safely ashore. We were saved from our careless inattention. Adrift, we were awoken, and rescued.
Our first lesson from the prophet Joel begins, “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain!”
Today is about hearing “the sounding of an alarm” - a voice calling to us attention. A wake up call.
So easily we get caught up in the mundane movements of our day to day - we become inattentive and we drift. So easily we find meaning only in our individual lives, and fail to see how we are connected to a larger whole. And in days like these in our own society we are recognizing that the luxury of such a limited vision can no longer be afforded.
In our current circumstance - where human beings, creating in the very image of God, are being marginalized, criminalized, indeed, demonized - we are in need of a deep waking up. And yes, I see a new attention happening among us as a people of faith, and as a diocese. We are waking up. Because of the irruption of some of our deepest held values as a people, I see us now paying attention in a way that we haven’t before. We can no longer afford the lie of a disconnected individuality. We are all bound to one another, and it matters how we use our voices - our very lives - to stand with all people created in God’s image; Our slumber has been disturbed - and we are waking up in a new way - it matters how see, talk about, and treat one another. Ash Wednesday is a timely wake up call for us as a people of faith - “blow the trumpet” “Sound the alarm” Awake from slumber. Renew your attention.
The ashes that we are about to receive, pull into sharp focus that to which our attention is being drawn. For centuries Christians have been participating in what might seem from the outside to be an odd and strange communal ritual. Why does the church insist that we continue in this practice? Why?
Because the Ashes teach us. They call our attention to central truths about our lives. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These Ashes draw attention to our limits – we are mortal, we are finite, we will die. On Ash Wednesday the church “plays in the graveyard,” so to speak. Today the church takes us to the places of our death, and asks us to reflect on our lives from that vantage point. We are limited.
And these Ashes draw attention to our creatureliness – the dust conjures up images of the creation story; the “green thumb gardener God” comes plays in the mud - shapes, forms - breathes life into the dust - creates us.
One of humanity’s greatest errors is to live as if we are the source of our own being, that we’ve created ourselves. Obviously as Christians we won’t ever say this aloud, our actively think this in our minds; and yet, we can easily live as if we are functional materialist - or believe the lie of our society that we are what we consume, or have the capacity to consume. We can be seduced into living our lives on our own terms. Our lives only for ourselves, cut off from the greater whole of common humanity. Today as we take ashes on our foreheads, we are confessing our creatureliness; we say, if life is ever going to be lived True (capital T), be Good (capital G), and be Beautiful (capital B), it will be done so in reference to, in relationship to our Creator God. We are creatures.
And It is hard for us Western enlightened individuals to confess - but today, these ashes, are about our need for God. Left to our own devices, we are not going to get this right. if our lives are to be authentically grounded in the true purpose for which we were created - connection to God is needed.
So, these Ashes are a big “get real,” if you will. The prayer book calls them a “sign of our mortality and our penitence.” They are a sign of a renewed attentiveness. In receiving them we enter into a profoundly subversive and countercultural act. In receiving them, we are saying, “Yes, we are limited, yes, we are created, yes, we are those in need of God.”
In these ashes we “get real!” Christianity is a get real religion. In this tradition we don’t have to pretend. Our faith gives us a renewed freed from our culture’s self-delusion, and we are grounded in the real as IT IS. We are dust.
But the story doesn’t just end there. Ash Wednesday isn’t just about us. If our attention is only drawn to ourselves - our limitations, our need - then we are most to be pitted. Yes, these ashes are a sign of our mortality and our penitence - but only as a means to a greater end. As we will pray in a few moments, these ashes are a sign of such things as a vehicle, to point to something else altogether - to remind us of the gracious gift of God that gives us everlasting life.
At the center of today is what God does with dust - God breathes life into dust! God breathes life and makes us new. Remember, it is the “green thumbed gardener God” who comes down to shape, mold, form, breath life into the dust.
The words of Jesuit priest and spiritual author Gerard Hughes are instructive here:
“It is always risky when Christians attempt to renew, reform or convert themselves; and the more they appear to succeed, the great the danger. Renewal, if it aims at self or group improvement, will do far more harm than good. This sweeping statement, while it may seem a cynical and unjust condemnation of many sincere groups and individuals within the church, is made simply made to point out that the more we try to be “good” Christians, the more we are bound to fail. Our renewal, if it is to bring about real change of heart and mind, must start not from our own effort, but from attentiveness to God, who alone is good.”
Our renewal, if it is to bring about real change, must start from attentiveness to God.
Throughout Lent, we do become more aware of our limitedness, our creatureliness, our need. And yet, our gaze is not to be fixed there. Our hearts and minds are to be lifted to the goodness of God. Whatever dust is unsettled in our lives, God is ready and willing to heal, to restore, to transform. The God who is inviting us to recall our dusty beginnings, is the same God who breathes into that dust and gives it life. This ultimately is about life. This is ultimately about the gracious gift that God gives to us! God does what with Dust? God breathes life into dust!
This is why we don’t simply receive the ashes and then leave; we take on ashes, and then hear the invitation to come to the table; the fellowship is not broken - we are God’s children, God invites to the table of fellowship to continue in relationship, forgiveness, healing, wholeness. The gifts of God, for you the people of God.
So, on this day, when you come to receive ashes on your forehead, do so as an embodied sign of your willingness to renew your attention and “get real.”
Come, receive the ashes as a sign of your openness to be embraced by a God who calls to you, and who wants to honestly receive you, as you really are.
Come, take the sign of your limited creatureliness, out of a desire to be embraced by a God who wants to take dust, transform, and breathes life into it.
Today is ultimately about what God does with dust. Today is about LIfe! Amen.
