Ash Wednesday--2014

Ash Wednesday- March 5, 2014 Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return… Ashes to ashes and dust to dust… All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song…. We here who have buried so many loved ones these past couple of years cannot help but hear the echoes of our burial liturgy in the words of Ash Wednesday today. Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. This whole season just past we have cavorted; we have celebrated; we have worn masks; we have, at times perhaps, felt like we could live forever. Today, we take off our masks; we stare at our own reflections in the mirror of our prayers and liturgy, and we see the shadow of death reflected in our eyes. Ash Wednesday and Lent are a time when we dwell with our mortality for a season. They are also a time when we are called to repentance. Now please note that repentance is not the same thing as penance, which is a popular practice during Lent. It is what folks do when they give up something for Lent. (This practice of penance can have a place in a healthy Lenten discipline, as long as it helps to focus one toward a re-orienting of our relationship with God, focusing on that which has become an impediment in our relationship with God, as opposed to mere self-improvement.) Repentance, which is God’s call to us during this season of Lent, means returning to God, reconnecting with God. And it also means “‘to go beyond the mind that we have’—a mind shaped by our socialization and enculturation” (Marcus Borg Patheos article March 4, 2014). When we begin this season of repentance today, we are turning away from not loving God with our whole heart, and mind, and strength and not loving our neighbors as ourselves; we are turning away from not forgiving others, as we have been forgiven and turning back toward God who loves and forgives us all infinitely. We are turning away from being deaf to God’s call to serve, as Christ served us and not being true to the mind of Christ, and we are turning back toward listening to God’s call in our lives and in our world. We are turning away from our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives; our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people; our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves; our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work, and we are turning back toward God, who dwells in each and every one of us and cherishes and loves all of God’s creation in a way that we cannot and do not. We turn away from our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us, our fear to be changed and our laziness and self-indulgence, and we turn toward God who kindles in our hearts the desire to be in relationship with God that is nurtured through prayer and worship and community. We are turning away from our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, from all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us and from our waste and pollution of God’s creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, and we are turning toward God, the creator and redeemer of all that is. Today and over the course of these 40 days, we are invited to be focused on repenting of all that separates us from God and from each other. But it’s not so much about wallowing in guilt for all our sins for 40 days and nights, it’s about turning away from death, from all that separates us from God and turning toward life—turning toward God, walking through this death that we so often choose for ourselves into the resurrection that God invites us to participate in. So I invite you to consider--how might you do Lent differently this year? How might this Lent be an invitation from God for you to go beyond the mind that you have and dwell more deeply in the mind of Christ? How might you let go of some of the guilt, the empty rituals, and invite God to help you turn away from what is death in your life—turning toward God, life, and resurrection? Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return… All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song…