Ash Wednesday

 Psalm 51

In his book Tales of the Hasidim, the late Jewish philosopher Martin Buber recalls the writings of Rabbi Simcha Bunin, a Polish Hasidic leader of the nineteenth century. Bunim wrote,

Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that [you] can reach into one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and there, find the words:

Bish'vili nivra ha'olam (bish-vil-lee nee-vRAH ha-oh-l’arm)

“The world was created for me” (BT Sanhedrin 37B).

 

But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket and find the words:

“V'anokhi afar v'efer” (vah-no-khee a-far a-fair)

“I am but dust and ashes”(Gen. 18:27). [i]

"Today is the day when Christians around the world dig into the left pocket to see what realizations, and shadowed blessings, may be found there."[ii]

Today is the day when we follow the prophet Joel's instruction:

Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing." (2:13)

At the very least, today is a day to begin to reorient ourselves toward God and to begin to draw near to God, as we enter into Lent.

Lent is a season of self-examination and repentance, and, before we say, "We follow Jesus. For what do we need to repent?" let's dig a little deeper into that pocket and examine what we find, as we reflect on the words of Psalm 51.

Most scholars agree that the psalms were not written by David and the superscriptions - the words that tell us about the psalm’s purpose or who its author was - were added much later by editors. Those editors chose to associate particular psalms with events in David's life, and while sometimes connections between sacred texts and narratives can be vague or tenuous, Psalm 51 certainly provides the response we would hope the king would have had after Nathan confronted him about his adultery with Bathsheba and his complicity in Uriah's murder.

One of the patterns we see in the psalms is that say what we already know to be true about God, and then they tell God what’s wrong and then they ask God to respond.

Here, the psalmist begins his plea to God by acknowledging God's steadfast love and abundant mercy.

And then he confesses his sin, and importantly, he doesn't confess one particular action, but he confesses his condition of being a sinner, saying, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me." (51:5) That language makes us uncomfortable because it implicates even the youngest children among us. And it exposes us when we like to think we can get away with “ignoring or hiding the unpolished parts of our lives.”[iii]

But, as Lutherans we believe that we are "wholly saint and wholly sinner" at the same time, from the day we are born.

Confession was never intended to be torturous or punishing. Instead, in confession, we acknowledge our sin before the God who has known us since we were knitted together in our mothers’ wombs, (Psalms 139:13-14) because we have confidence in God's immeasurable grace and forgiveness.

The psalmist recognizes this too, addressing God and saying, "You desire truth in the inward being..." (v. 6) God doesn't want us to play games; God wants our honest reflection and repentance.

The psalm continues, asking God for God to act in accordance with who we know God to be.

Just as at the font we mark ourselves with the sign of the cross and remember that in our baptism we were adopted into the family of God, today we are marked with crosses of ash, to remember that God washes our dusty selves and sanctifies us. (51:7b)

Our plea "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." (51:10) recognizes God's power in our lives to forgive us and create new life for us. Creating us anew, God uses the old stuff, and we see how what we've experienced and who we have been remain a part of who we are today, redeemed by God's love and mercy.

Redemption and reconciliation are possible only because of God’s love for us.

This Lenten season, as a congregation we are seeking to live well in Christ and to practice forgiveness with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, exploring what it means to have the steadfast assurance that God’s mercies are new every morning,(Lamentations 3:23) and that forgiveness is ours to give away.

Just as we come today to confess our sin, receive forgiveness and remember God’s grace because we love God, we want to pursue forgiveness of ourselves and others, not because we are motivated by obligation or fear, but by love.[iv]

And as we recognize the ways that Christ’s love transforms us, I wonder if we can name the old things that are being made new and see how parts of our stories find new purpose when we see them as part of our story with Christ.

Let us pray…

God of life and death, of forgiveness and blessing,
Have mercy on us, according to your steadfast love
according to your abundant mercy, blot out our transgressions.
Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity and cleanse us from our sin.
Help us return to you to repent and to release.
Crack open our tired, aching, chained up hearts to Your mystery and healing hope.
We know we are dust, and to dust we shall return,
and in the midst of all of that, we return to You.
Come, O God, make haste to save us.
Amen.[v]

---

[i] “Two Pockets," Book Two: The Later Masters [New York: Schocken Books, 1947], pp. 249-250).

[ii] Sundays and Seasons Resources for Ash Wednesday.

[iii] Eric Mathis. Commentary on Psalm 51:1-17. Workingpreacher.org.

[iv] “The ‘Why’ of Love and Forgiveness’, Practicing Forgiveness with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength and Mind.

[v] adapted from Psalm 51, RevGalBlogPals Wednesday praye

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

I remember the first time I was invited to impose ashes during an Ash Wednesday service. A mother brought her infant forward and seeing the baby, I froze. I knew the words I was supposed to repeat:

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I marked a cross on the mother’s forehead and said the words to her, but I was not prepared to place an ashen cross on that tiny forehead and say those words to one who had been born just weeks before.

But that mama knew what she was doing when she brought her child to the altar rail to receive ashes. She knew how precious and dear, and sometimes how fleeting, life is.

The ashes remind us both of what we already know and of what we sometimes forget – that in Christ, death does not get the last word. I haven’t hesitated since.

Ash Wednesday invites us to speak honestly about sin and death. We join in confession for our sin, and on behalf of those who are not here with us tonight, acknowledging our complicity in the brokenness of the world where we live.

A world that cannot live in peace;

A world that cannot see that every person is beloved and created in God’s image;

A world that cannot be vulnerable and authentic in its compassion and prayer for the stranger.

Our confession is our response to God’s Word and promises for us. As disciples of Jesus, we confess “with confidence that the judgment has been, is and will be lifted from us by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.” (The Rev. Fleming Rutledge)

And in its honesty, our confession becomes the turning point of our lives where we commit to actively “turn around” — to turn away from ourselves and return to God with all our heart.

Just as Pastor Mark said on Sunday that after the Transfiguration, Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem, in Lent, we turn our faces toward God, coming up from the ashes to learn to live as disciples of Jesus in new ways and to commit to the deeper work that leads to transformation.

Here at Grace, our midweek learning and worship will focus on deepening our practices of prayer, both communally and individually.

Often prayer is described as talking to God, but prayer practices also invite us to rest from all the other things we could be doing so that we can draw close to God and renew our strength. Spoken prayers let us name the concerns of our hearts, but because the best conversations aren’t one-sided, prayer also asks us to wait on the Lord to speak. Amid the noise and wordiness of our lives, silence invites us to listen for God.

One week we’ll explore a prayer labyrinth, where prayer is combined with movement, and another week we’ll experience different kinds of healing prayers. Other weeks we’ll practice morning and evening prayer as well as prayers around the cross and centering prayer.

Throughout the season, Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel will remain with us. There Jesus tells the disciples to “beware” or “pay attention” to where their hearts are in all they do, whether it’s giving or praying or fasting. Jesus urges us, in whatever we do, to act with honesty and authenticity. It’s too easy for our motives to get mixed up, for our hearts to harden, or for us to curve in on ourselves in sin. In a world that so often is transactional, rewarding merit and achievement, we are called to remember that discipleship isn’t about what we get or whom we impress but who we are, in relationship with God through Christ: forgiven and reconciled.

On Ash Wednesday, and throughout the Lenten season, we are invited to focus on how God’s grace-filled and loving response to us defines who we are and how we practice our faith day by day.

Let us pray…

Good and gracious God,

We give thanks for your abundant grace and mercy and for your steadfast love.

Thank you for forgiving our sin and for inviting us to return to you again and again.

Reconcile us to you and to one another as we practice our faith and deepen our relationship with you.

We pray in the name of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6 and Joel 2

These verses from Matthew’s Gospel that we hear each year on Ash Wednesday are from a section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the first of five discourses Jesus makes in Matthew. This is the sermon that gives us the beatitudes and later the Lord’s prayer. Jesus is teaching the disciples about the promise of God's blessing and a new kind of kingdom righteousness that looks different from the Roman occupation they have known.[i] And in this part of his sermon, Jesus warns his followers against performing their faith “like the hypocrites” who were the stage actors of the day.

It’s hard to ignore the irony that here on Ash Wednesday we listen to Jesus teach about giving and praying in secret and yet, in a few minutes I will mark an ashen cross on your forehead and you will walk back out into the world with the ashes visible for all to see.

With his warnings about practicing piety in public though, Jesus was contrasting the public displays that were part of Roman patronage designed to bring special attention to those in power.

Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage and all men and women merely players.” But the kingdom of heaven is not a stage.

There is more to following Jesus than playing a part. Discipleship isn’t about wearing the right clothing, costume or mask, and it isn’t about remembering the right words or following a script. Ash Wednesday invites us to stop role playing, or pretending, and move from performance to relationship, where we find our identity as followers of Jesus.

Wearing the ashes marked into a cross on our own skin is not a prideful or vainglorious action. Instead it is an act of humility. With these ashes, we acknowledge our own human frailty and mortality. We recognize that our identity is not found in ourselves, our achievements or our abilities, but in Christ alone.

It may be the person you next see will try to wipe away the smudge on your forehead, not understanding its significance. But others will see the cross and know that it marks you as a Christian entering the season of Lent.

The trumpet that Matthew bans becomes the trumpet calling us together to worship in the prophet Joel’s words. Ushering us into Lent, Joel calls the whole community together, from the infant in arms to the elderly, and tells us what the Lord commands:

return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.[ii]

Like Matthew, the prophet’s concern is not on outward appearances or performances but what is happening within us in our hearts.

The prophet’s call is communal and it is personal. It is not private.

And while often the Hebrew word in this text shuv suggests repentance — turning around and changing direction —Hebrew professor and Episcopal priest The Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney suggests on this day, in this text, it can be read as “a call to draw closer to God.”[iii]

At the beginning of this forty days we are being called to rededicate ourselves to a life following Jesus.
The prophet promises forgiveness from our tender God, who “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”[iv]

And forgiven, we come to the Table to receive the wine and bread, to be fed and nourished with the gifts of God that will sustain us in the desert wilderness of Lent.

Let us pray…
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.[v]

[i] “Matthew.” Enterthebible.org, Luther Seminary. https://www.enterthebible.org/newtestament.aspx?rid=2, accessed 2/25/2020.
[ii] Joel 2:12-13a
[iii] The Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney. “Commentary on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.” Workingpreacher.org, Luther Seminary. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3564, , accessed 2/25/2020.
[iv] Joel 2:13b
[v] Book of Common Prayer. The Episcopal Church.

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

In some congregations this past Sunday people were invited to bury the “alleluias” signaling the beginning of Lent. One colleague lamented the year he had hidden them in the baptismal font and forgotten where they were stashed; colleagues were reminded that if they were burying the alleluias, they better have a way to remember where they’re hidden. It’s fun for me to imagine having a roughly drawn treasure map thumbtacked to the wall in the sacristy or tucked here into the pulpit Bible to show us the way back to the treasure at Easter.

But in practice, burying the alleluias for Lent — or simply refraining from using the word for “Praise God!” that occurs so frequently in our liturgy and songs — is one example of a discipline where we take a rest from something in order that its meaning or significance will be renewed when we return.

Through giving, fasting and prayer, the season of Lent invites us to rest.

Giving beckons us to step off the treadmill of everyday life that is always urging us to do more and have more. Resting in the knowledge that God cares for each one of us as lilies in the field, we are reminded that all we have has been given to us by God and belongs to God already and we are commanded to give the best of our first fruits to God, instead of withholding them or keeping them for ourselves. And when we give to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and welcome the stranger, (Mt. 25) our sight is renewed and we see each person with God’s eyes, as a fully human and fully loved child of God.

Fasting — giving something up for a period of time — also invites us to rest. Instead of filling ourselves up with activity or junk food, we empty ourselves. A common spiritual practice in Scripture, fasting isn’t about inflicting suffering; it is about heightening our attentiveness to what God is doing.1 Whether we fast from a particular food or a habit, fasting creates space for us to be filled by God.  

Prayer, often described as talking to God, invites us to rest from all the other things we could be doing so that we can draw close to God and renew our strength. Prayer lets us name the concerns of our hearts, but the best conversations aren’t one-sided, so prayer also asks us to wait on the Lord to speak. Amid the noise and wordiness of our lives, silence invites us to listen for God.

Safe in God’s care, filled by God’s Spirit and renewed by God’s Word for us, we are strengthened for whatever lies ahead.

Today on Ash Wednesday, particularly, we prepare for Lent with confession and repentance. We confess our sin— the way we curve in on ourselves, and away from God; the ways we live imperfectly as disciples; the ways we make idols of our stuff, our desires and our selves; the ways we stumble and do our own  thing instead of following Jesus.

Our repentance is not passive. As we put on ashes, we commit to actively “turn around” — to turn away from ourselves and return to God with all our heart. Lent offers us opportunities to find meaningful practices that help us live as followers of Jesus, not just for forty days but for all time.

Let us pray…
Holy Lord,
We give you thanks for your abundant mercy and love;
teach us how to follow your Son Jesus and find our treasure in You;
when we are weak in faith, strengthen us and fill us with your Holy Spirit.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our savior and Lord.
Amen.

1 www.bishopmike.com

Ash Wednesday

For most of us, February 14th has only ever been a day associated with heart-shaped candies and chocolates and paper cards with sweet words printed on them. The last time it coincided with Ash Wednesday, in 1945, Franklin Roosevelt was in his fourth term as President and the end of World War 2 was in sight.

So, it probably comes as a surprise that Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday are a mash-up that works.

Tonight as we gather, we recall the immense love that God has for each one of us.  From the first creation story that tells how God breathed the very breath of life into the dust of the earth to form the first living being (Genesis 2:7), we hear all through Scripture about God’s love for God’s people.

But words were not enough. God’s people rebelled and insisted upon their own ways, returning to God only when they failed. Gracious and merciful, God relented from punishment.

And then, God’s love for the world comes to us with skin on it, in the person of Jesus Christ, in what Joy Cowley calls in her poem “Incarnation” “a miracle of love made by love.”

Divine love isn’t the stuff of the Romantic poets, fluffy teddy bears or bouquets of flowers. It is the love of a parent when their child’s heart is hurting and Mommy and Daddy can’t make it better. It is the love that sits at a hospital bedside waiting for danger to subside. It is the love that holds a person’s hand when death is near. It is the love that sees the Son of God spat upon, beaten and executed.

And in Jesus’ life, crucifixion and resurrection, we witness the unbounded love of God given for the world, that we might know God and experience the freedom of forgiveness that is offered to us.

In giving us Jesus, God places relationship before judgment, and offers us forgiveness for our sins — our errors and mistakes and all the ways that we have turned away from God.

On Ash Wednesday, particularly, we are called to repent, not to just “feel bad” about our sins and resolve to “do better,” but to look into our hearts and actually change direction, to go about being in the world and with God differently.

Instead of red roses, God asks for our lives, that we would live, freed from sin, in relationship with the God who loves us.

Lent gives us a whole season – forty days – to fall more deeply in love with God.

Do you remember your first crush? Now, you can pass notes to God, praying and listening for God’s Word for you, while you journal your hopes and your desires, your fears and your confessions.

But first crushes fade and like short-lived New Year’s resolutions that are forgotten by Valentine’s Day, shallow attempts to change our patterns of living and thinking fail.

So Lent calls us, in the words of Joel, to rend our hearts and return to God, to enter into a life of discipleship that lasts a lifetime. Just as the waters of baptism wash us clean and give us new life, the ashes we receive tonight remind us that God breathes life into the ashes of our lives, and we live a new life in Christ, marked by the cross as belonging to God.

Let us pray…

God of love,

Through the prophet Joel, we hear your cry to return to You “with all our heart”;

By your transforming Word and Spirit, provide us with clean hearts.

That in this Lent and this life, we might follow your Son Jesus with a heart set on heaven.

Amen.

Ash Wednesday 2017

Do any of you watch “This is Us”?

If you don’t, it’s a show on ABC that tells the story of a trio of siblings who grew up in Pittsburgh, and with each episode, you learn a little bit more about them, about their lives as adults, and about their childhoods. One of the three, Randall, is adopted, and eventually meets his birth father William, who is dying from cancer. In a recent episode, Randall and William take a roadtrip to Memphis, and when a dying William gets back to his boyhood home, he goes straight to the fireplace lintel, pulling out a loose brick because he wanted to see “if his treasure was still there.” From the dusty cubbyhole, he pulled out the treasure — two toys and three quarters — he had hidden behind that brick as a child.

The treasure had survived all those years between his birth and his impending death. His life had turned out differently than he had planned or imagined, because of different obstacles, circumstances and choices, but the treasure remained.

I wanted to tell you about William and his treasure because Ash Wednesday invites you to return home to God,
to receive ashes on your forehead and be reminded, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Your mortality, or death, is certain. But, so is your treasure.

It may be hidden from sight, masked by years of trying to be strong enough, happy enough or wealthy enough.

Or it may lie beneath shards of broken relationships, crumbling dreams, or other distractions and disappointments.

But behind or beneath the sin that is part of our human condition lies your identity as a beloved child of God.

Our greatest treasure is the relationship each of us has with God.

Lent lets us return to God, recognizing how we have become distant and disconnected. These forty days give us time and space to confess our sins, “engaging in a more deliberate time of reflection and penitence.”[i] “Recognizing our utter dependence on God,” we receive God’s forgiveness.[ii]

In his small catechism, Martin Luther writes:
“Confession consists of two parts. One is that we confess our sins. The other is that we receive the absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God himself, and by no means doubt but firmly believe that our sins are thereby forgiven by God in heaven.”

God not only saves us from our sins, but also gives us new life, acting on the promised re-creation and redemption that we hear in Psalm 51.[iii] God delights in seeing us renewed and reaching again for God, and God empowers us, strengthens us and sustains us in the midst of life.

The words from the prophet Isaiah challenge us to remember that God sees us and our piety – our outward behaviors – and our hearts and innermost thoughts. “Sin is not a surface wound; rather it is a penetrating sickness that… [infects] the very core of our being.”[iv] So keeping up appearances is not enough.

God promises when we truly align our hearts with God’s own self, then we will experience light breaking forth, healing springing up and the Lord shepherding and guiding us continually. The prophet says:

“The Lord will satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (v. 11)

Participating in God’s life, we will know “the reassuring presence of God, an assurance that in risk and in danger, we are not alone.”[v]

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber from House for All Saints and Sinners in Denver describes Ash Wednesday this way: 

If our lives were a long piece of fabric with our baptism on one end and our funeral on another, and we don’t know the distance between the two, then Ash Wednesday is a time when that fabric is pinched in the middle and the ends are held up so that our baptism in the past and our funeral in the future meet. ‘The water and words from our baptism plus the earth and words from our funerals have come from the past and future to meet us in the present.

And in that meeting we are reminded of the promises of God: That we are God’s, that there is no sin, no darkness, and yes, no grave that God will not come to find us in and love us back to life. That where two or more are gathered, Christ is with us. These promises outlast our earthly bodies and the limits of time.

This Lent, let us return to God in confession and return to the building blocks of our faith, studying Scripture and Luther’s Small Catechism and reconnecting with God as the creator and renewer of our faith.

Let us pray….
Holy God,
We give you thanks and praise, for in your kindness and mercy, your patience and faithfulness, you are always ready to forgive and not punish.
We thank you for the example our savior and brother, Jesus Christ, by whose strength we resist all evil, seeking instead to store up treasure in heaven, knowing that though we may seem to have nothing, in purity, knowledge, patience and kindness, we really possess everything.
Amen.

[i] “Psalm 51.” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2.
[ii] ibid
[iii] ibid
[iv] ibid
[v] Walter Brueggemann. Isaiah, Chapters 40-66. 190.

Fingerpainting

Someone once said that when I was small I liked to finger-paint with brushes so I wouldn't get messy. Lent - a season of fasting, repentance and prayer - begins on Wednesday, and I'll be content using my fingers to paint crosses onto the foreheads of people who come to my internship congregation for the Imposition of the Ashes.

As we prepare to follow Christ to the cross, people are marking the season and reflecting on its meaning in varied and awe-inspiring ways. Here are some of my favorites. What are you doing?

(1) On her blog, Worshiping with Children, Carolyn Brown offers 3 Reasons to Include Children in Ash Wednesday but what really captured my imagination was this photo from Blue Ridge Presbyterian Church where the table covering was signed with crosses by worshipers of all ages. It's a palpable way for the people of God to participate as the priesthood of all believers, and to demystify the imposition of ashes.

(2) Jan Richardson, who illustrates the lectionary texts in her Painted Prayerbook offered this reflection. For other reflections, blessings, and art for Ash Wednesday, also see Jan's posts The Memory of Ashes, Upon the Ashes (which features the indomitable Sojourner Truth), The Artful Ashes, and Ash Wednesday, Almost.

(3) House for All Sinners and Saints (HFASS) in Denver, founded by Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, offers their own take on 40 ways to make this a holy season.

(4) Rethink Church, sponsored by the United Methodist Church, has produced a gameplan for a photo-a-day challenge that asks us to be more attentive to the world around us and to notice where God is in these forty days.

(5) As part of their Vibrant Congregations Project, Luther Seminary professor David J. Lose collaborated with folks and edited Renew 52, a collection of short essays about revitalizing church. Download your free e-book for Kindle, iPad or Nook, or downlaod the .PDF file now.Spending time during Lent reading and thinking about the ideas they share opens my imagination for what is possible for our congregations.

Whatever you do, be intentional about this season. Maybe you aren't interested in finding a church on Wednesday, or because of your schedule, you can't get to a church. Don't be surprised if God shows up anyway.  Watch for ministers coming to the streets, bringing "Ashes To Go" to commuter rail stations, city street corners, placing an ashen cross on your forehead, and praying, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."