Thursday, February 14, 2013

Ashes

Last night I forgot the oil to mix with the ashes.  For some reason, we pastors never think to get the ashes until the last minute (or maybe that’s just me).  Every Ash Wednesday I feel like I step over a threshold and begin the steep drop to Easter.  Maybe I try to hold off the day because I’m never quite ready for Lent, even though I love it.  Before last night’s service, I found someone willing to go home and grab some oil out of her kitchen.  It felt appropriate to mix the ashes with oil from a partially-used up bottle—oil used to make nightly dinners.  Ashes are earthly and homey, not some mysterious concoction I put together using various potions in my office.  Ashes are us.  

I remember frantically burning leaves on the front stoop of our open country parsonage while preparing to preside over my very first Ash Wednesday service.  I shivered out in the prairie wind, trying to prevent the smoldering ash in my metal pie tin from blowing away.  No one told me leaves don’t make good ashes.  I spent too much time picking out various sticks and chunks of earth before mixing them with the olive oil in my cupboard—because new pastors do hear about the horrors of mixing ashes with water.  Doing so creates lye, which burns skin.  A secret part of me has always liked the image of people leaving the church with little crosses seared onto their foreheads—a Harry Potter-like mark of our sin and redemption.

Marking people with ashes is emotional.  The first few years I held back tears every time I placed them on the smooth foreheads of infants and children.  Each year I wonder who is receiving the ashes for the last time.  While people come forward, time stops and the repetition of the words “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” sits heavy on my heart.  I’m humbled by the intimacy of declaring death while people allow me into their personal space.  Some people close their eyes.  Others meet mine, listening intently to my words as I push their hair aside and smudge ashes onto their skin.  The earthiness of it grounds us.  God isn’t far away in some abstract place we hope to see someday.  Oh no—God is in the ashes and my words, on our skin and in our hearts, keeping us tethered to the earth that creates and sustains us.

Sometimes we want God to be abstract, to put God into a box pushed against the wall in the living room, to put God in a crate when we leave the house.  We don’t want to be reminded of the false promises we chase every day—promises of younger skin, a fulfilled life through whole foods and yoga, an easy solution in the next self-help book.  Ash Wednesday takes these promises and exposes them for what they are—empty.  The truth is in the ashes.  We are mortal.  Our days are numbered.  Nothing will change that truth.  Only God gives us hope and salvation as we live day-to-day.  God sits in the ashes with us, in the depression and addiction and hopelessness and broken promises and bad choices and pornography and abuse and SIN.  And out of these ashes—through the cross—rises the resurrection promise and the freedom to give it all to God who has changed your life already through the love and grace and mercy found in Jesus Christ. 

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  Amen.       

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Sermon for February 3, 2013

Text: Jeremiah 1:4-10, Luke 4:21-30

The Word of the Lord came to me.

I thought…

It would build me up, but it broke me in half.
I was too young to hear it, but it claimed to create me from the beginning.
When Jeremiah hears God calling him, he claims he doesn’t know how to speak because he’s only a boy.  God says, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.”
It would fill my heart with fear, but it terrified me to my very core.
Throughout the Bible, whenever God or God’s messengers appear, they find terrified people.  So often throughout Scripture we hear, “Do not be afraid.”
It would close my mouth in humility, but it commanded me to speak.

The Word of the Lord came to me.

I thought…

It would humble me, but it appointed me above the nations.
It would look for someone better, but it found me.
Eula Hall, an Appalachian activist with only an 8th grade education, founded Mud Creek Clinic many years ago in southeastern Kentucky to provide health care for the poor.  She calls herself “the hillbilly activist.”  She said, “I looked, and I said to myself, ‘taint right like this, no medical service here, taint right. Somebody needs to act.’ I guess that somebody was me.”
It would give me comfort, but it commanded me to destroy and overthrow.
The Freedom Riders risked their lives during the Civil Rights movement by riding public transportation throughout the South and challenging the unjust laws.  They were committed to nonviolent action, and they were regularly beaten and jailed.  Many of them were in their 40s and 50s.
It would leave me in ruins, but it called me to open up a new creation.
The actions of the Freedom Riders led to the credibility of the Civil Rights movement and helped bolster civil rights campaigns, desegregation, and fair voter registration.
It would make me special, but it made me see the outsider.
Jesus’ hometown church thought they were important because they knew him from when he was young.  Jesus deeply offended them and led them to violent rage by saying he came for the outsiders and not only for them.  A good clue: if people aren’t special in our society, chances are they are the most special people to God.

The Word of the Lord came to me.

I thought…

It would predict the future, but it gave me the truth about the present.
Prophets don’t predict the future.  Instead they give the truth about right now. 
It would give me visions of the fruits of my work, but it forced me to be patient and rely on God.
It would give me peace, but it made me open my eyes to suffering.

The Word of the Lord came to me.

I thought…

It would center me, but it flung me to the outer edges of society.
It would slow me down, but it sent me on a journey to Jerusalem.
It would quench my thirst, but it walked me into the desert.
It would protect me, but it allowed me to go the cross.
Following Jesus means to follow the path of the cross.  We die to selfishness, greed, ambition, jealousy, and consumerism.  We are raised to a new life of joy, promise, hope and justice.

The Word of the Lord came to me.

I thought…

It would stay steady, but it crossed all boundaries, including the tomb.
It would only speak to me, but it became a man who died for me.
It would tell me why I don't deserve to hear it.  It gifted me with pure grace and love.

I thought the Word of the Lord would break me down.  It did.  And it gave me a new beginning—one full of salvation, hope, and a meaningful life.

The Word of the Lord came to me.

I thought...

It would speak and I would listen. 

I became a Living Word.

Amen.