A Sermon for Ash Wednesday
March 9, 2011
Pastor Laura Gentry
Isaiah 58:1-12
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I admit it: my basement is a mess. In England, they have an expression for a messy place. They say: “It’s a bit of a bomb site.” Yep, that would be my basement. Now the upstairs, living spaces are quite neat and some have been completely reorganized. But since I don’t live in the basement, it has become a dumping ground for all kinds of old stuff. And with my dad is emptying his house for sale, I’ve acquired even more stuff than ever. I know that I have to clean it. Why? Because it’s holding me back. I can’t find anything down there anymore. It’s just a source of stress.
Tonight we begin the season of Lent. Here in the church, we try to describe this ancient liturgical season in all kinds of ways. Lent, we are told, is a time of sacrifice for Jesus—to give something up, like ice cream or donuts. Lent, we are also told, is time of preparation for Holy Week and Easter. It is a time of self-denial, repentance and prayer. It’s a somber time when we don’t even get to sing “hallelujah!” in worship. And while all of this true, I think it confuses the modern believer.
What I find to be the most helpful explanation of Lent is that it is a spiritual spring cleaning. Just like my basement needs a lot of sorting and emptying, so does my soul.
You see, Lent is not supposed to be a downer time. Maybe you were taught that as a kid. But believe me, it’s not. Really. The whole 40 day tradition came from the early converts who would prepare themselves for Baptism on the vigil of Easter. In order to get ready, they would engage in repentance practices, like dumping a bucket of ashes over their heads. And they’d just keep doing it until they’d look like a walking dust cloud. Think of Pigpen from Peanuts and you get the picture.
That’s why we’ll impose ashes on your forehead tonight—it’s in keeping with that early repentance ritual. Yes, the ashes represent our mortality. When you are imposed with the ashes you’ll hear the familiar words: “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And then you’ll get to spend the rest of the evening with a big messy cross on your head.
But what I think we often miss is that the ashes symbolized something else in the ancient church: cleansing. Before they had soap and body wash and fancy, good-smelling lotions like we have today, people used ash to wash themselves. Yes, ashes are about cleansing. They are about letting go of what keeps us from God—cleansing that away entirely so that we can turn around and run back into the loving arms of God.
No, this is not a sad season. In fact, I would argue it has the potential to be the most joyful time of all. We all need to clean our spiritual basements. All of those resentments and grudges and free floating anger hanging around inside us is no good. We know this. God knows this. But now’s our chance to really let it go—to draw nearer to God so that we can be cleansed and made new.
This Ash Wednesday, I’m letting go of everything that keeps me from rejoicing in this life. How about you? I mean, this life is such an incredible gift. When’s the last time you really rejoiced in it? Children get this. But sometimes we adults miss it.
I painted a mural on the retaining wall in my back yard a few years ago. When my sister came to see it with her children, we walked through the yard together. I explained all of the bright and colorful images and symbols. Kathy and I were engaged in the whole intellectual discussion of it. Then, I looked down and noticed her son—who was probably about 3 at the time—and he was taking in the beauty of this gigantic painting with his whole body. How could I tell? Because he had broken into dance, like they do in musicals. There he was, oblivious to our adult conversation, whirling and wiggling—entirely immersed in the wonder of it. Kathy and I laughed with joy to see his childish energy. I said, “Ah, if we all had the capacity to dance at the sight of beauty!”
Well, my friends, God is in this place and our whole world is beautiful and full of grace. Do we perceive it? Can we take it in—casting aside our worries and fears enough to rejoice?
In the reading we heard from Isaiah tonight, the prophet calls us to be in this place of rejoicing over the abundance of the Lord so that we can share our bread with the hungry, invite the homeless into our homes, and give the naked something to wear. Then, he says, our will your light break forth like the dawn and our healing shall spring up speedily. When we joyfully care for our brothers and sisters, our light will rise and God will satisfy the parched places of our lives.
I don’t know about you, but I get what he means by parched places. It’s painful to have parched places where hope feels dried up and situations seem impossible no matter how hard you try. Well, parched places: be gone! Isaiah says that God will change all of that. We will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail! Incredible.
Now who can't find time for that? Lent is not a demand to squeeze a little more time into an already overly busy life or give up some category of junk food. It’s much more important than that. This is an invitation to get our lives together, to do that spiritual spring cleaning we know we need. This is a chance for true healing. This is an opportunity to re-cultivate the childlike joy that is within us, so that we can feast upon the grace of God, share it generously and dance again at the sight of beauty.
So that’s exactly what I plan to do this year. That, and I might even get my basement cleaned as well.
