Year C

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Ashes of Turning Back

Do you remember the nursery rhyme: “Ring around the rosie, pocketful of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down?”  Today, we begin the season when we will all fall down together so we can all be pulled up together by the grace of God at the end of our forty-day preparation for the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord. Ash Wednesday confronts us with the uncertainty and difficulties of human life, and ashes on our foreheads are not only a symbol of our mortality and humble status; they are also a reminder of the Lord’s mercy and the need for reconciliation with God and one another. In the scriptures, wearing ashes was a symbol of repentance, sorrow and humility, often while wearing sackcloth and during these weeks of Lent, we will hear the somber words penitence, repentance and sacrifice often. For these words all imply aspects of ourselves that need to be put to death as we, the faithful, prepare for Christ’s death and resurrection.

In the reading from 2 Corinthians, we find Paul is wearing his ashes. He had to be aware of his mortality and his vulnerability, as we read of his several close calls. Therefore, he summons the Corinthians with urgency to live faithfully, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” Our time on earth is limited. Paul knows that this time on earth is not the end of the story, but he wants to emphasize the pressing importance symbolized in the imposition of ashes. “Remember, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” and “turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” Now is the day to accept and respond to the reconciliation that comes through Jesus Christ! Right now the trumpet blows calling us to return to the Lord. Will we go down the road of being reconciled to Christ? Ash Wednesday is in our face reality of living in a finite world with limited time, while being committed to eternal things.

In a sense, this is our wake up call and borrowing language from Paul, today is a time to take stock in our foolishness for Christ; because, the allure of worldly wealth, security, power, and prestige can turn eyes from the “treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.” As sign and promise of our call to live our lives always striving for purity, patience, generosity, forgiveness, kindness, and love we wear our ashes and name our sins before God and one another. Paul makes it clear that there is a cost in worldly terms when we accept the call to follow Jesus but it is worth it as God has promised that glory we talked about last Sunday. It is salvation for those who respond to God in faith.

The gospel today, that comes from the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, speaks to the focus of Ash Wednesday and Lent addressed by Paul, by naming the disciplines and practices that can help us to prepare during this time for Holy Week and Easter. Lent has always been seen as a time of increased devotion with extra time of prayer, charitable giving, worship, and fasting. All these practices in both the Jewish and Gentile society were actions considered worthy of praise and they are certainly practices that Jesus holds up before us as worthy of praise. The difference for followers of Jesus is not the acts themselves, but rather the motives and the manner in which they are carried out.

Jesus gives three specific warnings concerning almsgiving, praying and fasting followed by the proper way to do these practices. In each case, the disciplines are not to be used as public displays of piety and in each example Jesus draws a contrast between true and false piety. For those who follow Jesus the focus is to be God alone and on rewards that come from God, not from our fellow human beings. These examples may or may not connect with your life but there are certainly others ways to show our focus is on God. Serving on one of the committees here at church, attending and assisting with worship, helping with our youth, helping the homeless, giving of our time, money and gifts to further God’s work and mission in our community, done with love for God and neighbor are all acts of devotion. This season reminds us that we need to participate in disciplines that help us to turn back to God, and we need to be reminded that our focus should be God and neighbor. These outward and inward acts of piety can be part of our return to God. The key for Jesus is motives, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The desire to journey this life with God is its own reward and the journey of Lent always points us toward the promised hope of salvation.

The lessons today all point to the promised hope of salvation and to the call to return: our hearts must be conformed to the Lord and to the justice that is expected of God’s people. Paul has instructed us that Jesus himself, though innocent, immersed himself in the ashes of our sinfulness so that he might save us for freedom and holiness and he reminds us of the need to be reconciled to one another and to God.  When we are reconciled to God, our treasure is where our heart is and Matthew reminds us that this endeavor can so easily be turned into hypocrisy if our motives are not right. If we seek to serve only ourselves and not God, spiritual death can set in.

We begin this Lenten season in dust and ashes. We begin again the process of repentance, of turning back to God which the church so wisely calls us as we prepare for its greatest mystery. For the goal of Lent is “life amid death.” It is a falling down to be pulled back up together. It is a sobering reminder of our mortality and it is a time to turn our hearts and minds back over to God. Despite our mixed motives, imperfections and many mistakes, God uses hearts that seek to be right. When we seek to be right with God, then repenting, believing and doing the gospel become a priority. The disciplines of Lent, almsgiving, prayer and fasting among others can be received more deeply as gifts that point us to God’s presence in our lives and in our world. In the end, that is what a faithful observance of Lent is –a grace filled return to the Lord our God.

At this time I would like to invite you to the observance of a Holy Lent. May our Lord God be with us on this journey to the cross and to the empty tomb, and may we be reminded each day the need to turn our hearts back to God.