Sermon 2/9/05
Ash Wednesday
Cleaning Up - Psalm 51:1-17
(view lectionary notes for this text)
(singing) Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away form the presence, O Lord. Take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joys of thy salvation, and renew a right spirit within me.
These words are from Psalm 51, and growing up attending Camp Aldersgate, they were also words to one of my favorite camp songs. At the end of the day, gathered round the campfire, this song was one of the slow and quiet ones that would help ready wired campers for bed. But it was also one that was very near and dear to my heart. Through the years, whenever I’ve felt the strong need to come to God and confess my sins, the words of this song have come quickly to mind. They speak to our human desire for a fresh start, to know that we can have a clean slate and begin again, and to know that despite our wrongdoings, despite our failings, God will not cast us aside, but will embrace us and our vow to do better.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the forty day season of Lent, the season in which we prepare for Easter. During Advent, while we prepare for Christmas, the time is marked by hope, love, peace, and joy. But in Lent, we are called on to make preparations of a different nature. We know that the end of our Lenten journey is the celebration of Easter, a time of great joy in the community of faith. But we also know that before Easter comes, the denial of Christ comes, the betrayal, and trial, the mocking, the beating, the crucifixion of Christ. So in Lent, as we set out on this journey of forty days, we set out with an awareness that the path we take is difficult, full of emotions, subdued and somber.
But today, wherever else this Lenten journey will take us, we begin here, on Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is an old tradition, started centuries ago as a way to mark the beginning of this season. The ashes that you receive on this day have two meanings. First, ashes were symbols of mourning and repentance. In the Old Testament, we read of the people putting on ‘sackcloth and ashes’, sitting in the dust, symbols of repentance, particularly after hearing and heeding the words of prophets who reminded them of how they had strayed from God’s path and called them to return faithfully to God’s path.
Second, ashes are a symbol of our mortality. We are finite beings. We live and we die. As we say at funeral services, we are “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” even as Adam was created from the dust of the ground, and we, too, return to the dust of the ground. The ashes remind us that despite how we live and behave sometimes, our life on earth is finite – we have a beginning and an ending, both of which are in God’s hands. We are not God. We are not invincible. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Traditionally, ashes for this day come from the burned palms from last year’s Palm Sunday. The Palms that symbolized the joy with which Jesus was ushered into Jerusalem. But we know that the people quickly turned on Jesus, even though they had celebrated him when it was convenient. The people who praised them were also those who condemned him. And so the Palms that ushered Jesus into Jerusalem in joy also usher us into Lent with that great awareness we have of our own inconsistency. We, too, ask Christ to be a guiding teacher in our lives only to change our minds, or at least act as though we’ve changed our minds, as soon as things seem difficult. Palms to ashes. This is the nature of humanity, the cycle in which we seem caught.
So what is our task on this Ash Wednesday? Like in the days of the prophets, we are called to heed the voices that are telling us it is time to repent, to return to God, to make amends. We are called to recognize our own human limitations – to stop pretending that we are God, that we have all the answers, that we are in control of everything. How will we go about it?
Have you ever been part of an event that has both a set up and a clean up committee? If you’ve been involved with our annual Harvest Supper, you know what I mean. One crew comes in advance and gets the tables ready, and the silverware sorted. Another crew serves the meal, and still a third cleans up at the end of the night. The clean up crew has to wash the dishes, clean the counters, and set things back to right. Personally, I’ve always preferred the set up crew, or being part of the event itself. Who wants to stick around after the fanfare is over and clean up someone else’s mess? Not me! I want to get home, be done, sign off.
But on Ash Wednesday, we change the order. Instead of cleaning up at the end of the season, after Easter comes, the clean up starts now, before we can do any celebrating. And the clean up is for ourselves. Now is the time to clean up the messes that we’ve made of our lives. Certainly, forty days is not long enough to get out of some of the problems in our lives. But forty days is long enough to come to God and declare, as the psalmist does, “Have mercy on me, O God! . . . Wash me thoroughly . . . cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” Ash Wednesday is a time of confession. It is a day to be honest with ourselves and with God about who we are, what we’ve done that we shouldn’t have, what we’ve left undone that we should have done, and what we plan to do about it.
For this new start, God requires a sacrifice. In Lent, we think of sacrificing things like chocolate or TV. But God requires a different sacrifice, as the psalmist knows: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart . . . [God] will not despise.” Give yourself up this season of Lent. It is the best sacrifice you can make, and the rewards are complete: God will create in you a clean heart, grant you a right spirit, restore your joy, and give you a willing spirit to complete this journey.
Join me in singing again: Create in me…
Amen.