Sermon 3/1/06 - Ash Wednesday
Homecoming - Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Our Christian life together is grounded in ritual and tradition and symbolism. Our Christian year is marked by feasts and festivals and seasons where we celebrate together our story of faith and what it means to us to be children of God. The symbols that we use bind us together, and identify us to one another. Think of the symbols that mark us: bread and wine, water in the font, a fish, a rainbow, a cross, a crown. These symbols are important to us – they are markers that point the way to the story we share.
Today, we gather to focus on a different symbol – the symbol of ashes. If most of our symbols represent life, this symbol represents our mortality, a symbol to remind us of how finite we are, of how fragile we are, of how tenuous are lives are. We’re probably most familiar with the symbol of ashes today in the funeral service, particularly the graveside service where we hear the words, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We’re reminded that God created us from the dust of the earth and to the dust and ashes we return in death. Ashes – this is the symbol that is our focus today. It’s an uncomfortable focus. Even if we personally may feel ready to deal with our own mortality – and that’s a big if – we certainly don’t want to dwell on the mortality – the always-coming end of life of those we love. We can accept death when it is ‘supposed’ to come, at the end of a long and satisfying life, a life filled with love and good living. But are we ready to accept death as a part of life when it means the death of the young? The unexpected deaths? The lonely deaths? I am not. We are not ready for ashes to ashes.
Nevertheless, the awareness of our human limitations is always lurking in some part of our minds. We know, in our hearts, even if we don’t not act the part, that our lives are precious, and that time goes quickly. And so rather than ignoring or hiding from what is part of our human identity, today we are called to wear a symbol of our mortality right on our very faces – ashes placed right on our foreheads. We will be marked with our own mortality. Why do we do this? What is the meaning of such a ritual? Why do we begin our Lenten journey in this way?
In high-school, I was never a big sports-buff. After junior high, my attention was focused mostly on the music and drama programs. But I would still usually make it out for Homecoming – a big football game at RFA – alumni celebrations – school spirit week. But I value more homecomings of a more serious nature – coming home after a long trip, like the trip to Mississippi last week. Coming home after being away at college. Coming home and being reunited with loved ones – someone waiting for you at an airport or train station. A ‘welcome home’ sign. These are the homecomings I value most.
To me, Ash Wednesday is for the Church a homecoming celebration. In our text from Joel, we hear the prophet pleading for the people to turn away from their sinful behavior, to leave these things behind and return to a relationship with God. Joel is calling for a homecoming. He shares God’s words with us: “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, you God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether God will not turn and relent and leave behind a blessing, your God?” Joel assures us that God is waiting for us to come home, calling us to return and be blessed. God is gracious and merciful and loving, not angry and punishing. So Joel calls us to return to God, if we’ve traveled far off the path that God calls us to. Return, and find God waiting, welcoming us back home.
As we being the season of Lent, a season of penitence, a season where we are called to repent and begin again and try again to be the disciples we are longing to be – as we begin, God is announcing to us that we are always welcome home. And so we wear these signs of ashes as a symbol of our awareness of our own shortcomings, but also as a symbol of our destination – home into God’s arms. We wear this symbol of ashes not as a symbol of gloom and sadness, but as a symbol of hope and promise. God’s hope for us is that don’t wait until our time in this place is complete to visit God, to journey with God. And God’s promise to us is that we don’t need to wait until the end of our days to experience the homecoming embrace of God’s arms. Our home, today and at the end of our days, is safe in God’s care.
As we go through Lent, let us heed the words of the prophet. Return to God with all your heart – for God is gracious and merciful, and abounding in steadfast love. Come, receive these ashes. Come, and be welcomed home.
Amen.