We May Be Dust, But...

Sermon-Ash Wednesday-March 9, 2011
Every week in Lent I’m going to open with a different prayer before the sermon. I am going to use the prayer that I have been using the last few years from the Cloud of Unknowing.
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Cloud of Unknowing (Middle English: The Cloude of Unknowyng) is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer and the esoteric techniques and meanings of late medieval monasticism. The book counsels a young student to seek God, not through knowledge and intellect, but through intense contemplation, motivated by love, and stripped of all thought. This is brought about by putting all thoughts, except the love of God, under a "cloud of forgetting", and thereby piercing God's cloud of unknowing with a "dart of longing love" from the heart. This form of contemplation is not directed by the intellect, but involves spiritual union with God through the heart:
I remember in 10th grade seeing my good friend Amy Otis in school one February day, I rushed over to her and said, “Amy, you better get into the bathroom quick and wash up, you’ve got dirt all over your forehead.” And she turned to me, very kindly and said, “it’s not dirt, you dummy, it’s Ash Wednesday!”
Today we smear ashes on our foreheads. We do it to remind ourselves that life is short and that everything-rocks, buildings, pyramids, and even humans, will one day be ashes. It’s supposed to make us humble, to help us remember that life is short, and that one day we will be ashes. It is supposed to sober us, to “bring us up short” as we say in EfM. It comes from Genesis 3.19 God speaking to Adam:”you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
We say this at funerals-ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Life was created from earth, we say, and one day we will go back to the earth that birthed us.. There are many references to ashes as penitence in the Bible: Jonah goes to the Ninevites and calls them to wear sackcloth and to sit in ashes for their sins-AND THEY DO. Job after losing everything puts on dust and ashes as a sign of repentance. Jeremiah the prophet calls Israel to repent by wearing sackcloth and rolling around in ashes! And Jesus calls on whole cities to repent by putting on ashes and turning to God. When people in the Bible wanted to show that they were sorry for their sins and intended to lead a new life-they put on ashes. It was their way of saying, we are human, we make mistakes. And we will change. We are dust, we will return to dust, but we will change.
I was watching the movie The Bucket List (again) the other night, the story of 2 men who had cancer and both were given a short time to live. So they came up with a list of all the things they wanted to do, before they “kicked the bucket”. The thing is, everybody understands this even if they haven’t seen the movie-everyone knows what a “bucket list” is, as soon as you say the phrase. What would we do, if we were doing our end of life list? ( from a Sermon by written by Lee A. Koontz in 2006)
There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer is told by his doctor that he has only a few days to live. He is understandably frightened, but very soon after this dire pronouncement, he shows remarkable fortitude. Homer makes a list of all the things that he would like to do before he dies, and the list is full of things like ride in a blimp and tell off his boss. But the list also contains items like making amends with the neighbor who he’s always borrowing things from but never returning. Homer also realizes that not only has he not been a model neighbor, but also not the best father to his children. So, he spends quality time with his son, and listens to his daughter play the saxophone one last time instead of telling her to stop with all that racket.” Wearing ashes is our way of saying that we have a spiritual bucket list. It’s our way of saying, I know I won’t live forever, and this is what I want to do before I return to ashes.

I’m going to give you 2 simple things for your bucket today, 2 very small, very simple things for Lent. First, inside your bulletin is a 3x5 card in an envelope, and a pencil. I’d like you to think of one thing you will pray for every day in Lent. Think of one person, or one issue, one concern that so needs God’s attention and your prayer, that you will pray for it every day for 40 days. Then write it on this card, and write your name on the envelope-first and last. We’ll give these back unopened to you on Easter weekend in 7 weeks.
The second thing is in the parish hall. This Lent, I want you to watch for an act of love that is done for you, to you each day or each week this Lent. And then write it briefly on the sheets in the parish hall-not an act of love done BY you-but to or for you. I am challenging you to be aware of the love that is permeating, saturating, infusing, coming into your world-and to remember it on the walls in the hall.
Listen, today we wear ashes. It is a symbol of humility, a symbol of the shortness, and transience of life. More from the sermon by Lee Koontz:
We think of our sinfulness, and we know immediately that we have work to do before we die. So, how would you live if you knew that your days were numbered? Would you be more kind? More loving? Would you treat your friends differently? Your enemies? Would you make more time for family? Would you say, “I’m sorry” to the people that you’ve hurt? Would you be more mindful of suffering in the world? Would you want to share a little bit more of what you have with those who have nothing? What would you do? How would you live? What kinds of things would be on your list?
Death, sinfulness, repentance… these are the things that these ashes symbolize for us. Ash Wednesday reminds us first that we are dust, and to dust we will return. Life is fleeting. Time is short. And the ashes remind us that we are fallen, and we can’t get up on our own. We need God’s help. We need God’s forgiveness and God’s grace. We need God’s love.
And that, brothers and sisters, is the hope that is smeared in ash on our foreheads, that God’s love has reached through our sinfulness, through the grim shadow of death, to the dust and the ashes of human life. We may be dust, but dust that we are, we are loved. As Paul writes, “we are accounted dead… and yet we are so very much alive.”
So take a moment to think of a concern, an issue, a person, something that needs your prayer over the next 40 days-and write it on this card. Then, over the next 6 ½ weeks-go into the parish hall and write down a moment, an instance, an event that you are feeling loved, that you see love, that you notice love. Let others know that it is there.
So that even when people come up to you and say, you need to wash your forehead, you’re really dirty”, you can answer, “yeah, but I am so very much alive/loved.”