Ash Wednesday, 2019, Sermon

One of my favorite books of “religious” poetry is entitled, God got a Dog, by Cynthia Rylant. Page by page, God is presented in the fullness of both humanity and divinity.  Page after page of God living and loving in our midst. God got a cold. God got a desk job. God made spaghetti.

God in our midst. God responding to all of creation with love. God accountable to all of creation.

And then, my favorite. God went to beauty school. God went to beauty school to learn how to do nails—so that God could hold our hands and say, “beautiful” and really mean it.

 The intimacy of that exchange, of that pronouncement of beauty—I have no words.

No words that seem sufficient to the occasion of God’s love for each and every one of us.

In church, we spend a great deal of time talking about the Body of Christ, emphasizing the need for community, and speaking of the importance of our mutual interdependence as a means of living into God’s call to us.

We spend less time talking about the personal, intimate, and specific love of God for each of us, each of us as individuals.

And, this is where I am tonight. On this particular Ash Wednesday. Proclaiming the love that God has for each of us—each of us, claimed as beloved children of God through the belovedness of God’s only Son.

Love may seem like a peculiar point of departure for our Lenten observances. But, in considering mercy, I consider love. In considering forgiveness, I consider love. In considering our creation, our creation as human beings, I consider love.

Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord, your God,
for God is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.

With all your hearts. Because God is a God of steadfast love.

This is God’s nature. The nature of the One who, “hates nothing he has made”. Steadfast love.

Nothing to hinder, nothing to hide, nothing to hate.

When we return, we will be welcomed.

When we repent, we will be reconciled.

When we request, we will receive.

And, so here we are—bidden once more to return, repent, and be reconciled to the God who made us.

Here we are. Here we are, as we are. In our guilt, in our shame, in our hurts, and in our resentments.

Here we are.

So that we may begin anew.

So that we may consider our end.

So that we may remember the love that brought us to bare from the dust that God declared good.

Poet Jan Richardson speaks to this in her offering, Blessing the Dust, For Ash Wednesday

All those days

you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if all you had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered

to the four corners

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial—

did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

So let us be marked

not for sorrow.

And let us be marked

not for shame.

Let us be marked

not for false humility

or for thinking

we are less

than we are

but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust,

within the dirt,

within the stuff

of which the world

is made

and the stars that blaze

in our bones

and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.

Amen.