Christopher Thomas
Sermon for Ash Wednesday, Year A – 2/26/20
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Have you ever had the opportunity to touch and to feel ashes? Ashes are kind of grainy, but as they get smeared around, they tend to have a kind of oily, greasy type quality. Ashes are the vestiges, the remains, of something that was. In their very creation, ashes have given up everything that identified what they were in their previous form and content, retaining only their most basic, elemental content. Something that was, at once, distinctly identifiable, say, maybe, a palm branch, woven by human hands into a palm cross, carried around or displayed somewhere for a year, meets the fire of furnace, and, in an instant, forfeits it’s green or brown shaped cross identity, returning to that from which it was formed.
We spend a lifetime of years amassing our identities, from the very moment we enter the world. Our identities are carefully crafted and meticulously curated. We grow identity, experience by experience, in what we do and how we are in relation to the world around us. I know who I am based on my relation and relationships to others, and to all of creation. How I fit into the world, this world, is, to a great extent, formulated based on what others think of me, and the feedback that they give me in response. And so, our system of identity values evolves in a very worldly sort of way, as we test and try and test again, creating these images of who we think we are. It seems at once very natural, and organic, and rational.
We’re given names and we even attach titles to those names, Mr., or Mrs., or Dr., or Father, or Mother, in our attempt to define and to continually refine who we are, what we have accomplished, and where our place is in the grand cosmic scheme of things. Lots of stuff gets stored up, built up, in this attempt to craft identity. It’s an easy gristmill to get caught up in and anesthetized by, because it’s, quite frankly, life.
And then we come here, and we stand naked at the foot of the altar, and hear those words again, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” “I know, I remember. How many times have I heard this in my 54 years?” Unfortunately, we do have to be reminded. Because we live in the world, and we get caught up in the world, we have to be reminded of how the world really works, and how the reality of God’s world works.
And so, when the ashes go on each of our foreheads, making that greasy black mark of the cross, and those words are uttered, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” in that moment, all the false identity, all the treasure that we’ve stored up in this world is instantly wiped away. In that moment, each and every one of us, no matter what our station in society might be, stands in the reality that we came from dust, and we’re returning to dust. Our worldly identities melt away. We’re all equal. It’s a great equalizing and also sobering moment. We are creation, we are not the Creator.
Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by giving us his perspective of God’s world order:
- Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely[b] on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Why is the reality of God’s blessing so much closer and more evident and available to those who are poor, or who are hungry, or who are sad, or who are reviled. I don’t think it’s some sort of perverse barter and reward system. “We got our blessings here, and they will get theirs down the road.”
No, these are the people who either don’t have identities, or their identities have been subtracted or taken away so that others could have more identity. Identities built in and of the world, the ones that are built on the false construct that someone or something other than God is god, are always rooted in injustice and inequality. And we don’t want to see that, because it means that we are every bit as vulnerable and susceptible, and also a part of the system that creates those same injustices and inequalities. “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” The reality is that all of us are only a few paychecks away from being the poor, and the hungry, and the sad, and the reviled. Why would I want to see that on the streets of Dallas?
Why would I want those ashes placed on my forehead, year after year, to hear and to be reminded that I am but dust, and to dust I shall return? Why should I want to go out and feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, to pray with the incarcerated, and the undocumented, and the sick and suffering? Because in that great equalizing moment, ashes are ashes, dust is dust.
It’s in those ashes and dust, in that poverty and sorrow, and sickness and death, that we find the stirrings of sacramental life. It’s all those things that stand in stark relief, that show us the true meaning of life. They point away from ourselves and to God, and they point the way to God.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus admonishes us to examine our own motives and intentions, why we do what we’re doing. It’s simply not enough to give and to pray and to fast. Those things, in and of themselves, are not going to win the proverbial prize. As a matter of fact, there’s not much point in doing those things if we’re not doing them for the right reasons. Those things, in the world’s economy have been put forth as signs of false identity. “Oh, aren’t you pious to give, and to pray, and to fast?” Doesn’t it look good when everyone sees me giving, or praying, or fasting?
If we come from a point of privilege (and, just to be clear, if we’re sitting here in this room, we’re coming from some point of privilege), any examination of our own motives will surely bear out some marks of identity based on the world’s economy. What will people think of me if… What will people think of me if they see me give, or don’t see me give? What will people think of me if they see me, or don’t see me pray? What will people think of me if they witness my pious fast?
Those people out there, out beyond our privilege, the ones who are poor, and hungry, and sick, and reviled, those folks have already moved passed what anyone thinks of them. And we need to go join them. We need to go stand on the margins with them, not for what we can do for them, or for how the world will celebrate us for doing it, but for what they can do for us. They show us who we are in God. “The ones who are not us are the presence of our absence in acts of justice.”
Every time those ashes get marked on our foreheads in the shape of the cross, we stand in solidarity with all those whose identities have been stripped away through injustice and oppression, sickness and suffering, as our own identities in the world are stripped away, and we are left with the haunting and yet reassuring words,
“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Amen.
