You are Dust (Ash Wednesday)

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You are Dust

5 March 2014

Ash Wednesday

Homily preached at 12 noon and 7 p.m. Said Holy Eucharist

With Imposition of Ashes

Parish Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10;

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

God, give us hearts to feel and love. Take away our hearts of stone,

and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

The Church has traditionally prepared for the Great Feast of Easter by observing a period of fasting and penance lasting for 40 days, not counting Sundays, which are themselves festivals of the Resurrection.  It recalls Jesus' time of fasting in the wilderness preparing for his public ministry.  During the period, Christians reflect on where they fall short of God’s intention for them when He created them.  Through an enhanced program of spiritual discipline--usually including self-denial, more prayer, and confession and spiritual direction--we seek closer communion with God and amendment of life.   

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of this season of Lent.   On this day, we recite more complete forms of confession and litanies, and have priests impose ashes on our foreheads in the sign of the cross. 

The ashes are administered with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”   The words come from the story of the creation and defection of humanity represented in the characters Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3.   They are the concluding words of the curse (or is it a blessing?) that God lays on human beings as a result of their defection from his intentions for them. 

It is important to remember that they are not a divine put down, a way of degrading us and telling us what little worms we are.  The context of the story is that God wants all good things for his creatures, and that it is we who have made it impossible for us to receive all of God’s blessings. 

The words also show up in the Burial Office, when the priest recites, while blessing the remains, “You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return.  For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’  All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”  [Forgive me for quoting this during the 'Alleluia-free Zone' of Lent, but the point is really important, especially during Penitential seasons:  there is hope buried in sorrow because God is God.] 

This prayer in the Burial Office makes a contrast between the Immortal and perfect God and us, mortal,  flawed, and made of dust.

One of the readings for Morning Prayer this morning was Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  The Pharisee goes to the Temple and prays all about himself—“Thank you, since I am so special, so much better than everyone else!”  This paragon of religion is all focused on himself, how good he is.  He thanks God only because things are so good for him.  It is all about him.  The Tax Collector, on the other hand, stands apart, without even lifting his eyes, and just prays, “Forgive me, a sinner.”  The focus here is only on God’s mercy, only on God.  The Tax Collector is not beating up on himself, just trying to tap into the Sea of Compassion, the Well-spring of Love.   It is not really about him at all, it is about God. 

Lent is all about God, and only secondarily about ourselves. 

It is not about beating up on ourselves and being drama queens about supposedly how rotten we are.  It is about looking at God’s beauty, God’s perfection, God’s simplicity, and God’s Deathless Life, and drawing from that vision hope for ourselves. 

We are dust.  But it is God who made us, out of very special dust, "star-dust, billion-year old carbon," the remnant of the explosions of stars early in the age of the universe.  And God is not yet finished with us. 

The Book of Common Prayer's Collect, or Prayer for the Day, for Ash Wednesday is as follows:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Collect provides succinctly the theology and belief that must lie behind any authentic practice of the Lenten Fast.   

Most of us, like T.S. Eliot in his poem "Ash Wednesday," find that we dare not hope to reform or change, dare not hope to be the unusual old dog who can learn a new trick: 

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)

But as the Collect says clearly, our hope for amendment, our hope for closer communion with God, our hope for hope itself lies here:  God does not hate anything that He has made.  Dust we may be, but it is God who made it and who made us.  No matter how far we are from what God intends, no matter how much we have distorted the image of God that God placed in us in creating us, no matter how twisted we have become and what bad use we have put to God's gifts, God forgives and heals. 

But this grace can be accepted by us only if we are sorry for our misdoings, and the start of such sorrow lies sometimes merely in only being desirous of being sorry for our misdoings.   This provides God something He can grab onto as he struggles with us, works with us, forgives us, and heals us.

The journey we set out on in Lent is a path on which we let that desire work in our hearts and become sorrow for our misdoings.   We let the silly disciplines we impose on ourselves ("no meat," "no alcohol," "no sweets,") make us uncomfortable enough that we pay more attention to things we usually like to avert our attention from.

As the Collect reminds us, it is God who does the real work in Lent-- He creates in us new hearts able to feel sadness at our failings (that's what contrition means).  It is God who makes us able to have the right feelings about our failings ("worthily lamenting our sins"). 

As we begin this journey, let us take to heart those words “You are dust and to dust you shall return” and in our hearts know that God is not yet finished with us.  God not only made us once, whether long ago in evolution or at our own conception, but God is still at work on us.   That is why even at the grave we can sing a song of praise. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.