ASH WEDNESDAY - "Why do we talk about ashes and death? Joel 2:1-2;Matthew 6:19-21
Ash Wednesday, March 2, 2022 - The Rev. Kate Fiedler
Joel 2:1-2, 12-16a // Matthew 6:19-21
Why do we talk about ashes and death?
When I was in high school, senior pictures were a big deal. This wasn’t a picture that would just be viewed in the annual yearbook then collect dust. These pictures could be submitted with college applications, when applying for a job, and grandparents often kept the senior photo framed for years, at least that’s what both my grandmothers did. Senior pictures were a big deal, and so I chose my attire carefully, and got my mom’s blessing with my planned accessories and the bright coral sweater I wore when it was my turn. It was exciting to get our pictures back weeks later, to share the proofs with friends by our lockers and check out their pictures too. That day, some of my friends gave me a hard time when they saw my photos. “Where’s your cross necklace?” I was asked, with judgment ringing through the question. “Yeah, how are you going to evangelize if you don’t wear your cross?” One friend piled on, “I’ve always thought it was weird that your parents are preachers and all, but you only have one little cross in your house.” I was shocked by their accusations. I didn’t have a comeback. I just shrugged and went on with my day, feeling guilty for choosing a necklace my mom gave me instead of my cross from confirmation. When I got home from school, I showed my parents my senior picture proofs while we gathered at the kitchen table, and then I told them what my friends said. “I like my cross necklace you gave me for confirmation. Why didn’t you tell me to wear that one instead? And why don’t we have more crosses up in this house?” Using the classic teenage move, of blaming your parents when your friends question you. My dad smiled kindly and gently told me, “We choose to wear our crosses on our hearts, and not around our necks.”
I was quiet then. Dad calmed me down yet again. He made sense. That held true with how my parents taught my brother and me to act, both at home and out in public. I filed my dad’s response away for a strong reply the next time my friends declared I didn’t wear the right jewelry for Jesus.
My parents aren’t showy people. They don’t put bumper stickers on their cars, and they have never been into brand names or keeping up with the Jones or the Kardashians. They model a life of faith through their compassion, their kindness, their humor, their presence, and their work for justice. They focus on how they lead with their hearts, and they did all they could to teach my brother and me, even during our angsty teenage years, to do the same. Their priority was to mold our hearts for the world.
Tonight, I suggest that is the point of Ash Wednesday, too. Through the ash crosses on our foreheads, through the 40 days of Lent we are beginning, through the practices of repentance and reflection, God calls us to pay attention to the health of our hearts. God wants us to take time during this season for a heart check-up. See, I don’t think God cares if we wear WWJD bracelets or cross necklaces. I believe God cares more about how our hearts are marked and shaped by Jesus. Tonight we focus on ashes and our finitude, on death and dust as a signal that we need to pay attention to the well-being of our hearts, to the status of our love for a loving God and creation.
As I read tonight’s scripture from the prophet Joel and from the gospel of Matthew, pay attention to the heart language. Listen for the ways God is speaking for you to focus on the heart of the matter of Lent.
Now these words from Joel:
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
12 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.
14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain-offering and a drink-offering for the Lord, your God?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast.
Listen now to what Jesus said to the disciples, according to the gospel of Matthew:
19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
So, what did we hear, church? Did you hear God instructing the people to rend their hearts and not their clothing? Did you hear the prophet proclaim the Lord calls out, “return to me with all your heart, even now?” The prophet sounds the alarm that the day of the Lord is coming near. We hear Joel guiding us to pay attention, to focus on God, to turn to God, even during darkness and gloom, with armies threatening. On this Ash Wednesday, the prophet calls us to gather, to assemble with the elderly and the young, for a congregational wellness check. Jesus teaches us that what really matters isn’t the stuff we wear or where we live or what we own. What matters to God is how we love. What matters is how we treat our neighbors and how we care for creation. What matters is how we live out our love for God and our love for the world. Lent is a season for all of us to focus on what matters, to pay attention to God’s heart and our own. As a church family, we are called to practice our faith in the days ahead, to pray and fast, to weep and mourn, to delve into the depths of God’s love. We are called to turn our hearts toward God. To love with the depth of God’s love. To love our neighbors and our family, to love our climate and all living creatures, to love with the extravagance and the expanse of God’s love. Lent is our annual check-up to check-in with God and to turn our hearts to what really matters.
Tonight we take time to be marked by the cross, to remember the depth of God’s love through the life and love and death of Jesus. But the cross is not the only symbol of God’s love we carry with us. We are also marked by the belovedness of water at baptism. We are marked by the promises of new life in the rainbow. We are marked by the grace extended to all through the table during Holy Communion. Yes, tonight we will be marked by ashes and reminded that we will return to dust. And in the coming days, we are called to return to God, who promises life abundant. Our hearts are shaped by the fullness of God’s story, from creation through the wilderness through the prophets and finally through the life, love, death, AND resurrection of Jesus. The incarnation is God’s strongest love letter to the world. We are marked by the blessing of God’s unstoppable love and undeniable mercy. So hear this blessing for Ash Wednesday from Jan Richardson[1]:
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so you can see
its secret chambers,
the hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.
Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart’s walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those you have yet
to find.
It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering,
for trusting the breaking,
for tracing the rupture
that will return you
to the One who waits,
who watches,
who works within
the rending
to make your heart
whole.
Beloved, today we turn to God. We rend our hearts and mourn the many losses that face us, that face our world. We let our heart break for each life lost to Covid, for each person fearful in Ukraine, for every parent worried about their child, for every spouse anxious about their partner, for every youth facing despair, for every person struggling with isolation, for all who grieve, mourn, overthink, worry, and wake up in the middle of the night wracked with anguish. Church Family, we have so many reasons to rend our hearts these days. So we give our hearts to God. We wear ashes and talk about death to refocus our hearts. We trust that God knows how to make our hearts whole again. We trust that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to forgive. We trust that God promises new life, abundant life. Even as we continue to grieve. Even after these forty days have come and gone. We turn to God today, and we strive to love like God every day, until we meet our rest with the Creator who fashioned us in love. May it be so, for you and for me. Amen.
[1][1] Jan Richardson, “Rend Your Heart: for Ash Wednesday.” Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. Orlando: Wanton Gospeller Press, 2015. 93-94.