Reflections on Ashes

This year we should be feeling blessed by a “late” Lent and Easter season. Instead we have been surrounded by so much cold and damage and dirt of a season that has assaulted us that we are surely ready for the ashes of it to blow away with the next strong gust. So the new life of spring can start.

While different times in the church year can signify endings and beginnings, for me perhaps Lent is my favorite. Today we receive ashes made from the palms of last year’s Hosannas, and they are also ashes of everywhere the journey took us after Palm Sunday. A whole year of places of love, truth, patience and kindness. And places of affliction, hardship, sleepless nights and hunger.

All of it burned away to dust.

What starts out like a giant leafy palm, becomes the small amount of dust in this dish. There are actually a few palms that became our ashes. But even if we had all the palms we waived last year, there would be room in that dish.

I think it’s a concrete way of seeing that we cannot store up the praise or the glory we think we’ve achieved. We cannot hold onto that dust.

But are also reminded not to hold onto the pain of the times that we really messed up or where someone really hurt us.

Let that dust blow away.

This is my third year to work with our dust. And at a fundamental level my comfortableness with the ashes reminds me of how it all comes to this dust. You see, they don’t teach us how to make ashes in seminary.

My first year, I had little idea how to make the right ashes and I got lots of unhelpful advice like what my internship supervisor said- let the sexton do it. I fussed and fussed to get it right- not to crumbly, not too oily. I made a huge mess and ended up with far more ashes than we needed.  Enough for decades of Ash Wednesdays.

But once mixed with oil, they don’t keep. Last year’s oil is pretty nasty. In spite of all the fretting, if you do not remember those ashes, that is a grace. If you do, sorry.

My second year, there were so many things going on that I waited until the last minute. I was so preoccupied and as a result, they were not fully set- too spare for the early service. Barely a cross maker at all. If you don’t remember that, that also is a grace. And if you do, let it go.

This year, I put a little oil in the dish and dumped in the ashes and walked away. When I came back later, a couple stirs and they were ready. Which probably means there should be a whole lot less of me, and all the things I hold onto. And a whole lot more of God and God’s timing. After all, God is used to making things from dust. And making something from what feels like chaos.

These ashes remind us where we’ve been and yet invite us into a season that’s about working through the chaos. To get to what’s essential. What is not essential is burned up or blows away. Jan Richardson writes that Lent challenges us to reflect upon what we have filled our days and lives with. To see what habits and practices, possessions or ways of being have accumulated, or taken over. Where is a pattern of chaos threatening to block our seeing the presence of God?

Each scripture passage today invites us to ponder what our practices are and which ones we have given ourselves over to. And which ones God calls us to- individually and as a community. To pay close attention to the rhythms of our lives to see which practices draw us closer to God and which pull us away.

We ask God to create in us a clean heart. Lent asks- What is the state of your heart?

What has taken up residence there?

Are there habits or ways of being that you are so invested in or attached to that it is difficult to see new places God might be inviting you to move into?

Out of the good and the bad and even the ugly of a year, God is creating a new path that takes those ashes and makes a new path marked by a cross. Making beautiful things from the dust.

On this day and throughout this season may see more clearly what is treasure and may our hearts be open to the unexpected life that only God in Christ can bring. That cross-it’s the only thing that we truly need.

And because of our loving God it’s the one promise we can be sure of.

The Message the Angels Bring

I confess a selfish reason for celebrating Michael and all angels which is that it is my husband's "saint's day." And the name Michael literally means, "who is like God" but I urged people not to empower him. Yesterday, with our kids we looked at two of the stained glass windows in our church that depict angels- on each one the angels have orange wings. Not sure why. But any way, the first is an angel appearing to Abraham as he is about to offer Isaac, bringing important news to stop! The second is the angel Gabriel bringing important but joyful news to Mary- you will have a son! One of our kids is a girl named Gabriella who delights in the fact her name is the girl version of Gabriel!


It’s easy to look at today’s readings or others and focus on what we do or do not know about angels- who are these messengers?  What do they look like? We talked about how angels can bring good news, and tell things that are important and they protect us. And then we sang “Angels Watchin’ Over Me.” But of course there is more to all this because we are not so sure what to make of angels. And for many of us, we think about maybe the ones we hang on the Christmas tree where we imagine everything in the world is clean and pure and festive.

If art over time is a guide to popular thought, we like our angels to be pure looking girls, chubby blonde headed babies with miniature wings, or occasionally even sensual women. Smiling, or at least looking like they know a secret. We claim these images, perhaps even unknowingly as a way of escaping or smoothing over the world around us. But that’s not at all what we hear in the Bible. Angels sometimes look like nothing more than a curious visitor, or a fellow traveler. Other times, like a man, with dazzling bright light, like lightning, maybe with wings, as many as 6 wings, and as many as four heads, like animals and eyes all over, with a face like the sun. Kind of hard to hang that on a Christmas tree. Defender angels who look or sound more like something out of Lord of the Rings, or a fantasy movie, engaged in a kind of cosmic showdown that some are convinced the end of times will look like. And a tale of there no longer being any place for Satan in heaven- so he came to earth. How much is literal and how much is imagery? What to do with these creatures mentioned 600 times in the Bible?

Angels bring messages about something important. Most have no names. But when they do, there is usually a reason about big things. The two names we do know are Gabriel and Michael. Gabriel appears when births are being announced that will change the world-

the births of John the Baptist who prepared the way and Jesus, whose name means-  “he saves.” And Michael comes armed with the power of God to conquer evil. Their appearances are about proclaiming what we hear in verse 10 of Revelation- A loud voice proclaiming- NOW have come salvation and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of the Messiah. And no matter how adorable our popular imagery of angels can be- honestly, that passage is what I really want to know.

We may not know what to make of all of the imagery, but we know what it feels like when evil has knocked on our door, or life is full of chaos. And while we do not know where angels are visible, somehow when they are seen, the reaction is one of recognizing God’s power, and standing in awe. Whether you have ever had such an experience or not, stories of those who have reveal God in our world.

A few years ago I had my closest encounter with angels, but I didn’t actually see anything. I was working at the hospital and paged to visit a patient with end stage liver disease. When I walked into the room there was a man connected to lots of medical equipment, looking exhausted from his struggles, and a frantic wife unable to rest from the swirl of information they’d been given about just how serious things were. She was terrified, and he was resigned. And they were caught in chaos. He was preparing to die, and hoping to escape. She was looking for a miracle- she wanted a cure. But they couldn’t undo the struggle. It had started long ago, in a cloud of addictions, shame and contempt. Being deceived by the devil and all those empty promises. And now they knew. She urgently demanded- you have to pray for him to beat this! For him to be healed, she meant cured. While he kept saying, “no babe, it’s too late for that.” But it was like his lifestyle was standing there, accusing him, day and night, like we hear of in Revelation, with each beep of the machines. Pray for us.

In my mind at that moment, were so many thoughts- anger that evil had destroyed a life. And when I think about how there was no room for the devil and evil in heaven, that they fell to earth,  I could literally imagine seeing it all falling in a blaze of flames, but the smoke seeping into so many lives, overtaking and convincing people to cling to things that would destroy them. Like this guy.

And right about then I would’ve liked to do some cosmic butt-kicking with Michael the archangel. And then high five with the disciples that we’d conquered! But I was left feeling profound sadness, and frankly, helplessness. Because while I believe for God all things are possible. I knew I could not stand there and say “God will fix you.” I knew time seemed short.

And there we were. And I began to pray with them and to this day I do not remember the words. I’ve tried, but all I remember was saying “Almighty God” and closing my eyes as tight as I ever had ‘til I got to “Amen.” But at the end, as I opened my eyes, the woman was positively transformed. She had a glow in her eyes, and stood there in a state of wonder. And she kept saying, “Did you see that?...Did you see?” Followed finally by- “when you were praying, they came! The angels came and were in this room. It’s gonna be OK. It will be alright. We can do this.” She didn’t say he would be cured, but that she knew they could walk this road.

And I was so astounded, I never even asked what exactly she saw. Because what mattered was not the messenger but the message- that you are known to God and chaos has an end. Angels act in Scripture and in God’s world to bring this message. The woman in that hospital room moved from wanting a cure here, to being convinced that she now understood how to walk in the days to come with God. The angels had brought a message.

And just like Jesus told the disciples, it’s not so much about the messenger as the message. That power and salvation and kingdom are now.

So often we can lose sight of God’s power, and salvation and kingdom. And be deceived. Into believing on our own power, or deceived into believing we are alone in our struggles. Or that what swirls around is too great to be conquered. But Martin Luther writes that “we as Christians should have sure knowledge that (God’s angels) are with us, not only one or two, but a large number.” After all, it was a multitude of the heavenly host with the shepherds that dark night. And he says “ … if God did not in this way check the fury of Satan, we could not live for one moment.” But God does.

NOW have come salvation and power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah. This is the message that helps us worship and praise, and discern God’s will. This is what guides, protects, delivers, encourages, and answers.

The message that chaos has an end in Jesus Christ. All around us may swirl accusers, or adversaries. Those who do not cling to life. Times where evil has come, but the time is short. But chaos has an end. And we are not alone.

Angels work mysteriously to surround us, and to remind us to rejoice that there is such a message for us because we are known to God. And we are assured salvation.

And that is the message we like the early disciples are given to carry- to proclaim God’s good news- in preaching and teaching, baptizing and healing, and casting out evil. In the name of the one who sent us. With a powerful love that saves and brings peace because NOW have come the salvation and power, the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. Jesus is that message.

May God surround us with the power of all the heavenly forces guiding us to believe it and proclaim it.  AMEN