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.

For All the Saints' Life Songs

Today is All Saints Day when we remember and give thanks for all of those saints in God's church and in our lives who have blessed the world with their faith witness. We'll sing "For all the Saints" but we could just as easily sing a song by the contemporary Christian group Casting Crowns-entitled “Life Song” with a refrain- “let my lifesong sing to you.”  In the purest sense, this is what a truly saintly life looks life- a life song sung to God by a person who loves God and loves people the way God loves. Some saints are martyrs for their faith-Most are not. Some are held up as examples for the whole church. Most are not. Most are ordinary, anonymous men and women. Today we give thanks for them all.  The people depicted in these stained glass windows, people for whom we will ring a bell, and people whose name doesn’t ring a bell. Those whose earthly journey is completed and are now called “the saints triumphant.” Today we remember them all. And hopefully sharing their life songs guides us in ours.

I give thanks for my grandmothers- for Margaret who always made sure to freeze strawberries from the garden for me to eat since I would not be there "in season" and for Marie who shared her love for art with me as we took in a Chagall exhibit in Philadelphia. Neither of them was much for the church, and both struggled mightily in life. But they loved as they could and still are a part of God's saints. And I remember people I met in church-Pat whose sharp tongue was matched by her fierce devotion to God and family. She once told me cancer was a gift because it brought her closer to God. Her last earthly communion was just a bit on the end of a spoon as she told me she knew she was bald but she was beautiful. And she knew God thought so. Virginia encouraged me to be a person of faith. Henri showed me true sacrificial servanthood. And Ray. Ray told me when he first met me he didn't think I got what it was all about, but later what a great pastor I would be. But then he quickly added- "It has nothing to do with your own doing of course. Only the Holy Spirit could make it so." Yes- and I have not forgotten. All Saints now triumphant.

In this life we are saints too- saints militant. When I mentioned this at Table Church I watched faces crinkle up at that word "militant." Why such a war like term? Well, I think if we are honest, we know that the tension between living as faithful Christians and succumbing to other influences can be fierce. We are sinners and life is a struggle. Each of the saints I named and many others I did not, knew this challenge. Sometimes we have to fight to remain in the path of discipleship. The presence of sin in the world means we are often more sinner than saint. It takes being militant. Across our lives as Christians there are times when we will knowingly or not bless the world with our witness and will love people the way God loves. And other times we will not. But thank God we are not responsible to “saint” ourselves. We don't "saint" ourselves. God's love and promises do.  It starts in what we celebrated again last week- baptism. Where we receive the gift of faith, and that Holy Spirit working in us. And we receive something else as well-each other in communion here. Intended to be just a glimpse of a more perfect communion with the saints triumphant. So then what to make of the gospel this day? One scholar notes that some might try to translate Jesus’ teaching into a set of guidelines, as if they amount to a “to-do” list for potential saints. But to do so suggests we just follow the blessings and curses as “how-to” instructions. But since we do not “saint” ourselves, the blessings and curses create something different- a set of values that shapes how we are to understand God, ourselves and the world. It doesn’t make sense to hear, “Blessed are you who weep now,” and then find ways to make ourselves sad. It does make sense to ask, “In what kind of world does God’s blessing seek out those who are hurting?” And make our lifesong be about bringing that glimpse of kingdom. And Jesus’ teaching invites us to stretch our imaginations concerning the saints regarding who are blessed by God. The “saints” include not only spiritual superstars who attain exceptional virtue and the average. The saints include people who are vulnerable, those society routinely forgets about – or worse, takes advantage of.

The neglected, the isolated, those in poverty. Those who crave simply the gift of connection with others, and life with meaning. Who have no one to sing with, no communion to share. How are we connected to these saints? Now hear-Woe to those who keep their riches and enjoyment to themselves! Then the glimpse of God’s feast to come eludes us all. Jesus reminds us not only of how we are to respond but where God’s blessing shows up. Shaine Claiborne shares how he encountered a woman as she struggled through a crowd to get a meal from a late-night food van. Asked if the meal was worth the effort, she replied, “Oh yes, but I don’t eat them myself. I get them for a homeless lady, an elderly woman around the corner who can’t fight for a meal.” Saints militant.

Jesus’ words don’t create a set of policies for looking after others, nor do they amount to a list of demands that his followers must obey. Instead, Jesus’ words and our storytelling shape our values and our imaginations. Where we may see poverty, infirmity, or loneliness, Jesus pronounces God’s blessing and presence. Where we keep accounts regarding who deserves assistance, Jesus seeks disciples who would do for others what we desire done for us. Working for a world in which God is present everywhere, building communities of care and support. It’s a joyful, blessed world. We’re invited to inhabit it and to make our life’s song sing to our God who blesses like that. This is why God gives us a church. Communion with fellow saints in this life. In all its glory and frailty. Together we share love, and celebration, and pain and hurt and challenge. We hug, we laugh and sometimes we tell the necessary word of correction.  And we remember that in all of our glory and frailty God claimed those gone before and claims us- honoring promises, and saint-ing us, empowering us for blessing. So let’s celebrate God's work in those we miss and in those God is placing before us now. And sing a song for all these saints.