God remembers that we are dust, and that’s Good News! A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

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As I was preparing for Ash Wednesday this year, I took the opportunity to reflect on my past observances of the day. That’s one of the wonderful things about the discipline of a blog. It’s something of a diary in which I reflect publicly on the liturgy, lectionary texts, and other matters, as well as posting all of my sermons. So I went back through the past few years since I’ve been at Grace, and even further. As I read, I remembered, not just the more recent Ash Wednesdays but all the way back to the very first service at which I presided as a lay person because the Rector of the parish had taken a new call and the Interim Rector was not yet in place.

Some of those years were memorable because of what was happening in the world around us. In 2003, it was the imminent invasion of Iraq. In 2011, as we knelt to say the litany of penitence during the 6:00 service, the square outside erupted in noise in response to the State Senate’s final passage of Governor Walker’s budget repair bill.

It may be quiet on the square today but still our hearts may be unquiet because of other concerns: the tense situation in the Ukraine, human suffering in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and elsewhere; and here at home deep, apparently insurmountable political conflict and worsening inequality. We also bring our own more intimate concerns: job loss, illness, loved ones, broken relationships, our doubts and fears. We’re distracted, too, by the fact that we’ve come here from work or school, from a day of errands. And some of us will go from here back to what we were doing, a desk full of work, or homework, or the myriad little details of daily.
In the midst of all of that busy-ness today, we’ve decided to pause for a few minutes, to hear and recite familiar, ancient words, to receive the sign of the cross marked with ash on our forehead, and to hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

That’s really what Lent is. Just as this service today marks an interruption in our daily routine, so too does Lent interrupt our daily lives and offers us an opportunity to take stock of ourselves, to remind us of who we are, and most importantly, to remind us of who God is.

Ash Wednesday lays us bare. The shock of a smudge of ash on our forehead and the ominous words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return,” cuts through all of our self-defenses, all of the images of ourselves that we project to the world and to ourselves, bringing us back to the fundamental reality, we are dust and ash.

It’s easy for us to focus on ourselves on Ash Wednesday—ashes, the litany of penitence, the prayers—all of it seems like an invitation to wallow in our sinfulness. Of course, it’s important to take a steely eyed, unemotional look at ourselves; but that’s not the end of the story. The liturgy, the prayers, the readings also remind us of God’s forgiveness, God’s grace, and God’s love.
But at the same time, for all that, Ash Wednesday reminds us of who God is and who we are in light of God. The collect of the day begins, “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.” We are God’s beloved children, God’s creatures, even if we’ve been created from the dust of the earth.

The Psalm we just recited emphasizes God’s mercy:

For as the heavens are high above the earth, *
so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, *
so far has he removed our sins from us.
As a father cares for his children, *
so does the LORD care for those who fear him.
For he himself knows whereof we are made; *
he remembers that we are but dust.

Just as we are told to remember that we are but dust, so the Psalmist says, God remembers that we are but dust. In our case, the reminder is so that we remember our mortality; that God remembers we are but dust is a sign of God’s care and mercy for us—extended to us because of our nature, our humanity, and our frailty, precisely because we are dust.

Therein lies the power of this day; the power of this smudge of ash on our foreheads. I know that many of us are uncomfortable with going through the rest of the day with ashes on our foreheads. We are uncomfortable with it because we hear Jesus’ words in today’s gospel, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them…” He seems to be telling us not to make a display of our religious practice and faith. But I would point out first that his warning is not about practicing one’s faith but about doing it in order to be seen by others.

So, if you decide to wipe the ashes off your forehead as you leave the church, that’s OK; there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you decide to go through the rest of the day with those ashes on your forehead, that’s OK, too. You’ll likely forget about them until you get a quizzical look from the cashier while you’re standing in line at the grocery store, or a helpful colleague at work will tell you that you have something on your forehead. Ashes can be a witness, a sign of God’s grace.

For it’s not just a smudge on your forehead. It’s the sign of the cross, marked on your forehead just as when we baptize babies, trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads with the oil of chrism, and say, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever. We bear the sign of God’s powerful love carrying it into the world, offering it to everyone we meet.

The ashen cross is not just a sign of our mortality and need for penitence. It is also a sign of God’s grace and love, a sign of God’s forgiveness. To mark our foreheads with ashes is to remind ourselves and the world of God’s redemptive and gracious love, to remind us that God brings life out death, that God brings life out of dust. God remembers that we are dust and God’s mercy extends even to us.
Thanks be to God!

Lent, 2014: Resources

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The liturgical calendar offers different ways to experience and worship through the seasons of the year. Christmas and Epiphany are seasons of celebration; the months after Pentecost, referred to by Roman Catholics as “Ordinary Time,” provide an opportunity to explore what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ in the humdrum of ordinary life. By contrast, Lent is a season of repentance and spiritual discipline. It calls us to take God seriously for a few weeks. Lent asks us to see ourselves in our vulnerable humanity as the words of Ash Wednesday challenge us, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”

I hope that members of Grace (and readers of the blog) will endeavor this Lent to reflect and deepen our spiritual lives. There are many ways of doing this–by reading some work of spiritual significance, adopting spiritual practices like prayer and fasting, or following one or more of the many Lenten resources on the web.

At Grace, we’ll have a bible study on Wednesday evenings (March 12-April 9) focusing on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). You can find out more about it here, including some opportunities for following along on-line. If you can’t join us on Wednesday nights and would like to use the Sermon on the Mount for your own spiritual focus during Lent, I encourage you to get a copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.

Maggie Dawn offers 40 ideas for observing Lent

Nadia Bolz-Weber and the Church of All Sinners and Saints offers 40 Ideas for Keeping a Holy Lent

Lenten Devotionals:

And, of course, in a category of its own: Lent Madness!

Lenten Study: The Big Class: Making Sense of the Cross with David Lose:

Description: Whatever we say about the cross, we are also saying about God. So what does the cross mean? What can it tell us about God? How can it help us approach, understand, and know God better? In Part One of this three-part series, David Lose invites us to consider that the best way to understand the cross is through experience.

Gracious Ashes: The Contested Space of Ash Wednesday

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I love Ash Wednesday. I love the power of the day’s liturgy. I love the simple gesture of marking the sign of the cross in ash on someone’s forehead while saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I love doing and saying that while looking into the eyes of people I’ve gotten to know over the years I’ve been Rector of Grace; people I’ve been in conflict with, people I’ve grieved with and celebrated with, people I’ve prayed with, and people who have ministered to me. I also love doing and saying that while looking into the faces of people I’ve never seen before. I wonder as I do it what brought them here on this day, for this ritual.

I love the multiple ironies of the day: a gospel reading that warns us about displaying our piety in public even as we do it; a lesson from Joel that calls on priests, the ministers of God, to weep between the vestibule and altar; a call to all of us to the observance of a Holy Lent as we get ready to go about the business of our daily lives with hardly a thought to the ashes on our forehead until someone looks at us quizzically, to go about the business of our daily lives after having been called to repentance and fasting.

And I love that Ash Wednesday has become another contested space in the Episcopal Church. The movement to offer ashes on the street–Ashes to Go–has become a point of conflict as we struggle to adapt our faith and worship to the twenty-first century. Passions run high as a quick check of comments on various posts concerning Ashes to Go on the Episcopal Cafe or other blogs will reveal. Thoughtful people have written passionately and profoundly on both sides of the question whether offering ashes outside of the liturgy of the day is appropriate. They’ve written beautifully about their experiences when offering ashes; they’ve written beautifully and convincingly about the importance of the overall liturgical context. Others have written with grace about their own ambivalence about this new practice.

In a way, the conflict over Ashes to Go mirrors other conflicts in the church. But there’s also something unique about it. I think what sets it apart is the stuff, the sign, itself. Ashes are just a little strange. Ashes are at best a by-product, the remains of a fire. Usually, they are meant to be discarded, dirt, a nuisance. Contrast that with the water of baptism or the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Ashes are dirty, unclean, impure. For many of us in the church they are a reminder and sign of our mortality. Putting them on our forehead (or allowing them to be put on our forehead) is a profoundly transgressive act. It requires us to overcome cultural and personal norms of behavior. It requires us to be open and vulnerable, to be made dirty and impure.

Ashes remind us of our mortality. They remind us of our origins (“Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return”). They also connect us with parts of ourselves that go deeply beneath the veneer of modernity and post-modernity. There are those who say that human beings’ efforts to control fire are linked to the origins of civilization. Ashes remind us of all that and more.

When we touch and are touched by ashes, all that and more threatens to come to the surface: our mortality, our humanity, our brokenness and pain. When we touch and are touched by ashes, we touch and are touched by the power of fire and the power of God. When we touch and are touched by ashes, we make ourselves vulnerable to God’s forgiving and redemptive love.

In the end, even my effort here to make sense of what we officiously call “The Imposition of Ashes” fails, because whatever meaning I make of it is just that, “my meaning” and not someone else’s. Who knows what it might mean to a passer-by who isn’t a Christian, or to someone who has never attended an Ash Wednesday liturgy? Who knows what meaning they might make of it, what emotions it might evoke, or how it might open one up to an encounter with God? We (the clergy, the Church) can’t control how people interpret and experience the liturgy, whether it’s within the four walls of a church or on a busy street corner. We can’t control the movement of the Spirit. She can use ashes to change hearts, but she can as easily change hearts without ashes–or without our help for that matter.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about me, I’ll be on the street corner on Wednesday after services at 7 and 12 noon, offering ashes to passers-by. I’ll be at the same place I am every Sunday morning before services, greeting passers-by and those who enter our doors. If past years are any indication, I’ll put ashes on a few foreheads. I’ll also have plenty of interesting conversations and encounters–but then that happens pretty much every time I walk out the door.

Some other reflections about Ashes to Go:

From Scott Gunn:

The chief complaint about Ashes to Go is that it is cheap, since you don’t have to go to an entire liturgy; one merely receives ashes in a public place. My sense is that in our culture, wearing ashes is costly. This is why Christians love to rationalize wiping them off pronto. Indeed, the Gospel for the day exhorts us to, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.”

If wearing ashes on your forehead were viewed as cool (and you’d know this because celebrities and powerful people would wear their ashes on the teevees), then we would want to remove them pronto. But I suspect a smudge on one’s forehead is actually a bit embarrassing to most people. It invites questions, “What is that, and why is it there?” In other words, there is a cost to that ashen cross. So when someone in a train station receives this reminder of their mortality, they are doing it at some cost — as opposed to the socially acceptable way of getting into a station wagon and driving to church where the ashes are quickly removed in the narthex after mass, which is, from the perspective of culture, cheap and easy.

From Jared Cramer:

Most importantly, we need to remember the point of the Ash Wednesday liturgy. The imposition of ashes is important. The Litany of Penitence is important. The celebration of Holy Eucharist, a reminder of the consequences of our sin and of the extravagant grace that covers those sins, yes this is so very important. But the point of Ash Wednesday is to invite people into a Holy Lent. The reason this day exists is for the purpose of one paragraph of the liturgy,

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

And this is the point of “Ashes to Go.” It’s not to get people their ashes—the ashes are only a symbol of something larger. True, some people may think that they are simply getting this checked off their list, but they are mistaken. Because when that ash is smudged, they are invited to something deeper.

Get up! Do not be afraid! A Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany

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I was struggling to figure out how to start my sermon this morning. I didn’t think the introduction worked very well at 8:00 so I went back upstairs between services and tried again. But it didn’t help; it still seemed flat. Then as I began to listen to the choir during the psalm chant, it came to me. The setting by Thomas Atwood is one of my favorites and as I listened, I was immediately transported back to Choral Evensong at All Saints’ Chapel in Sewanee, TN. I’ve come to love Anglican chant and a beautifully sung Choral Evensong is an opportunity for me to experience God’s beauty through music. As I listened to the choir this morning, I was reminded of the power and beauty of evensong, reminded of encountering God through music, and I was left wanting to hear more, to recapture those experiences of years ago. Continue reading →

Religious freedom, religious discrimination, anti-LGBT bigotry

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Like so many others, I’ve struggled to understand the recent debates over religious freedom and discrimination. There are the corporations like Hobby Lobby that are perfectly willing to pay for contraceptive coverage for their employees until the ACA came about. There are Catholic institutions like the Little Sisters of Mercy who assert that even filling out a form offends notions of religious freedom (tell that to all of my relatives who filed for Conscientious Objector status over the decades). There was the Federal Court smackdown of Notre Dame this week.

Then there are the efforts to give cover to businesses that want to refuse to sell or provide services to LGBT clients. On the one hand, I don’t know why anyone would want to have their wedding photographed or buy a wedding cake from a vendor that didn’t want to honor their relationship. On the other hand, I worry about the analogies with Jim Crow and with the idea that the state can permit bigotry and hate. That Governor Brewer has vetoed the bill in Arizona, and that legislators in other states like Ohio have withdrawn their bills begs the question.

There have been some interesting perspectives from Evangelicals and political conservatives that have criticized or rejected these efforts to enshrine bigotry into law. But the question that’s perhaps most interesting is how these vendors deal with other issues. Willamette Weekly asked some difficult, embarrassing, and silly questions of two vendors who refuse to provide services to LGBT couples. It turns out they are happy to provide cakes for divorce parties, baby showers for unwed couples, and the like.

The incredible pushback over these laws–from the business community, from the NFL, even from politicians who initially voted in favor of the bills, shows that something fundamental has changed very quickly. Even in Arizona, polls show that slight majorities are now in favor of gay marriage.

The courts are moving even faster. In the midst of this enormous sea change, it’s quite likely that many social conservatives are simply losing their bearings. The old answers and responses no longer resonate as they did even a few years ago. That’s true for politicians but it’s also true for people in business, in local communities, even in churches. The ground has shifted and it’s hard for them to get their bearing in this changing landscape. That they might seek legislative help to help them negotiate is hardly surprising. But it’s clear that the politicians are as disoriented as the ordinary population. A vote that they thought was safe and a nobrainer even two or three weeks ago suddenly is revealed to be absurd. That explains why Arizona state senators suddenly ask the governor to undo something they could have prevented with their no votes.

It’s easy for opponents of such laws to ridicule these efforts. But I think it’s important that we understand where they are coming from and help those who are feeling such disorientation to make sense of the world in which they now find themselves. For those of us who are Christian, it’s our responsibility to help our brothers and sisters who are struggling in this new context to figure out how to express their faith consistently and openly and to engage this rapidly changing culture in ways that witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ.

I think much of the same could be said of the conflict over contraception.

Resist not Evil: A sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

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I cannot hear or read the words of Jesus in today’s gospel without thinking of my past. Most of you know that I grew up in the Mennonite tradition. It’s not something I talk a great deal about because for most people the word Mennonite conjures up images of plain clothes and horse and buggies. The Mennonite community in which I was raised had abandoned those markers of identity and separation decades before I was born, although one could detect certain vestiges of traditional dress among some of the elderly of my home congregation. These outward symbols of difference may have faded away but for most, the teachings of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition were, when I was a child, still closely followed. At the heart of those teachings were Jesus’ words here, “Resist not evil.” Continue reading →

Sad ironies in Episco-land

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So today I came across two very similar stories from diametrically opposed sides of the Anglican/Episcopal scene in the US. Bishop Robert Wright had to defend himself because he recommended a book by Rick Warren for Lenten reading. “What could have you been thinking?” was the response he received from progressive Episcopalians.

Word came from Nashotah House, one of the seminaries of the Episcopal Church, that Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefforts Schori will be visiting this spring. In response Bishop Jack Iker of one of the breakaway dioceses has resigned from the board and the conservative blogosphere is apopleptic.

Now, I’ll make my confessions. Yes, I’ve read one of Warren’s books–A purpose-driven church–and i didn’t find it particularly interesting. And in my nearly five years in Wisconsin, I’ve never stepped foot on Nashotah House property. The invitation to the Presiding Bishop does not make my visit to “the House” more likely, but it does change my perception of the institution considerably.

We are a deeply divided church and a deeply divided culture but the work of God in Jesus Christ is first and foremost the work of reconciliation. Both Bishop Wright and Bishop Salmon, the Dean and President of Nashotah House, are doing that hard work of reconciliation and I for one pray for them, their efforts, and for our ongoing need to reconcile across the theological, cultural, and political divides that separate us.

Bishop Wright’s letter is available here: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/02/21/what-were-you-thinking-a-letter-from-the-bishop-of-atlanta/

Bishop Salmon’s video explanation of how the invitation to the Presiding Bishop is here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EcUanH0OQYg&feature=youtu.be

God Loves Uganda

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It looks increasingly likely that the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda will soon become law. I had the chance to see God Loves Uganda today, a documentary that tells part of the story of the background of the bill, including the involvement of American Evangelicals in advocating for its passage.

Unfortunately, the film is deeply flawed. As I watched, I increasingly felt as if the film maker was attempting to create a mirror image in the US of the events in Uganda. In other words, he was manipulating the story, the imagery, and the emotions of white progressive (LGBT) Americans in his effort to demonize Ugandan politicians, religious leaders, and American evangelicals. Throughout the film, ordinary Ugandan people are silent and passive, objectified and prevented agency, acted upon by American missionaries and activists. It was if Uganda had become a proxy battlefield for the American culture wars, just as in previous decades, African countries had been proxies in the Cold War.

It’s a story with real victims and real consequences which becomes clear with story of LGBT activist David Kato, his brutal death, and the travesty of his funeral show.

But there’s a larger story that would provide important context–the history of Colonialism in East Africa and especially Uganda; the history of Anglicanism in Uganda which began with the martyrdom of Ugandan Anglican converts by the local king when they refused to sacrifice to the traditional gods and refused to accede to his sexual demands. It’s also a church whose Archbishop was executed by Idi Amin. There are dynamics of nationalism, anti-Americanism, and anticolonialism that play important roles in the story as well.

I know all too well how African Anglicans have been deployed and manipulated by American  Episcopalians over the years as pawns in our internal struggles for legitimacy and the upper hand. It’s been done by both sides and this film often takes that manipulation to another level.

Jason Bruner provides important background on the complexities within Ugandan Christianity, society, and politics that have played crucial roles in the anti-gay legislation and attitudes. On the Anglican Church of Uganda, for example, he points out that in addition to the importance of conflict within the Anglican Communion and the perception that African Anglicans have become the stalwart upholders of Anglican Orthodoxy, Ugandan Anglicans are also motivated by increasing competition with other Christian groups, especially Pentecostalism.

His essay is a must-read to understand the controversy and the Ugandan context better.

Martin Luther, 1483-1546

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Today is the commemoration of Martin Luther in the Episcopal Church’s calendar. He died on this day in 1546.

My sermon on Sunday elicited two lengthy written comments, both of them addressing what I take to be Christian misinterpretations of the Sermon on the Mount (1–that it is meant only for a spiritual elite, and 2–that it is intended to show us the folly of attempting to live according to good works and thus forces us to ask for God’s grace). I made an offhand (and unscripted comment) critical of Luther on the latter point which elicited both of the replies.

So I want to briefly lay out my gratitude and indebtedness to Luther and take issue with some of his central theological concerns.

I am an Episcopal priest because of Martin Luther. As a young man, I struggled to hear the good news of Jesus Christ in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition in which I was raised. Reading Luther’s early works helped me to come to a new understanding of faith. Instead of assent to a series of propositions, or a commitment to follow Jesus Christ in a certain way, for Luther, faith is not something we need to do. It is a gift from God, God’s work in us, justifying us before God. Our only task is to trust in God’s promise that God will save us.

Luther opened me to the power of God and the power of God’s grace. Over the years, I’ve come to know and experience God’s grace in my life and in the lives of others. I’ve come to trust in God’s promises and to trust that God can work a new thing in me.

If my personal religious experience and theology were profoundly shaped by Luther, there are also important divergences. I find his focus on God’s grace and on human sinfulness ultimately somewhat narrow and only partially adequate for making sense of God, the world, and humanity. He is too critical of the created world, too quick to see evil in it and to see evil in human effort and accomplishment. He was also too critical of the scholastic tradition and not able to see his own dependence on it.

Reading extensively in Augustine of Hippo deepened my experience and knowledge of the grace of God. Augustine also helped me to think of the relationship between God and humans more three-dimensionally, attributing goodness and beauty to creation in ways that Luther could not.

Why am I an Episcopal priest because of Luther? He provided me with the theological and spiritual tools to begin to recconstruct my Christian faith out of my broken experience as a child and young adult. He gave me the tools to build a bridge from my past Christian life to the present. There were many other tools and building blocks, including many that I brought with me from the church of my upbringing, but Luther helped me see and experience the way forward, to imagine the possibility of a way to cross the river that blocked my path. The path on the other side of the river ultimately led toward the Episcopal Church but without Luther, I couldn’t have begun the journey.

It’s All About Relationships! A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

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The Sermon on the Mount, that section of Matthew that stretches from chapter 5 through chapter 7 includes some of the most familiar teachings of Jesus as well as some of the most difficult and challenging. It begins with the Beatitudes-“blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth; blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.” It’s also the location for the Lord’s Prayer, which we recite at every Eucharistic celebration. Continue reading →