A Sermon for Ash Wednesday
For the Lord knows whereof we are made and remembers that we are but dust.
There is an old Hassidic saying that we would do well to attend to this Ash Wednesday:
Everyone must have two pockets into which to reach from time to time as the need requires:
In the one pocket it shall read, “For my sake were the heavens and the earth created,”
and in the other pocket, “I am but dust and ashes.”
In the one pocket it shall read, “For my sake were the heavens and the earth created,”
and in the other pocket, “I am but dust and ashes.”
This saying reminds of how it truly is with us before God -- a reminder we truly need.
The first pocket names the incredible truth that for our sake were the heavens and the earth created -- that we are so much desired by God that the vast universe we live was made so God would have us to love. A second rabbinic saying speaks of this glory and value we have in God’s eyes in another way: “In front of every human being, 10,000 invisible angels go, crying out: “Make way for the image of God! Make way for the image of God!”
Imagine that! In front of you, in front of me, in front of the people in the pews around you are thousands upon thousands of angels crying out: “Make way for the image of God! Make way for the image of God!” No wonder that in our worship we join our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven – they are here already, because we each are so precious to God.
For our sake were the heavens and the earth created. For our sake, too, God sent Jesus Christ to share our human nature, to live & die as one of us. We are that loved, that glorious, that splendid in God’s sight.
For all that, the saying in the second pocket reminds us that though we are splendid and loved, we are also but dust and ashes. We are made of the same stuff the ground is made of – humus, dirt, dust; the same stuff as the rest of the creation: animals, plants, microorganisms and the earth itself. Like earth’s other creatures, we are weak, fragile, earthy, mortal. At the end of our time on this earth, our bodies will return to the dust and ashes from which they and we were made.
Unlike other creatures, we are also prone to sin. We betray the glory for which we were made by our failures to love God and neighbor, by our dishonesty, unfaithfulness, self-righteousness and self-centeredness. We sin and we die. We are, indeed, but dust and ashes.
It might seem that being dust and ashes on the one hand and having the universe made for our sake on the other could have little to do with each other. They are such opposite pictures of what it is to be human! But as the wise Hasidic saying suggests, they belong together, two pockets in the one garment of our being, both necessary.
They belong together first because they speak of the paradox of our creation -- that we are at once the image of God for whom God made the heavens and earth and that God made us of dust and ashes. Both of these are true at the same time and without both truths we’ll never be able to make sense of our world or ourselves. These truths together help us grasp the glory and tragedy of human life we know in our experience all too well.
These two truths belong together for a second reason. It is only when we know how valued and loved by God we are that we will also be able to acknowledge the second truth that we are dust and ashes as well. Without knowing that we are precious in God’s sight, the truth of our frailty, mortality and sinfulness can be too much to bear. This may explain in part why the capacity to admit mistakes without self-justification or finger pointing is such a rare commodity in our public life these days. We live in a world that seldom reminds us of the glory of our creation – so it is also hard for us to face our sin and mortality. We need to know that we are of such value that the heavens and earth were made for us in order to face the painful truths that we sin and that we will die.
Hence the wisdom of the saying which reminds us of both these truths: “Everyone must have two pockets into which to reach from time to time as the need requires: in the one pocket it shall read, ‘For my sake were the heavens and the earth created’ and in the other pocket, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’ ”
Ash Wednesday is, of course, a day set aside to remind us of the second of these truths. In words little different from those of the Hassidic master, I will soon say to you: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Not surprisingly, the weeks of Lent we begin today, with their emphasis on self-examination and repentance, point in the same direction as well.
But since we need to hold these truths together in a living and creative tension, I want to invite you this Lent to choose spiritual disciplines and practices that will help you reach into both pockets that you may recall how it truly is with you before God. You see, the point of Lenten disciplines is not self-improvement. They are not about losing weight or getting yourself in shape, physically or even spiritually – though sometimes these may be welcome side effects. The point of Lenten disciplines is to return us to the reality of how it is with us before God.
So in thinking about your Lenten discipline, you might ask yourself first: “What reminds me that I am loved, valued, precious in the sight of God?” What would need to be in the pocket that makes real to me that for my sake were the heavens and the earth created?”
Maybe it is spending time with people who love you. Maybe, as Jesus says in the Gospel, it is going into your room, shutting your door and praying to God in secret. Maybe being out in the glory of God’s creation reminds you of the joy of being one of God’s creatures. Maybe there Scripture texts that particularly remind you of God’s love for you that you would do well to reflect on regularly. Perhaps art or music or good books call forth you in the wonder of what it is to be human, creators in the image of the creating God. Whatever the answers to these questions are for you, choose one or two of them and build them into the pattern of your life this Lent. Make them the pocket into which you reach to know that God loves you so much that for your sake were the heavens and the earth created.
Then ask yourself a second set of questions: What reminds you that you are weak, fragile, mortal and prone to sin? What – besides Ash Wednesday – needs to go into the pocket where it is written, “I am but dust and ashes”?
Here, the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and self-examination can be particularly helpful. Perhaps you might go without eating long enough one day each week to become aware of how dependent your body is on food; You might engage in self-examination on a daily or weekly basis: making time in which with God’s help you seek to know and name the specific ways you have failed to love God and neighbor; to learn about the particular patterns of your own sin – for we all have them. The Litany of Penitence we will pray together shortly provides a good guide for such reflection. At the end of Lent, you might take a list of what you have named of your sin to a priest you trust and offer it to God in confession.
Or perhaps you might spend time in deliberate awareness of the fact that you will some day the certain fact that someday you will die – as the monks of old did by keeping the skull of one of their dead brothers on their desk. I’ve done this by reading the obituaries in the paper, noting the growing number of people my age and younger whose lives have come to an end.
These might be more challenging than giving up dessert or chocolate or alcohol for 6 weeks -- but choosing one or two of practices such as these will likely do a better job of filling up the pocket where it is written, ‘I am but dust and ashes’ – and that will be a good thing. As you become more aware of your mortality and sin, you may well also become more aware of the love of God in Christ who died and rose to save you.
Whatever practices you choose to take on this Lent, choose them to help you know how it truly is with you before God. Let them be for you the reminders we all need of the glory of our creation on the one hand and our sinfulness and mortality on the other, as the old saying reminds us. “Everyone must have two pockets into which he or she may reach from time to time as the need requires: in the one pocket it shall read, 'For my sake were the heavens and the earth created' and in the other pocket, 'I am but dust and ashes.’ ” As you live with these truths this Lent, may it be a time in which you come to know more deeply that in all of who you are, in your splendor and your frailty, you are loved beyond measure by the God who made and saves you.
The Rev. Jack Zamboni
Feburary 17th, 2010