Ash Wednesday

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

♪ Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
"Ashes, Ashes"
We all fall down ♫

As a child, that was one of my favorite games to play at home and at school – and my sole connection to the meaning ashes until I became a Lutheran.  This rhyme goes back to the Great Plague of London in 1665 (bubonic plague) or perhaps even before that when the first outbreak of the Plague hit England in the 1300's. The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs (or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term "Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of the dead bodies!

We, as God’s people, gather here year in and year out on Ash Wednesday not to sing children’s rhymes, but to remind ourselves that we serve a God who didn’t think that death was too far to go to show just how much we are loved. 

We gather here to look at our own mortality and realize that not a one of us gets out of this life alive.  We all will die – someday.  This whole intimate relationship with One God started way back in the beginning…in Genesis…when God began a relationship with human beings by forming us from the dust of the earth and blowing into us a spirit that craves relationship with God and others.  God continues to be in relationship when God chose Abram to leave his homeland and to become a follower of God. 

One day, by the oaks of Mamre, Abraham had three visitors who told him that he and Sarah would have a son.  They laughed at the idea of such a thing happening to them when they were so old and dried up. 

These visitors told Abraham that they were going to destroy Sodom where Lot, Abraham’s nephew and family lived.  Abraham began to bargain with the LORD to see if he could spare his nephew’s life.  He, in the bargaining said in Genesis 18.27…‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.

Out of the dust and ashes came Isaac, who had two sons, Esau and Jacob, who had sons and daughters, right on up the line to us today – as descendants of the promise. 

God was there when Moses walked with the people 40 years in the dust of the desert.  God showed up when Jonah went to that great city of Nineveh as it sat in the ashes and dust of repentance.  God was with Job as his friends tried to console him at the great loss of all that he had as Job sat on the ash heap scraping the sores on his skin. 

God kept actively seeking relationship with God’s people right up to sending the Son, Jesus, descendant of Abraham and follower of the faith of his fathers.  He reminded his disciples of the cost of following him – death – as today we begin that walk with Jesus from Jerusalem to Calvary; and we remember this with grinding gritty Palm Sunday ashes into our foreheads to mark us as we hear these words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

We, who are but dust and ashes, walk with Jesus through his last days and we remember, we re-member…are mindful again…(for that is what remember means) how he willingly, lovingly, painfully died for all of our sins.  And how in his death, we also find life – abundant, rich, grace-filled life – not because we deserve it…far from it!  This life – this abundant life – is simply because that is who God is. 

Love

Amazing, saving, redeeming love. 

 Ann Weems has a poem entitled Lent that I would like to share with you.

Lent is the time to take the time

          to let the power of our faith story take hold of us,

a time to let events

          get up and walk around us,

a time to intensify

          our living into Christ,

a time to hover over

          the thoughts of our hearts,

a time to place our feet in the streets of Jerusalem

          or to walk along the sea and listen to his word,

a time to touch his robe

          and feel the healing surge through us,

a time to ponder and a time to wonder…

Lent is a time to allow a fresh new taste of God!

Jan L. Richardson speaks it this way:

So let the ashes come
as beginning
and not as end;
the first sign
but not the final.
Let them rest upon you
as invocation and invitation,
and let them take you
the way that ashes know
to go.

May they mark you
with the memory of fire
and of the life
that came before the burning:
the life that rises and returns
and finds its way again.

See what shimmers
amid their darkness,
what endures
within their dust.
See how they draw us
toward the mystery
that will consume
but not destroy,
that will blossom
from the blazing,
that will scorch us
with its joy.

May God’s amazing love and joy find newness and freshness in your life as we journey to the cross this Lenten season. 

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

What do you hear?  What are you listening to?

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God who is Creator, Christ and Comforter.  Amen

So…what do you hear these days?  What are you listening to?  What gets your blood boiling and what gives your heart peace?  I think as leaders of congregations, we need to know these things about ourselves to be more effective leaders. 

At this stage in our life, our two cats are the source of much enjoyment, but once – not so long ago – it was our children as they grew up.  I think that’s why Mitch Albom’s story in the book “have a little faith” struck me so poignantly.  He quotes a sermon written by his rabbi, Albert Lewis, that I’d like to share with you.

“A little girl came home from school with a drawing she’d made in class.  She danced into the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner. 

‘Mom, guess what?’ she squealed, waving the drawing.

Her mother never looked up.

‘What?’ she said, tending to the pots.

‘Guess what?’ the child repeated, waving the drawing.

‘What?’ the mother said, tending to the plates.

‘Mom, you’re not listening.’

‘Sweetie, yes I am.’

‘Mom,’ the child said, ‘you’re not listening with your eyes.’”

What are you listening to these days?  What do you hear?

We hear all kinds of things, don’t we?  We hear bad news on the television, on the radio, in social media.  We hear experts telling us:

1.   The church can’t survive the current decline in worship

2.   Why millennials are leaving the church in droves

3.   The rise of the “Nones” in our country who have no religious affiliation at all

4.   The church’s waning influence on society as a whole.

And, in this election year….

What do you hear?  Are we listening to?  Really listening to…listening with our eyes?

I’d like to share with you what I am striving to listen to these days…listening with my heart and ears and eyes:

1.   people whose lives are changed because of the generosity of our congregations – locally (like through LSS and COA), in our greater community, our city, state, and country, and globally.

2.   people who sit in our pews and share with us their life-changing stories of God’s amazing, saving, redeeming love.

3.   people who come to our places of worship and live differently as a result of having been there. 

4.   people who are changing the world for the good of all humanity through the use of their passions, talents and abilities

It is my prayer that as we work together in our congregations, for the sake of this world for which Jesus died, that we will scatter seeds. 

Seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, hope and grace – every day in every way we can. 

I also pray (especially for my own ministry) that we listen.

Listen to Jesus talk to us through study of the Bible. 

Listen to Jesus talk to us by listening to those people whom God places in our path every day: neighbors, family, friends, parishioners…and that we can listen with our eyes and see:

·        someone God loves with all of God’s heart

·        someone for whom Jesus died

·        someone, who by the Spirit’s urging, is with us in that very moment

·        someone who needs to be heard.

For, as Jesus said, “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!”

And as my dad said, “Pammy, the good Lord gave you two ears and one mouth.  Use them that way!  Listen twice as long as you speak!” 

Dad, I’m really trying!     Blessed epiphany to us all! 

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen