Ash Wednesday: Dusty like David

On Ash Wednesday, we hear the truth about ourselves - that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  We remember that we're a lot like David - captive to sin, dusty indeed, but also chosen by God and filled with God's Spirit.  We're not able to repent quite enough, but during Lent especially, God gives us the privilege of deepening our faith and listening closer for God's voice.

Ash Wednesday (Year B) – Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Lancaster, PA

Texts: Psalm 51:1-17; Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

Do you all YouTube? Among the many videos on YouTube (that's on the internet) there is this video series called “Lutheran Satire.” Now, I don't recommend all of these videos, but there's one that I think speaks to us on Ash Wednesday. A young guy looking like a youth pastor from what you might call an evangelical church comes up to the Lutheran pastor and asks, “How will you and your congregation celebrate Ash Wednesday?” “Our service will commence with the imposition of ashes. Then we will all go about our daily vocations with our unwashed foreheads still smeared with a black cross, as an act of somber piety.” “You should not do that.” “Why?” “Didn't you read the gospel text for today? Don't you think that walking around all day and broadcasting to people that you're a super-duper repentant Christian is the same thing as disfiguring your face so that your fasting may be seen by others?” “My goodness, you may have a point. Well, then, what is your church doing?” “We're putting on our neon green shirts with an edgy slogan on the front and an almost-related Bible verse on the back and then gathering around the public school flagpole to pray. We call it 'Repent-a-Palooza!'” 

 

Repentance is a tricky thing. I'll repeat the question from the video – didn't you hear the gospel text for today? I don't think there's a better pairing between text and day in the whole church year. On Ash Wednesday, as we mark the cross on our foreheads and pray the longest confession we will pray all year, as we prepare to pray some more, or possibly give something up, and get serious about our faith during Lent, we hear Jesus' teaching that if we try to make a display of just how repentant we can be, if we try to out-do each other with piety, we've missed the whole point. “Beware of practicing your piety before others,” we're told. But we can miss the point trying to follow Jesus' command here also. “Hey! Don't take my super-secret praying spot down in the basement!” “I can keep smiling after fasting for three days! You'll never know I'm following the Lord!” We can turn anything into a contest. The point here, of course, is that it is neither broadcasting nor keeping secret how faithful we are that matters. It is simply recognizing that if we think our presence here tonight or our prayer life or how much we give to the church or anything else we do earns us special brownie points with God, we are sadly mistaken. 

 

Repentance means turning toward God. It means seeing the truth – that is, the truth about us. The beautifully succinct truth about us is this: “we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” We are creatures, not creators. We are limited – our lives will come to an end. We are complicit, unable ever, ever to separate ourselves from the sin which holds us captive. Trying to stop sinning, trying to achieve holiness and repentance and righteousness before God, is like trying to pull yourself out of quicksand. The more you thrash around and try to get out, the deeper and deeper you sink. The more we try to focus on controlling all the little imperfections, indiscretions and limitations in our lives, the more we are blinded to the needs of others all around us. We become, as Luther said, “turned in on ourselves.” The more we trust our ability to do something to please God, the more we make an idol out of ourselves, the more we deny our Savior Jesus Christ, who did it all, who said on the cross, “It is finished.” 

 

The beautiful psalm we just prayed together begins with an inscription that reads, “A psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” King David, the shepherd who was anointed by God to be the first king of Israel, the forerunner of Christ, is also the one who also committed adultery with Bathsheba. And, by the way, also he had Bathsheba's husband Uriah killed. And yet the words prayed by such a flawed person in great anguish are used by God to teach and guide our faith here today. We may not have committed David's sins, but we are just like David. We are helplessly addicted to ourselves, our desires, and our sin. But God still chooses us. God chooses to call us out of the depths, to set us free from the power of sin and clothe us with righteousness, so that we might be God's people and sing God's praises and share the light of Christ with others. This is what it means to be baptized, and it is our baptisms that we renew and remember in this season of Lent. 

 

My fellow Davids, the good news is that we can return to the LORD, our God, “for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” This is the promise that makes our lives possible. This is the promise we can trust until the Lord returns. It is the promise David trusted when he prayed, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.” Not according to how I've lived my life. Not according to how repentant or sorry I am. Not according to the quality of the corrections I've made in my life. But according to your steadfast love, according to your heart, your love, your grace that “for our sake made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We are the ones who know sin, who cannot stop sinning. Christ is the one who knew no sin, but who was made sin, that is, was crucified so that we who are not righteous might become the righteousness of God. And so we can pray with confidence, “Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be purer than snow […] Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Only you can. Do this, and “sinners shall be restored to you.”

Our whole Christian lives flow from the grace of God alone, from the Holy Spirit breathing through us. And so what we do this Lent to deepen our faith we do because God is constantly renewing a right spirit in us. We can never rack up enough repentance, but we can acknowledge what we try our best to forget – that we are dust, that it is our human brokenness which sent Jesus to the cross. In Lent, we return to our Lord, we come back to these waters overflowing with redemption. We remember our baptism when God broke the chains and set us free through the One who was made to be sin for us. And so we go forward this Lent, clinging to this astounding grace. We walk with Christ who is calling you in your baptism to follow him to the poor and the outcasts, to the sick and the imprisoned, to those hungry for bread and for the bread of life. In Lent, we're able to take a look at our dusty selves, but we're also able to turn from ourselves to others. We follow Christ these forty days to the great Three Days when Jesus met death, and yet his Father brought forth life. You are dust, and to dust you shall return, but in you God breathes the Spirit that gives life. Amen.