may you be covered in the dust of jesus: ash wednesday

the psalm with which we began the service was psalm 51.
the first reading was joel 2:1-2, 12-17.

the holy gospel according to matthew, the 6th chapter.  glory to you, o lord.

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. ²“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ³But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁵“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.⁶But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁶“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

the gospel of the lord.  praise to you, o christ.

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remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

just as joel sounds the trumpets for a solemn assembly, much of our lives are marked by funerals and loss.  sometimes i find myself keeping track of the events of my life in relationship to those who have died.  it’s not necessarily every year that someone close to me dies, but it’s often enough that they can be time markers.  my uncle in third grade, my grandfather at the end of eighth grade, my high school classmate my second year of college, and my grandmother this past year.

you are dust and to dust you shall return.

death is all around us and yet the world that surrounds us does not like death or mortality.  it does not want to be reminded that we will all die in the end—you can see it in commercials most clearly.  denying mortality, the underlying message is that you will be more alive, more immortal, further from death—or, at least, that is how you will appear.  you will look younger, more alive, vibrant if you would just by this one product.

but we were created out of the dust to be a dusty people.  god formed the first human from the dust of the ground.  it’s even in the hebrew of the words.  adam from adamah.  we are dusty people,    from dust,    and when we die, we will return to the dust of the earth. 

as god has provided us with nourishment from creation for our living, so, in our dying do we respond with nourishment for creation.  returning to the earth at the end of our lives, continuing the cycle for generation after generation.

you are dust and to dust you shall return.

we come today to put ashes on our foreheads, to proclaim the good news of our mortality to the world.  we come today to stare death in the face,   to face our mortality    in the grace of god because even as we embrace mortality, we know that in jesus christ, death does not have the final word. so we can come to join the solemn assembly of joel to honor that life is precious and short—even when it lasts for over a century.  we come to say that yes, we will die, we will get sick, we will be sad and lonely and angry, we will mess up and sin and hurt, and,   even in all of that,   we have a god who loves us.

a god who loves us in all our messiness and a god who knows not only our shadow sides, our sinfulness, but also our original goodness.  this is the god who creates us, the god who comes to dwell with us, to be the Dusty One among the dusty many.  a god who comes to us, even knowing the path ahead.

you are dust and to dust you shall return.

that is what these long 40 days are about.  we begin our lenten journey marked by dust—the dust of the cross.  we know this road.  we have traveled it before.  this is the road to jerusalem.  the disciples walked it so many years ago, not knowing how it would end.  we know where the road leads, to the top of the hill, to the cross.  yet our call is to discipleship.

in high school sunday school, we talked about discipleship in jesus’ time and learned that in jesus’ day, disciples were the people who tried to be just like their rabbi.  they would try to follow the rabbi so closely that the saying for disciples was, “may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”

you are dust and to dust you shall return.

we are covered in the dust of our rabbi, marked with the cross of christ.  looking forward to these 40 days as a time to deepen our discipleship—to be covered in the dust of jesus not just today, but every day.

it is in light of our dusty situations that we hear jesus’ words to us that in our alms giving, in our praying, and in our fasting we are to do it not for the recognition that the world gives, but for our own growth.  we do it as a way of helping our hearts to get to the right place.  jesus says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

my heart does not always go where i want it to.  psalm 51 makes it clear, requesting, “create in me a clean heart, o god, and renew a right spirit within me.  cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy spirit from me.  restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain me with your bountiful spirit.”

jesus’ promise that where we decide to store up treasure will help our heart to go where we choose gives me hope that even when i am struggling in my heart, my mind and intentionality matter and they can guide my heart in the long run.  it is a promise that says i have agency and i get to choose where i lead my heart. 

my heart, though very much influenced by it, is not bound to evil or consumerism, spite or fear.  i get to help my heart live into its original goodness, which came before and is stronger than any original sin, and part of how i get to do that is in how i respond to what god has provided.  i get to store up my treasures where i choose.

and lest i get too full of myself, believing my salvation might depend on me rather than on god, i am reminded:

you are dust and to dust you shall return.

even as i get to choose where to store up my treasure, where i want to lead my heart.  here on ash wednesday it is clear.  i am not dependent on my own heart or my will or my actions.  even as i seek to be covered in the dust of jesus, i am not jesus and i am not the one with all the grace. 

even as i store up my treasure, as i come for repentance, for forgiveness, for comfort, i am reminded of my favorite definition of grace: there is nothing you can do to make god love you any more and there is nothing you can do to make god love you any less. 

because although we are dust and to dust we shall return, that is not all we are.  in our baptisms we are claimed as god’s beloved children.  so when we come seeking clean hearts and right spirits, we know that god will cleanse us as with hyssop and make us clean because god has already cleansed us with the waters of baptism, where we were joined to jesus in his death so that we might be raised with him in the resurrection.

so i come to be covered in the dust of jesus, trusting that god’s grace, poured down at baptism and made known in jesus christ, covers me long after the dust of ashes has been washed away.

you are dust and to dust you shall return.