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Christ
Church + Washington Parish
The Rector ©
Ash Wednesday 2006
One of the
opening anthems in the Burial Office says, “In the midst of life we
are in death; from whom can we seek help? From you alone, O Lord,
who by our sins are justly angered.
The words I
will say to you this day when you come forward for the imposition of
ashes are these: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall
return.”
One doesn’t
have to be around CCWP very long to know that some of our beloved
members have died in the last several months. One of the reasons
Ash Wednesday is so powerful to me is that I impose these ashes upon
your foreheads and remind both you and me that one of us may die
before next Ash Wednesday and, indeed, we all will die sometime, for
in the midst of life we are in death. That may seem too direct or
too harsh, but certainly John Otto, Wendell Tebben and Neil Strawser
expected to be here on this day to worship with us and help us begin
Lent. My clergy colleagues Meg Graham and Sol Jacobs expected to be
in their churches this day imposing ashes on the heads of the
faithful as well.
SO How do we
remember that we are dust? I think we remember in three ways:
1)
prayer
and connection with God
2)
connection with each other
3)
connection with a faith community
On Sunday Bill
talked about thinking about who should be in the pew with us and
whose absence we don’t mind. We can all think about people in our
lives that differ from us, people who push our buttons, who irk us.
And we can all think of people we miss, people we wish were here. So
one of our Lenten disciplines might be to find someone who has been
absent from us and reconnect with that person. You might pray for
those persons and call them, or drop them a note, and remind them
that the community is not complete without their presence among us.
As you pray for that one or more, you might reconnect with your
relationship with God as well and strengthen your prayer life. And
you might give thanks for this community of faith which has nurtured
and sustained many in their journey in this historic place. You
might think of ways we could strengthen our community and how we
might reach out to our neighbors.
You’ll notice
in the parish hall things on the posters about how to improve our
facilities. What would most help your connection with the
community? What would help our connection with our neighbors? What
could strengthen our connection with God? Daily prayers and
devotions? Why don’t we choose one person to pray for intentionally
during Lent and let us carry that person in our hearts. I always
think Lent is a good time to send notes to people we’ve neglected.
Indeed, perhaps I’ll finally get my Christmas cards out. Sometimes
we find ourselves too busy to think, let alone pray. In our 21st
century world of cyberspace, I invited you, should this work for
you, to choose some online prayer discipline for Lent. You can go
to our diocesan website,
www.edow.org to get started. Another way to strengthen your
connection with God is to take on some discipline for Lent—decluttering
or caring about the environment, or caring about a neighbor, or
cleaning up your yard or take some time for quiet. Go to the
National Gallery and meditate with one of the paintings of the
crucifixion. Go to the Cathedral and meditate on one of the stained
glass windows. Light a candle for someone who needs God’s healing
love. Come to confession with Bill or me and experience that rite
of lifting a burden to begin anew.
Today we
remember that we are dust, we remember our mortality. Last night
after the dried out palm branches cooled after burning and I
prepared the ashes for our service today, I remembered that we are
dust and ashes, as I was covered with some of the ashes and I
remembered that Lent starts today. This is a time of repentance for
the dust of what we have done and the dust of what we have left
undone. The withered remnants of the once green palms from last Palm
Sunday bring to mind the regrets and setbacks of the year just past
and reminders of things we’d like to forget, perhaps. The dust of
our failings and sin remind us of how we have hurt others and it
reminds us of our being very human.
Remembering the
past year is a good way for us to begin Lent—we look back on our
year and remember the woundedness we caused or that happened to us.
We remember the struggles, we remember the deaths. We also remember
the story of God’s people and realize that all that we do as people
of God is in some measure recollective of what God has done for us.
On the beginning of Passover, our Jewish brothers and sisters recite
the great events of their history and redemption and they dare not
forget who they are and where they came from.
As Christians,
we look back as well. We look back to the cross. We remember the
cross and we remember the words we say at baptism, “You are sealed
by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
When we cross ourselves in our prayers or retrace the cross of our
baptism with holy water we remember our baptism and our being marked
as belonging to Christ. The cross we mark this day with ashes
conforms us to the image of the crucified one, the Word made flesh
at Christmas, the one from whom we come and the love that has made
us and not we ourselves.
I hope you will
travel this Lenten journey here with your church family, and I
especially hope you will journey with us during Holy Week. The best
way to remember when Holy Week comes this year is to know that
income tax day is the date of the Great vigil of Easter! Our Lenten
journey has begun this hour. It takes us to the cross but it does
not end in death, for we know from the ashes of our sin and shame
that God will raise us up at the last day in the new life through
the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Let us pray:
O God of Love, enlighten us, embrace us with your invisible love.
Let us see your glory in the ashes. Take us by the hand that we may
trust the wilderness of Lent. Minister to us by your Spirit that we
may not be afraid of the desert of our lives at this time. Give us
your saving help again and let us remember your love. Amen.
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