Ash Wednesday A

Remember you are dust. Well, we're here already, straight through Christmas and New Years, we barely had an Epiphany season and it is Lent. Not only is is Lent, today, Ash Wednesday is meant to be the darkest most solemn day of the year. Even darker than Good Friday or Holy Saturday because on those days we harbor a subtle hope for Easter. We see very clearly a light at the end of the tunnel but today...Oh today. Today we focus on our mortality. Today we hear the words remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

We remember that some day each of us will notice our frailty in one way or another. We remember that we are not invincible, that we are breakable. That as hard as we try to live life like we are the only thing that matters the truth is we are small compared to so many things.

We are small compared to the frailties of old age. We are small compared to the terror of sudden accidents. We are small compared to the great pains of depression. We are small compared to the very world in which we live. and we are small compared to the needs of humanity around us. And where does all of this smallness get us, why on earth would we want to dedicate a day to dwelling on it?

Hopefully it gets us to look around for something bigger. Like our Lenten Gospel Verse says, remembering our shortcomings and our frailties helps us to us to Return to the Lord. This is the reason too for Lenten disciplines, you've probably heard these spoken of before. We talked about them as part of the confession today. They are things that we are called to do all the time but that we especially try to do during Lent to help us remember that there is Good News even in our mortality.

The first Lenten discipline is Repentance. We Repent. We acknowledge that we live in a broken world and that sin is all around us. Our relationship with God and each other isn't right. We have knowingly sinned, broken the covenants that we have with God but beyond that we are part of a people whole live distantly from God. We turn inwards repeatedly. We care more for ourselves than those who might suffer because of our actions. We fight. As a world we have wars and are at war right now because we are sinful people who just can't quite get it right and so we strike out at one another instead of reaching towards our neighbors in peace.

And so we ask God to wash us through and through and to create in us clean hearts, generous hearts, loving hearts, peace-filled hearts and before the words are even out of our mouthes we hear a loving promise that God our Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and for this reason we have already been washed clean in the waters of baptism.

Remember you are dusty and dirty but you were washed clean in baptism and sealed with the indelible mark of Christ forever.
Our next discipline is Fasting in many ways fasting is an answer to the request that our hearts be changed. We don't live in world where fasting is very common at least not deliberate fasting. We do however live in a world where so many people can have whatever physical thing they want, including just about any food whenever they want it and yet people die because they can't get the very basic food, clean water and medical attention that they need. This is a sign of the sin that we repent from, the sin of a broken disordered and unjust world. Nothing is divided fairly. And so we fast, we try to limit what we take in, to eat leanly to cut out foods that have to travel thousands of miles and over oceans to get to us in order to be good stewards of all of our resources and we turn with the excess towards those around us in need.

Remember all your nourishment comes from the dirt of the earth and therefore, that dusty ground is precious and you are given the gift of caring for it and all people and things who live therein.
Our Next spiritual discipline is Prayer We are called to listen to God. We have already done our speaking to God through repentance and we know that God hears the sighs and desires of our hearts so to pray doesn't mean to ask for things but to spend time remembering loved ones, joys, fears and concerns in the presence of God and then to listen for God to respond. Meditate, read the psalms and as you do take notice of where you feel God in your life, what you feel God calling you towards and how you feel God feeding and caring for you.

Remember you are dust and ash but the Lord spoke to Moses through a burning bush and the Lord brought water for the Israelites from a stone. The son of God was born in the dirt of a stable. We are dust and God speaks to us from the very earth that surrounds us.

Our final spiritual discipline is to do Works of Love- We care for the whole of creation because we are a part of the whole of creation and we are called to care for the world, especially, Jesus taught us to care greatly, deeply and completely for one another. As part of our fasting and repentance we are called to find ways to give the things that we have hoarded to those who need them more. We are called to grant forgiveness to those who have sinned and trespassed against us and we are called to ask forgiveness of those we have hated, those we have fought against and those we have forgotten.

Remember you are dust but the whole world is made up of dust, you are from the same precious dust that your brother and father, mother and sister, uncle and neighbor, stranger and enemy are made from. We do works of love because we are knit together by our very human substance.
As you do your spiritual disciplines remember you are dust. We know we are dust because we hear stories of the creation of the first people and the scripture says that they came from dust...but dust wasn't all. There was dirt and then God breathed into the dirt. God filled the dirt with the breath of life and the very clay, the mud from the ground became alive with the breath of God. The breath of God filled the world and the breath of God fills each of us. We are earth and dust but we are made alive with Holy Substance so by all means today and always remember that you are dust. Amen