Sermon: Ash Wednesday

God’s Dust
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ash Wednesday, Year B (RCL)
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” It’s an age-old question. Does a tree falling in the forest need our ears to hear it fall, or can it stand on its own, fall on its own, making a sound as it falls whether or not we’re around? Does the sound of a tree falling in the forest depend on us, or does it depend on God? The question holds our attention because we can never know the answer, at least through empirical means. If we aren’t around to hear it, then necessarily it won’t make a sound. However, we can know the answer to this age-old question if we shift our focus off of ourselves and on to God. Another question to ask is: Does sound depend on us, or does it depend on the God of creation, who caused the tree to fall, who caused the first sound to sing out, who causes all vibrations that roll through the atmosphere. It seems to me that how we answer this question has less to do with the tree in the forest and more to do with where we place ourselves within the endless bounty of creation.

For our Gospel lesson this afternoon/evening, an equally valid question may be: ‘If a Christian practices his or her piety in private and no one is around to see it, does it much matter?’ While at first glance it may seem that Jesus is trying to make the point here that private piety is preferable to public piety, I believe that the Gospel goes much deeper than that. It seems to me that while Jesus is indeed taking about public piety done at the expense of private piety, beyond that, he’s also talking about what we value; about where we put our faith. Do we value being recognized by others more than being recognized by God? Do we have more faith in what others think of us than in what God thinks of us? It seems to me that Jesus is warning us, not so much of the dangers of public piety, but of the dangers of our caring too much about what others think of us and of our caring too much about what we think of ourselves. Jesus is warning us not to fool ourselves into believing that the tree falling in the forest depends on our hearing; he’s warning us not to trick ourselves into believing that God’s love for us depends on our own self-esteem or on the esteem coming from others.

In today’s Gospel, I believe that Jesus is trying to teach us that our piety, our almsgiving, our prayers, our fasting, even our faith, that none of this depends on us; none of it depends on how holy others perceive us to be, none of it depends on how pious we believe ourselves to be. No, our piety, our almsgiving, our prayers, our fasting, our faith, all of it depends on God. When we give alms, it is not because we are naturally generous people, though there may be some truth to this. Rather, when we give alms it is because of what we have already received. When we feel that we have been blessed with an abundance, it is only then that we learn to give abundantly. And when we pray, it is not because we are naturally people of prayer, though this may be the case. Instead, we pray because we were prayed into being. When the universe was a void, God created the earth, God created light and life, and finally, God created human beings, God created you and me. Why? Because it was God’s will, it was God’s prayer that we be made, to please God, to work with God, to learn to love as God loves us. And when we fast, it is not because we are naturally people of great fortitude and endurance, though some of us may be. But no, when we fast, we fast to remember what it is we truly hunger and thirst for. When we fast we once again find ourselves prayerfully asking God to give us today our daily bread; to send us manna down from heaven, not of our own creating, but manna created through the outpouring of God’s love.

Today is Ash Wednesday. It is the one day of the liturgical year when we come to church, have ashes rubbed across our foreheads, and are told that we have come from dust and will one day again return to dust. Through a surface reading of today’s Gospel, we might be perplexed, that on the one day of the church year when we are marked with highly visible signs of our piety and our faith, we hear a Gospel lesson rebuking us not to practice our piety in public. However, if we understand our Gospel lesson for today on a deeper level, understanding that it doesn’t have as much to do with publicity as it has to do with our priorities, it becomes clear. Ash Wednesday is the day when we remember that all that we have and all that we are has nothing to do with us and our piety. Instead, it has everything to do with God, with God’s grace, with God’s love of us. We are dust. It was God who gathered the dust at creation, formed it, and breathed it into being. Ash Wednesday isn’t the day when we remember that we are bad and relive all of our sins. It’s the day when we remember that we are loved, that we were loved into being out of dust, and that nothing, not even our faults, not even our false piety, not even our failures will be able to take that love away.

This year more than any other year that I can remember, I’m ready for Lent. I’m ready to be smeared with its ashes. Sounds strange, right? Why is that? Why am I ready for Lent? Because at a time in my life when I feel more anxious than ever that the future relies on me and what I may or may not do, what I may or may not say, I desperately long to be reminded that I am not in charge, that I am not in control, that my life is not the center of the universe, that life will indeed go on. I desperately need to remember that I am dust; that in my attempts to control the future, I am dust; that in and of myself, I am dust; that without God, I am dust. Yet even still, I am dust. I am the dust God breathed into at creation. I am the dust that lives and moves and has its being in order to help and serve others and therein glorify God. I am the dust, I am God’s dust. Not just some run-of-the-mill dust collecting under the couch, but God’s dust. Dust infused with life, dust infused with love, dust infused with grace. I am, we are, God’s dust.

Today, this Ash Wednesday, as you are smeared with ashes, as the constancy of your being is mixed with oil and rubbed across your forehead, I invite you to forget yourself, to forget how the world sees you, to forget how you see yourself, whether as the best there is or the worst to come, I invite you forget all of this and to remember instead. To remember the God of the universe who created that tree that falls in the forest, to remember the God of creation who formed us out of the dust of the earth, to remember the God, our God, your God who loves you even in your humanity, even in your frailty, even through your sins, even as his prophet, his son is nailed to a tree. This Ash Wednesday, I invite you to forget about personal piety and instead, to remember who you are by recalling whose you are. Amen.