Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Paul Simon in his 1985 album Graceland sings: "She comes back to tell me that she’s gone. As if I didn’t know that! As if I didn’t know my own bed." He is singing about a man, lost and lonely, struggling to make sense of life in the midst of his sorrow, from the wreckage of broken relationships. He sings, "she comes back to tell me she’s gone as if I didn’t know that," it isn’t necessary when you are in pain for someone to point out the obvious.
I feel somewhat the same as Lent begins again this year. We live in a world of broken relationships, not only in our personal lives, but in the world. In Ireland people asked us continually what was up with President Bush. Our longtime allies in Europe and Asia, don’t see eye to eye with our nation’s foreign policy. We live with the daily news of shattered lives in Iraq, in Palestine, in South Asia’s devastating Tsunami. Our world seems more shattered and broken than ever. We are at war. It seems that death is all around us.
Against this backdrop our service begins on this Ash Wednesday as we hear the chilling words spoken as ashes are smeared on our foreheads, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return!" Do we need this reminder of the fragility of life? Most of us have lost people dear to us in death. In our community there are many living with HIV/AIDS. Are we not bombarded with images that make the denial of loss and death nearly impossible? Wouldn’t there be other words spoken that would bring comfort, do we really need to state the obvious?
How can I forget that I am dust, now more than ever? But there is another way to look at this season, one that is more than just stating the obvious. For in Christ, what seems obvious is changed, transformed. Death into life, repentance into comfort, despair into promise. There is a way to approach this season of repentance and renewal which can bring a richness and depth to our lives. In the humility of remembering that we are dust, these words, along with the cross of Christ on our brows, help us to know that our center is solid, the winds of history may blow here and there, but we are God’s own children. In life or in death we will never be alone. No matter what we may have done, Christ has taken away our sin. Living in this freedom we find our hearts cleansed.
Matthew writes "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." My father was an accountant, a CPA. He used to say we should charge people to go to church. He thought the Jewish tradition had the right idea in charging people to go to Temple on High Holy Days. When Dad would say this, people at the church I grew up in, a Lutheran church in Ventura. Well, they would go nuts – what? Charge people to go to church? God’s love is free, God’s forgiveness is free? God is for everyone, how can we charge people to go to church? And Dad would say, I have been looking at tax returns all of my adult life. And I know something about Americans, we don’t think something is important until we pay for it. When we pay for something, then we think it is important. We put our money into the things we value. I don’t think that idea is all that different from "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Now, take a deep breath, I have not placed bouncers at the back doors to make sure we get a donation from you before you leave tonight, and you will not find a ticket booth at the front steps before church on Sunday. But during lent we are called to think about what it means for us to respond to God’s love. How is it that our self examination will lead us to greater giving – of ourselves, our time, and our possessions.
Lent is a time when we strip away all of the frills to get at the basics of what it means to be Christian. This has its roots in the ancient purpose of Lent, when those preparing for Baptism would, as part of their final preparation, leave behind all of the things of this world that got in the way of their relationship with God. They spent time in fasting, prayer, serving the poor and other disciplines of the Christian life. They prepared for lives of loving service in the world.
So the text from Matthew for tonight has spoken clearly down through history as it speaks to us. As Lutherans we are typically middle of the road about lent, there are no rules. You can fast, or pray, or give something up, or do something for others you don’t usually do. You can put an extra five dollars in the offering, or volunteer to help at the Palm Sunday brunch, or walk your neighbors dog. Whatever we do in the season of lent, by way of action, or self-examination the only rule is that we do not do it to be seen by others. For these preparations are for the Day of Resurrection. We do them in order to rid ourselves of all things, to empty ourselves. So that we might be filled by God in Christ. Lenten discipline, is Lenten joy, it is not to be miserable, but rather in joyful anticipation that by giving ourselves we will be truly found. Knowing that God’s love is already present, we are called to a loving response which allows us to face our fears and our failures about ourselves and our world remembering that God is in charge.
I had a classmate in seminary named Cheryl. While serving as a student Pastor in Philadelphia, a man in her congregation called her up one night. He said that he and his wife were having some real problems, would she please come over. She did, she walked up to the front door, rang the bell he answered and she went inside. He then locked the door behind her and raped her. There was no one else at home.
He thought she would never report him because she was a minister. But he was wrong, she did report him, he got jail time. But it was a terrible ordeal for her. Cheryl kept taking showers, sometimes 2 or 3 a day. She couldn’t get over feeling dirty. In the water she said was the only time she felt clean. She came back to the seminary after it happened, all of us who were her classmates felt terrible for her. There were several late night talks in my room and many tears, we were angry – with 285 men at our seminary and seven women – we felt quite alone and afraid, none of the men seemed as affected by the news as we were. When I try to imagine what the world is like for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, I think of the fear. When I try to imagine what it is like to be Deaf I think of the isolation of the realization that we were different than male ministers, and that there were dangers involved. Dangers I hadn’t even thought about.
After a few days our Campus Pastor asked her to come over to chapel in the evening. It was about 9PM, he invited the other women students all seven of us. The chapel was silent, and we were silent. Our pastor didn’t try to preach. He asked us to come to the baptismal font one by one – I leaned over the font, and he said to me Susan child of God, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When he got to Cheryl, he filled his hand with water and said this is the water of life, it will heal you, Cheryl, child of God, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That water and our tears, it healed me, Cheryl wrote in an email I got yesterday. After that day I could function again --these last 18 years of ministry have been because of that evening. Whether it is what we have done in this life, or what life has done to us. Our hearts can be healed by the ancient traditions of the faith, for to us they are the Divine arms holding and healing us.
Perhaps, like Paul Simon, we do not need to be reminded of the obvious. Or maybe, just maybe, it is just this sort of return to the obvious that we all need. For the tone in " Graceland" changes. At first it seems as though Paul Simon is singing about a pilgrimage to Elvis’ home in Nashville. Then he sings, "I’ve reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland." We discover, that the brokenness gives way to hope in a land of grace where God will welcome all of us home. Lent marks again the earnest journey home for us, God’s flock. The ashes, like the water of our baptism – is our mark, it is our brand so to speak. We wear this brand in humility, but never in shame. For it is the obvious reminder of God’s love and claim on us. It is where the heart is. Amen.