My first act as an ordained minister was to burn palm
leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday service to use as ashes on Ash
Wednesday, and that act seems to have set the tone for my ministry ever since –
especially in my work at the hospital.[1]
Several years ago, on Ash Wednesday, I stood with one of
the attending physicians of the Pediatric ICU. He is Catholic, and it was
probably about 7:30 at night. “I didn’t get ashes,” he said.
He and I had been working with the family of newborn girl
all afternoon. She had been born happy and healthy eight days ago. We learned
from her parents that she was definitely a daddy’s girl; she didn’t really like
to be touched, but her dad could always get her to calm down when he held her.
Around 11 that morning, her mother had noticed some
blood while changing her diaper. She called the pediatrician’s office and was
directed to the Emergency Room of our hospital. By 2pm, she was in the ICU. By
6pm she had died. And we had no idea why.
“I didn’t get ashes,” he said again.
And all I could say was, “I don’t think either of us
needs any reminder that ‘we are dust and to dust we shall return’.”
Tonight, we are asked to do strange things: to
remember our mortality, to confess to our brokenness, to read words that don’t
match up with our actions.
We read: “whenever you pray, go into your room and
shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”
And what we do is we gather in this public place and
lift our voices in prayer.
We read: “whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like
the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces to show others that they are
fasting.”
And what we do is we mark our foreheads with ash and
so that there is nothing secret about us.
Tonight, what we read and what we do are not going to
match up.
But is that really any different from every other day?
We read: “you shall have no other gods before me.’
And what we do is we worship success and power and
fame and fortune.
We read: “forgive seventy times seven transgressions.”
And what we do is we savor our bitterness and plan for
revenge.
We read: “make disciples of all nations.”
And what we do is we keep our faith to ourselves,
because it's not polite to talk about such things in mixed company.
We read: “if you love me, you will feed my sheep.”
And what we do is we turn our backs on those who are
starving for love and acceptance and compassion and, yes, even for food.
Today is the day that we admit the truth – to
ourselves, to each other, to God – that what we read and what we do don't match
up.
This is a difficult thing to admit, and the world does
a good job of trying to blind us to the truth. Just this afternoon, in my email
inbox, there was a promotional message from Applebee’s. The subject line: “Joshua,
no guilt here!”
Today we begin the 40-day process of repentance called
Lent. Repentance involves two steps: first, we must turn away from sin, second,
we must turn toward righteousness.
I think that it's fitting that the words we read and
the actions we perform today don't match up, because it forces us to recognize
the truth of our sinfulness – a truth we try desperately to hide from
ourselves, from each other, and even from God.
We know from scripture that the penalty for sin is
death, and so we are forced to recognize not just our frailty, but our
mortality. We face, head on, the truth that we all must die, must return to the
dust from which we were created.
And so this is the way the story of our life reads: we
are sinful and we are mortal – we rebel and we die.
Those are painful truths to accept, but we must accept them.
Because unless we understand these truths, the good
news that we will spend the next 40 days preparing to receive is meaningless.
The Good News that what we read and what Christ does DO match up.
When we are faithless, Christ is faithful.
When we sin, Christ shows us how to repent.
When we die, Christ gives us life.
May it be so.
Amen.
[1]
I work full-time as the chaplain for Pediatrics and Women’s Health at a
level-one trauma center.
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