“The Dusty Truth”

Ash Wednesday

March 2, 2022

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Matthew 6:1-6; 16-21

Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday

By Jan Richardson

 All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

My friend posted the following conversation on facebook. Parishioner asks: “Pastor, what are you giving up for Lent this year?” Pastor responds: “Yes.” In many ways, who wouldn’t like to give up this past year and longer for Lent? While this holy season is often seen as a time to scale back, to deny oneself comforts and pleasures, I think that this year, of all years, we need a different take. We’ve given up a lot already.

You see, the whole idea of this self-denial was to prepare new Christians to be received into the church on Easter. It was an effort to let go of all the things we rely upon for comfort and convenience in order to place our full trust and hope on God. Instead, doing the opposite of what Jesus says in the passage from Matthew, we see it as a challenge to achieve. A goal to reach. I can go without chocolate or coffee for 40 days. Some use it as a 40-day diet challenge. And more often than not, God doesn’t play into the practice, at all. Because we are looking to our strength to make it through the season without whatever we gave up rather than looking to God to bring us through real challenge.

Perhaps, as we embark on this season of introspection, we might consider documenting all that we have been given. All that we are grateful for. This Lent, our theme is Full to the Brim, recognizing the deep blessing that God gives, even in the shadow of the cross. Especially in the shadow of the cross. And in the shadow of the past two years, filled with death, divide, and despair.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber points out that Lent should not be a time for self-punishment or self-denial but about peeling away the false comforts we use to numb ourselves to our frailty. We come face-to-face with the Truth of our life and death as we receive the ashes upon our foreheads and hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” If the Truth sets you free, then this truth is all about liberation.

It’s hard to imagine—the idea that coming to terms with death would feel anything but depressing. And yet, when we are faced with this Truth, we are released from telling lies that deny death; we are released from self-delusion and false promises; we are released from pretenses and destructive independence from God; we are released from defending ourselves; we are released from indulgent self-loathing; we are released from arrogance, certainty, cynicism, and ambivalence.

We are released to feel deeply God’s love for us—to embrace the holiness of being fragile beings in a great big world—to let down our defenses against hurt and pain in order to share God’s love with others. It is only in this truth that life can actually flourish.

Dear friends, as you come forward later to receive the ashes alongside God’s promise of love and forgiveness, I pray that you can let go of the things that keep you from seeing and appreciating the holy wonder of this life and of God’s creation. I pray that you are released from all the unhealthy ways you protect yourself from being hurt. I pray that you are set free and sent into the world just a little bit scorched, a little frayed at the edges, and completely alight with the glory of God.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE