Ash Wednesday
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
The ashes on the forehead are a symbol of hope, not despair.
These texts occur in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day.
Old Testament Lesson
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
The Fearsome Day Of The Lord
The prophet Joel forecasts one of the worst calamities imaginable for an agricultural people: a plague of locusts that descends upon the land like an invading army. So thick is the crowd of hungry insects, they are "like blackness spread upon the mountains" (v. 2). They all but blot out the sun. The general commanding this dark army is none other than the Lord (v. 11). It is God who has brought this calamity upon the people: what, then, is there to do, in the face of such an onslaught? The only possible response is repentance, and all the concrete responses that accompany it: fasting, weeping, and mourning (v. 12). Repentance is truly the people's only hope: for the Lord who has unleashed such a dark army is also a God whose wrath can be turned aside from those who earnestly seek to amend their ways (v. 13). The fast that is called for, on such a dread day, is more than simply a conglomeration of individual actions; it is a community observance (verses 15-16). All the people must be in concert. This text is triply difficult to preach in our contemporary culture. Not only does it raise difficult questions of suffering, and how God can permit such a thing (let alone, cause it); not only does it raise up the concept of sin, which is unfashionable in many circles; but, it also runs counter to the individualism that is so prevalent in our society.
Alternate Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 58:1-12
The Fast God Wants
The lectionary editors evidently chose this text with people in mind for whom fasting is a familiar experience. It deals with the dos and don'ts of fasting: how to engage in this spiritual practice without drawing attention to oneself, but with the sole purpose of inclining one's heart to God. The situation of many of our people is quite different. In this culture that worships a shallow ideal of abundance, fasting is virtually an alien concept. The preacher's burden is, more often than not, encouraging people simply to consider a modest attempt at fasting -- rather than tempering the practice of zealots who engage in it too energetically. Having said that, however, verses 6-7 -- which describe the sort of fast God truly desires -- speak powerfully to our modern culture. Many of us have a tendency to draw a line of demarcation between "spiritual" matters and questions of politics and justice. This schizophrenic approach was highlighted by Dom Helder Camara of Brazil, who once remarked, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint; but when I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist." Isaiah is telling us God has little patience for such compartmentalized thinking. In the words of Nicholas Berdyaev, "Bread for myself is a material consideration; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual consideration."
New Testament Lesson
2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10
No More Cheap Grace
Echoing the words of Isaiah 49:8, which he cites, the author proclaims, "See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!" The lection is rather artificially divided: 5:20b-21 are really the conclusion of the previous pericope. In 6:1, the author advises us "not to accept the grace of God in vain." Is this not a leading heresy of our modern age? In a culture permeated with soft-core Christian evangelistic appeals -- that reduce discipleship to a single "moment of decision" in which a person "accepts Christ," then is expected to do nothing more, later, than to recall and retell the joy of that experience -- grace is being taken in vain every day. A half-century ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us of "cheap grace," but we continue to bottle the stuff and sell it as though it were some sugary soft drink. Paul's world is very different. It is a world in which grace actually costs something. It costs Jesus his life on the cross, and it costs many of his first-century followers "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger" (6:4b-5). Hard words like these are far from the experience of many of our people. Yet, Paul bears witness that these agonizing experiences produce certain virtues in the lives of those who are so tested: "purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and [awareness of] the power of God" (v. 6). These are people who know the experience of "having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (v. 10). Through adopting a spiritual discipline for Lent, we can experience, in some small way, how suffering can be formative.
The Gospel
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Don't Play To The Crowd
The same is true of this passage, for most of us, as is true of Isaiah 58:1-12: What we need is not so much practical instruction as to how to engage in spiritual disciplines, as encouragement to engage in them at all. Jesus is teaching his disciples about how to avoid ostentation in practicing spiritual disciplines of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. "Who is the audience?" Jesus is asking, with respect to his disciples' spiritual disciplines. "Is it your fellow believers -- or is it God?" If our audience is truly God, then there is no need to publicly practice such disciplines: for God sees what we do in private. Indeed, God sees into our very hearts. This passage provides a good opportunity to uplift personal spiritual disciplines: Bible study, prayer, and the sort of stewardship activities that result in no plaque on the wall and no name printed in the Honor Roll of Patrons. In verses 9-13, omitted from this lectionary selection, Jesus gives his disciples the precious gift of the Lord's Prayer -- a simple, plain-spoken prayer that embodies all the essentials of the spiritual life.
Preaching Possibilities
"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
So wrote novelist Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and a host of other stories about frontier days in Alaska. London truly lived his life as a "superb meteor": Before he was seventeen years old, he had worked in a cannery and also as a sailor, an oyster pirate, and a fish patroller. He also spent time as a hobo, riding trains. During a national economic crisis, he joined a march of unemployed workers. He was arrested and spent a month in jail for vagrancy.
London didn't much care for jail, so when he got out, he got himself a high-school equivalency diploma and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. He immersed himself in books and became a radical socialist. A year later, in 1897, he dropped out of college to join the Alaska gold rush. London never did strike it rich, but he did discover enough material to become a successful writer. He published his first book at age 24, and over the next seventeen years, he wrote a total of fifty books. He also became an alcoholic. At the age of forty, he drank himself to death.
Jack London's life is a classic example of burnout. He went up like a skyrocket and came down like a fluttering cascade of gray ash. "I would rather be ashes than dust!" He was true to his word. In the end, though, Jack London didn't get his way. He might have burned himself out through hard living, but in the end he became dust -- just as surely as anyone else. For such is the fate of every human being.
The ancients used to consider it a virtue to ponder this sort of thing from time to time. The author of Psalm 90 engages in just such a philosophical rumination:
For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
-- Psalm 90:9-10
The psalmist concludes that thought by praying, "Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart." And so it came to pass, many centuries ago, that ancient people would remind themselves of their own mortality by smearing ashes on their bodies. Ashes were a part of daily life, back then. Every home contained a fireplace; it was a daily task to carry out the cold ashes and dispose of them. If death or sadness entered your household, the way to respond was to blacken your face with fireplace ashes and weep.
Ashes also became a sign not only of sadness, but also of repentance. When Job wearies of his philosophical debate with God, and concludes that the only solution to the problem of suffering is to let God be God, he brings his rebellion to an end by declaring, "I repent, in dust and ashes." The ashes are a symbol of profound sorrow: not only because of human mortality, but also because of human sinfulness.
And so, as we gather to reflect on the symbolism of the ashes, we participate in a tradition several millennia old, one that predates history itself. What we do, in receiving ashes on the forehead, is unspeakably ancient. It is a frank acknowledgment of who we are, as human beings -- and as sinners.
Yet, thank God that is not where the story ends. If it were, we might as well follow the example of Jack London, burning ourselves out before we rust out. God's intention for us is not that we end in ashes.
In Isaiah, chapter 58, the prophet asks if that is what God truly desires for us that we end up repenting in the ashes. The prophet speaks a word from the Lord, who says,
"Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?"
-- Isaiah 58:5
No, says the Lord, this is not the fast that I choose. The fast of the Lord's choosing is:
"... to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke...
... to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house..."
-- Isaiah 58:6-7
What we are, as human beings, may not always live up to God's expectations. All of us have done things, or failed to do things, for which we can only repent. Yet, God's deepest desire for us is not that we should remain in the ashes, but rather that we should get up and live in a new way. That's what repentance means. It's not just feeling sorry for ourselves; it's turning our lives around and living differently.
God doesn't want us to remain mired in perpetual guilt. God's greatest desire for us is that the ashes on the forehead will be a symbol not of despair, but of hope!
Jack London thought his choice was between seeing the spark of his life "burn out in a brilliant blaze" or be "stifled by dry-rot." He was wrong. There is another option. That option is, by the grace of God, for the spark of our lives to kindle a blaze that will burn forever.
Prayer For The Day
Holy God, we praise you for your unending, invincible love for us. You have called us out of the dust. You have called us by name and claimed us as your own. You bring us through tumultuous waters, through raging rivers, and across the burning coals of the fires that sometimes burn in our lives. You strengthen us, Lord, to live our lives as reflections of, as testaments to, your glory and the glory of your kingdom on earth. You are our salvation, our ever-present help in time of trouble. We praise your name, and we ask for continued strength for the living of these days. Amen.
To Illustrate
What are little girls are made of? You know the answer: sugar and spice and everything nice. And little boys? Snakes and snails and puppy dogs' tails.
That's what the nursery rhyme says, anyway. But what are we made of really?
The scientists have their definition. It has to do with constituent elements: mostly water and hydrogen; and with anatomical structures: bone, muscle, blood vessels, nerves.
The Bible has its own definition of what we're made of: one which is not in conflict with the scientific one, but which approaches the question from a different angle. This biblical definition speaks to spiritual realities: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."
***
There is an old story about a man from the city who was out driving in the country one day. The signs on the road weren't very good, and he got lost. So he stopped at a farmhouse to ask directions. "Can you tell me how far it is to the town of Mill Pond?" he asked.
"Well," said the old farmer, "the way you're goin' it's about 24,996 miles. But if you turn around, it's about four."
That's the way it is when what we're all about is only guilt, not repentance. There's no end to guilt. It's possible to so wallow in guilt that we never get away from it. After a while, feeling guilty become almost pleasurable, in a perverse sort of way.
No, what God wants for us is that we acknowledge our guilt, then move on: move on to repentance, to truly making some changes.
***
Here is an extreme example of the need for repentance not only in word, but also in deed -- although this is a story that is, sadly, all too common. A husband beats his wife badly enough to put her into the hospital. It's not the first time he's done that. The next day, he feels guilty. He brings her flowers. He says he's sorry. He promises never to do it again.
Yet, what's going to happen the next time he's frustrated, or angry, or has simply had a few too many drinks? If he's done nothing more than feel guilty -- if he hasn't faced up to his sin, if he hasn't taken positive steps to change his behavior, if he hasn't called upon God to help him change the deadly behavior, and followed up with some kind of treatment program -- then his repentance is no repentance at all.
The point of the ashes on the forehead is not merely guilt. It is also change.
***
One of the most beautiful and cherished items in all the world -- a diamond -- is nothing more than carbon dust. It is ash, in other words, that has been exposed to pressure. Some of the baby boomers among us remember learning this fun fact, as kids, while watching the old black-and-white Superman TV series, the one starring George Reeves. There's a scene, in one of those episodes, in which Superman takes a lump of coal in his hand and squeezes it, very hard. He grunts. He grimaces. Smoke comes out of his clenched fist. Yet, when Superman opens his hand, the lump of coal is there no longer. A glittering diamond has taken its place.
In God's hand, the ashes of a human life are more than mere refuse to be carted away. By the amazing power we call grace, we can be transformed from our natural state of sin into something strong and beautiful.
***
The cartoonist Doug Marlette was wrestling with the reality of sin when he drew a character talking to the preacher, the Reverend Will B. Dunn:
"Let me get this straight -- the word 'sinners' is spiritually incorrect!"
"You got it! 'People of Foibles' is more sensitive, supporting, and nurturing."
"I see... People of Foibles, repent!"
***
There's more to that biblical image of dust than most of us think: much more. Remember where the dust comes from. It comes from the very earth itself.
When God had finished creating the heavens and the earth, Genesis tells us -- when God was done crafting the stars and the planets, the waters and the dry land -- there was only one thing left to create: a person, someone to care for the planet, to rule it and enjoy it, to be a companion for a lonely God.
As the great, African-American poet, James Weldon Johnson, tells it, in his poem, The Creation:
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the Great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in his own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
We human beings may indeed be dust, in the biblical view. Yet, we are dust whom God has leaned over, and toiled over, and loved into life. We are dust to whom God has spoken, by words of faithful prophets. We are dust to whom God has sent a son and redeemer, Jesus our Lord.
Ours is what you could call a "down-to-earth" story.
The ashes on the forehead are a symbol of hope, not despair.
These texts occur in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day.
Old Testament Lesson
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
The Fearsome Day Of The Lord
The prophet Joel forecasts one of the worst calamities imaginable for an agricultural people: a plague of locusts that descends upon the land like an invading army. So thick is the crowd of hungry insects, they are "like blackness spread upon the mountains" (v. 2). They all but blot out the sun. The general commanding this dark army is none other than the Lord (v. 11). It is God who has brought this calamity upon the people: what, then, is there to do, in the face of such an onslaught? The only possible response is repentance, and all the concrete responses that accompany it: fasting, weeping, and mourning (v. 12). Repentance is truly the people's only hope: for the Lord who has unleashed such a dark army is also a God whose wrath can be turned aside from those who earnestly seek to amend their ways (v. 13). The fast that is called for, on such a dread day, is more than simply a conglomeration of individual actions; it is a community observance (verses 15-16). All the people must be in concert. This text is triply difficult to preach in our contemporary culture. Not only does it raise difficult questions of suffering, and how God can permit such a thing (let alone, cause it); not only does it raise up the concept of sin, which is unfashionable in many circles; but, it also runs counter to the individualism that is so prevalent in our society.
Alternate Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 58:1-12
The Fast God Wants
The lectionary editors evidently chose this text with people in mind for whom fasting is a familiar experience. It deals with the dos and don'ts of fasting: how to engage in this spiritual practice without drawing attention to oneself, but with the sole purpose of inclining one's heart to God. The situation of many of our people is quite different. In this culture that worships a shallow ideal of abundance, fasting is virtually an alien concept. The preacher's burden is, more often than not, encouraging people simply to consider a modest attempt at fasting -- rather than tempering the practice of zealots who engage in it too energetically. Having said that, however, verses 6-7 -- which describe the sort of fast God truly desires -- speak powerfully to our modern culture. Many of us have a tendency to draw a line of demarcation between "spiritual" matters and questions of politics and justice. This schizophrenic approach was highlighted by Dom Helder Camara of Brazil, who once remarked, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint; but when I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist." Isaiah is telling us God has little patience for such compartmentalized thinking. In the words of Nicholas Berdyaev, "Bread for myself is a material consideration; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual consideration."
New Testament Lesson
2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10
No More Cheap Grace
Echoing the words of Isaiah 49:8, which he cites, the author proclaims, "See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!" The lection is rather artificially divided: 5:20b-21 are really the conclusion of the previous pericope. In 6:1, the author advises us "not to accept the grace of God in vain." Is this not a leading heresy of our modern age? In a culture permeated with soft-core Christian evangelistic appeals -- that reduce discipleship to a single "moment of decision" in which a person "accepts Christ," then is expected to do nothing more, later, than to recall and retell the joy of that experience -- grace is being taken in vain every day. A half-century ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us of "cheap grace," but we continue to bottle the stuff and sell it as though it were some sugary soft drink. Paul's world is very different. It is a world in which grace actually costs something. It costs Jesus his life on the cross, and it costs many of his first-century followers "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger" (6:4b-5). Hard words like these are far from the experience of many of our people. Yet, Paul bears witness that these agonizing experiences produce certain virtues in the lives of those who are so tested: "purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and [awareness of] the power of God" (v. 6). These are people who know the experience of "having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (v. 10). Through adopting a spiritual discipline for Lent, we can experience, in some small way, how suffering can be formative.
The Gospel
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Don't Play To The Crowd
The same is true of this passage, for most of us, as is true of Isaiah 58:1-12: What we need is not so much practical instruction as to how to engage in spiritual disciplines, as encouragement to engage in them at all. Jesus is teaching his disciples about how to avoid ostentation in practicing spiritual disciplines of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. "Who is the audience?" Jesus is asking, with respect to his disciples' spiritual disciplines. "Is it your fellow believers -- or is it God?" If our audience is truly God, then there is no need to publicly practice such disciplines: for God sees what we do in private. Indeed, God sees into our very hearts. This passage provides a good opportunity to uplift personal spiritual disciplines: Bible study, prayer, and the sort of stewardship activities that result in no plaque on the wall and no name printed in the Honor Roll of Patrons. In verses 9-13, omitted from this lectionary selection, Jesus gives his disciples the precious gift of the Lord's Prayer -- a simple, plain-spoken prayer that embodies all the essentials of the spiritual life.
Preaching Possibilities
"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
So wrote novelist Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and a host of other stories about frontier days in Alaska. London truly lived his life as a "superb meteor": Before he was seventeen years old, he had worked in a cannery and also as a sailor, an oyster pirate, and a fish patroller. He also spent time as a hobo, riding trains. During a national economic crisis, he joined a march of unemployed workers. He was arrested and spent a month in jail for vagrancy.
London didn't much care for jail, so when he got out, he got himself a high-school equivalency diploma and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. He immersed himself in books and became a radical socialist. A year later, in 1897, he dropped out of college to join the Alaska gold rush. London never did strike it rich, but he did discover enough material to become a successful writer. He published his first book at age 24, and over the next seventeen years, he wrote a total of fifty books. He also became an alcoholic. At the age of forty, he drank himself to death.
Jack London's life is a classic example of burnout. He went up like a skyrocket and came down like a fluttering cascade of gray ash. "I would rather be ashes than dust!" He was true to his word. In the end, though, Jack London didn't get his way. He might have burned himself out through hard living, but in the end he became dust -- just as surely as anyone else. For such is the fate of every human being.
The ancients used to consider it a virtue to ponder this sort of thing from time to time. The author of Psalm 90 engages in just such a philosophical rumination:
For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
-- Psalm 90:9-10
The psalmist concludes that thought by praying, "Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart." And so it came to pass, many centuries ago, that ancient people would remind themselves of their own mortality by smearing ashes on their bodies. Ashes were a part of daily life, back then. Every home contained a fireplace; it was a daily task to carry out the cold ashes and dispose of them. If death or sadness entered your household, the way to respond was to blacken your face with fireplace ashes and weep.
Ashes also became a sign not only of sadness, but also of repentance. When Job wearies of his philosophical debate with God, and concludes that the only solution to the problem of suffering is to let God be God, he brings his rebellion to an end by declaring, "I repent, in dust and ashes." The ashes are a symbol of profound sorrow: not only because of human mortality, but also because of human sinfulness.
And so, as we gather to reflect on the symbolism of the ashes, we participate in a tradition several millennia old, one that predates history itself. What we do, in receiving ashes on the forehead, is unspeakably ancient. It is a frank acknowledgment of who we are, as human beings -- and as sinners.
Yet, thank God that is not where the story ends. If it were, we might as well follow the example of Jack London, burning ourselves out before we rust out. God's intention for us is not that we end in ashes.
In Isaiah, chapter 58, the prophet asks if that is what God truly desires for us that we end up repenting in the ashes. The prophet speaks a word from the Lord, who says,
"Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?"
-- Isaiah 58:5
No, says the Lord, this is not the fast that I choose. The fast of the Lord's choosing is:
"... to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke...
... to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house..."
-- Isaiah 58:6-7
What we are, as human beings, may not always live up to God's expectations. All of us have done things, or failed to do things, for which we can only repent. Yet, God's deepest desire for us is not that we should remain in the ashes, but rather that we should get up and live in a new way. That's what repentance means. It's not just feeling sorry for ourselves; it's turning our lives around and living differently.
God doesn't want us to remain mired in perpetual guilt. God's greatest desire for us is that the ashes on the forehead will be a symbol not of despair, but of hope!
Jack London thought his choice was between seeing the spark of his life "burn out in a brilliant blaze" or be "stifled by dry-rot." He was wrong. There is another option. That option is, by the grace of God, for the spark of our lives to kindle a blaze that will burn forever.
Prayer For The Day
Holy God, we praise you for your unending, invincible love for us. You have called us out of the dust. You have called us by name and claimed us as your own. You bring us through tumultuous waters, through raging rivers, and across the burning coals of the fires that sometimes burn in our lives. You strengthen us, Lord, to live our lives as reflections of, as testaments to, your glory and the glory of your kingdom on earth. You are our salvation, our ever-present help in time of trouble. We praise your name, and we ask for continued strength for the living of these days. Amen.
To Illustrate
What are little girls are made of? You know the answer: sugar and spice and everything nice. And little boys? Snakes and snails and puppy dogs' tails.
That's what the nursery rhyme says, anyway. But what are we made of really?
The scientists have their definition. It has to do with constituent elements: mostly water and hydrogen; and with anatomical structures: bone, muscle, blood vessels, nerves.
The Bible has its own definition of what we're made of: one which is not in conflict with the scientific one, but which approaches the question from a different angle. This biblical definition speaks to spiritual realities: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return."
***
There is an old story about a man from the city who was out driving in the country one day. The signs on the road weren't very good, and he got lost. So he stopped at a farmhouse to ask directions. "Can you tell me how far it is to the town of Mill Pond?" he asked.
"Well," said the old farmer, "the way you're goin' it's about 24,996 miles. But if you turn around, it's about four."
That's the way it is when what we're all about is only guilt, not repentance. There's no end to guilt. It's possible to so wallow in guilt that we never get away from it. After a while, feeling guilty become almost pleasurable, in a perverse sort of way.
No, what God wants for us is that we acknowledge our guilt, then move on: move on to repentance, to truly making some changes.
***
Here is an extreme example of the need for repentance not only in word, but also in deed -- although this is a story that is, sadly, all too common. A husband beats his wife badly enough to put her into the hospital. It's not the first time he's done that. The next day, he feels guilty. He brings her flowers. He says he's sorry. He promises never to do it again.
Yet, what's going to happen the next time he's frustrated, or angry, or has simply had a few too many drinks? If he's done nothing more than feel guilty -- if he hasn't faced up to his sin, if he hasn't taken positive steps to change his behavior, if he hasn't called upon God to help him change the deadly behavior, and followed up with some kind of treatment program -- then his repentance is no repentance at all.
The point of the ashes on the forehead is not merely guilt. It is also change.
***
One of the most beautiful and cherished items in all the world -- a diamond -- is nothing more than carbon dust. It is ash, in other words, that has been exposed to pressure. Some of the baby boomers among us remember learning this fun fact, as kids, while watching the old black-and-white Superman TV series, the one starring George Reeves. There's a scene, in one of those episodes, in which Superman takes a lump of coal in his hand and squeezes it, very hard. He grunts. He grimaces. Smoke comes out of his clenched fist. Yet, when Superman opens his hand, the lump of coal is there no longer. A glittering diamond has taken its place.
In God's hand, the ashes of a human life are more than mere refuse to be carted away. By the amazing power we call grace, we can be transformed from our natural state of sin into something strong and beautiful.
***
The cartoonist Doug Marlette was wrestling with the reality of sin when he drew a character talking to the preacher, the Reverend Will B. Dunn:
"Let me get this straight -- the word 'sinners' is spiritually incorrect!"
"You got it! 'People of Foibles' is more sensitive, supporting, and nurturing."
"I see... People of Foibles, repent!"
***
There's more to that biblical image of dust than most of us think: much more. Remember where the dust comes from. It comes from the very earth itself.
When God had finished creating the heavens and the earth, Genesis tells us -- when God was done crafting the stars and the planets, the waters and the dry land -- there was only one thing left to create: a person, someone to care for the planet, to rule it and enjoy it, to be a companion for a lonely God.
As the great, African-American poet, James Weldon Johnson, tells it, in his poem, The Creation:
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the Great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in his own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
We human beings may indeed be dust, in the biblical view. Yet, we are dust whom God has leaned over, and toiled over, and loved into life. We are dust to whom God has spoken, by words of faithful prophets. We are dust to whom God has sent a son and redeemer, Jesus our Lord.
Ours is what you could call a "down-to-earth" story.
