Beyond the Patio

Ash Wednesday

Readings

Joel 2.1—2, 12—17
Psalm 103.8—18
Refrain The Lord remembers that we are but dust.
2 Corinthians 5.20—6.2(3—10)
Matthew 6.1—6, 16—21

I found that preparing material for this Ash Wednesday very difficult – It seemed to be what I have often run into as a preacher, the difference between “having something to say”, and “having to say something”. When I sat down to prepare I didn’t t have anything to say and yet I felt that I had to say something. I sat there for a awhile and a thought that was expressed in the Collect prayer kept running through my mind:

GOD DOES NOT DESPISE ANYTHING THAT GOD HAS MADE.

There is a wonderful poem on Creation by Wendell Johnson, a black American who lived in the early party of this century. It is one of those poems that has the capacity to uncover deep feelings within us. It begins:

And God stepped out on space
And he looked around and
He said, “I m lonely, I ll make me a world”

The poem goes on in vivid imagery to talk of Gods creation and then later on in the poem he says:

Then God walked around and God looked around on all that He had made.
He looked at his sun and
He looked at His moon and
He looked at his little stars and
He looked at his world with all its living things
And God said, “I m lonely still” Then God sat down
on the side of a hill where he could think
By a deep wide river He sat down
And with his head in his hands,
God thought and thought ’til he thought: “I ll make me a man”

And up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay
And by the bank of the river, He knelt Himself 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 hands,
This great God, like a Mammy bending over her baby
kneeled down in the dust
tolling over that lump of clay
till He shaped it in His own image
and blew into it his own breath of life

Amen and Amen

In this poem it is clear that God created us out of the desire for relationship. He created all of us out of love. I believe that when we read in the bible that God created us in God’s image, we were created with the capacity to enter into a relationship with God. We have the capacity to love and respond to God in love. Because we were created for that, we are not complete as persons without it. As Augustine said at one time, “we are restless , O Lord, until we find our rest in you.”

But we often find ourselves drifting from that Love of God. During Lent we hear a lot about repentance and repentance is basically “turning around” or “changing directions” . God in his amazing love is always waiting for us to return, no matter how far we think we have removed ourselves from God’s love.

As we read in the scriptures appointed for Ash Wednesday, the prophet Joel, the Psalmist, the people listening to Jesus all found out that God wanted them to repent, to change their ways to renew their hearts because of God s great love for them. They had to be reminded time and time again that:

GOD DOES NOT DESPISE ANYTHING THAT GOD HAS MADE. (including the people of Israel, including the “off again-on again” disciples of Jesus)

*

There are many things this Lent that we as a people of God need to repent of.

We have not always responded to God s love as a people called into a Christian community. We have sometimes allowed our diversity to become the source of divisions. The eye has said to the ear, “I have no need of you”

We have not always responded to God s love as a people called to trust in God s Spirit. We have decided things on majority votes, where of course someone wins and someone loses. We have not always waited on the Spirit. we have not always waited for consensus.

We have not always responded to God’s love as a people who are called to love and to live for the world. We have spent much time and energy on ourselves. We have reached in but not always reached out.

But we are to repent as a community of faith in the knowledge of God’s great love for us, in God s willingness to forgive, in God s desire to give us a new spirit of unity, of trust, and of mission –the power to serve.

We are to repent in the knowledge that:

GOD DOES NOT DESPISE ANYTHING THAT GOD HAS MADE (including the church, including this community of faith here in this place)

*

As individuals there are certainly things in our lives that we despise. I was watching a video awhile ago called Leaving Normal. I was kind of intrigued with the title. I thought to myself, “now what do you suppose that’s all about, leaving normal?” Does it mean leaving our senses. I didn’t know. It turned out to be about two women who had linked up together and left Normal Wyoming. There was scene in that movie in which these two women were talking about all the things that they had done in their lives that they considered to be “bad”.. .they were battering back and forth trying to get “one up” on the other. They were going on “I’ve left two husbands”, “I’ve been a stripper” etc. etc. They were all things that they could laugh at now that they were over.

Then one of them said, “I left my two week old daughter,”

That stopped the conversation.

It was obviously something that was despised in both the listener and the speaker. They had reached the uncomfortable zone.

There are areas of our lives that we despise.. .things that are deep within us that keep us from truly honest relationships. Things that we perceive separate us from God, that keep us away from God, because we see God as a hard taskmaster, a God of judgement but not a God of love. When I worked in the field of addictions, there were many people who deep down in the inner recesses of their soul, despised themselves for some of the things that they had done….and with many of them you could not mention the word GOD because God represented judgement but not love.

There are something in my life that I despise. I come to this Lenten season with some of these things on my mind. I also come with all kinds of feelings of doubt and uncertainty, with impatience.. even with feelings of failure. I have trouble trusting God. Sometimes I just don’t feel all that good about myself. I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin.

I need this season of repentance. I want a change of heart as a prepare in these six weeks of lent for the greatest celebration of the Christian year–the resurrection—the celebration of new life.

But the first thing that I need to know is that :

GOD DOES DESPISE ANYTHING THAT GOD HAS CREATED
(including you and me)

This is a season of ashes.. .but right now I hold that picture in my mind of

…that 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 hands.
This great God
like a mother bending over her baby kneeling down in the dust toiling over that lump of clay till He shaped it in His own image and blew into it his own breath of life

Amen and Amen.

Let us pray:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you despise nothing you have made
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts,
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our brokenness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

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