Life from Ashes - Ash Wednesday
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
March 05, 2025
Kate Bowler, in her blessing for Ash
Wednesday wrote, “Blessed are we, a mess of contradictions, in our delusions
and deep hopes, in our fragility and finitude.”[1] We are living
in a time of incredible wealth and commercial influence, amidst wide ranging
diversity. Yet, we are riddled
by divisions about culture and religion and power. And not everyone is
prospering, in fact some are so shackled to debt they’ll follow whoever might
change that. It was the same way in Corinth when Paul wrote. Daily life carried
over into the church. People fought over whether you looked like a Christian, or
whose gifts mattered most. Some felt ground into dust and others refused to see
the grit. Some felt over time they weren’t sure if the gospel Jesus taught even
mattered because others offered more attractive ideas. Just like today. Some
want us to believe that gold and might glitter and matter more. But this day we
willingly allow someone to place a gritty smudge of ashes on us in the shape of
a cross. That’s about as far from attractive as you can get. We not only are
reminded of the ashes of our mortality; we wear the dust we create.
There is
nothing glamorous about ashes. It’s why some people wash them off right after
worship. There is nothing charismatic about a cross, a symbol of brutal execution
hardly says “winner.” It’s why we try to make crosses pretty, rather than see
that stark reality. There is nothing soothing about being confronted by our
tendencies to seek an easy walk with Jesus that never troubles us with
sacrifice.
In our hearts
do we find it hard to embrace the good news when there is so much that suggests
it is not as true or as powerful as we say? I know I ache for the suffering of
people and for the devastation of creation as so much seems to be unraveling. I
wonder can anything rise from these ashes?
Our ashes first
remind us what Jesus’ embodied presence in the world set aside. There was no flaunting
his image on a coin; no riding in a gold chariot parading as a warfighter; no
mocking and smiting his adversaries; no seeing people and creation as
transactions to mine for what we want before we leave them empty. There is
nothing that will dominate the news cycle about the sacrifice of everyday
compassion.
This cross also
reminds us Jesus embodied the very things Paul pleads with fellow believers to
embrace. Even in the face of great endurance, afflictions, hardships,
calamities, unrest, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger, the things that grind
us down until we feel like bits of dust and ash. Even here, Paul calls us to
see beyond. By God’s hand we can rise and work together with Christ. But it is
through the unconventional resources of purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
holiness of spirit, genuine love, and truthful speech.
It's a messy
world of contradictions. And this is why we need Lent.
This gritty
and humble smudge captures our frailty and failure when we have not embraced the
path of discipleship, and reminds God forgives and renews our capacity to see
God’s power in and for us. Paul learned that after he was humbled.
We need
Christ’s purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine
love, and truthful speech to restore us and
the world God so loves.
We need to be
called back to what matters because God’s time is here, no matter what else is
loudly clattering to the contrary. Even when we have been ground down, feel beaten,
and all too mortal, it is still God’s time.
It is still a
time for the sacrifice of everyday compassion. To repent, return and recommit
ourselves to embody what Jesus embodied even in the midst of our fears or
weariness or even shame. To ask God to help us work together with Christ in
God’s labor of love for the sake of the world Jesus entered fully to restore
and save.
To be honest,
never in my lifetime have I have felt the sting and the hope of Paul’s
words like I do now in the world in which we find ourselves. The ugly spectre
of Christian nationalism, is alive and well in our country, distorting the
cross of sacrificial love by calling an earthly leader a savior anointed by God,
and urging use of any force necessary to make this a Christian nation.
These ashes
remind us that Christ’s cross is for you, but it is NOT about you. It is not a
symbol to be co-opted. As Jesus said to the disciples, “Beware
of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.”
Now we watch
others harm while seeking to instill Christian values, and know what it feel
like to be treated as an impostor, and yet be true. Wearing this cross is not
about forcing others into a litmus test. It’s asking God to renew our
commitment to what it means to live a grace-filled and compassionate life.
Now people
pronounce that our way of Christianity is dying, and yet, we are alive. Wearing
this cross is not about being nostalgic for a time of triumphalism where we
determined the success of Christianity by numbers or entertainment value, nor
is it a time to fall victim to the notion that it’s just about grace and not
our works.
Let’s return
to the heart of the gospel. To follow Jesus is to embody his teaching. We
cannot embody his teaching if we do not act. There is a difference between
practicing piety and embodying discipleship. One is a lot more culturally
popular than the other.
This time is
hard and yet it is a gift in that the true meaning of these ashes and this
cross have become very clear. It is like the clarity those who are dying often
have about what matters most because all the clutter’s been removed. Now is the
time to work with God in Christ for the sake of the world to do what we can to
rekindle our own walk and to reflect the love of God in Christ for all. In all
the blessing and grittiness.
We may be sorrowful,
as Paul writes, yet each day there is opportunity for some small moment of
rejoicing to be birthed.
We may find
that we feel increasingly poor, yet we can make many richer than they are when
they have nothing.
We may worry
that we have nothing, but in possessing Christ we have everything.
In the midst
of chaos it is easy to be overwhelmed, or become numb or jaded. Let us pray for
Jesus who knew that desolation to meet us in the space of repentance and remind
us of the words of Isaiah, because you see, Isaiah 49 reminded Paul “behold now
is the day of salvation.” Words in a
time of struggle long before Jesus embodied them. Words to strengthen us now
when we feel ground down:
The Lord
said:
I will
respond to you; in the day of deliverance I will help you;
I will protect you and give you as a covenant to the people,
to rebuild the land and to reassign the desolate property.
You will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in dark
dungeons, ‘Emerge.’.
They shall not hunger or thirst;
The sun’s oppressive heat will not beat down on them,
for
one who has compassion on them will guide them;
and
will lead them to springs of water.
I will make all my mountains into a road
Look, they
come from far away!
Sing, O sky!
Rejoice, O earth!
Let the mountains give a joyful shout!
For the Lord comforts his people
and shows compassion to his suffering ones.
Now is the
time to be embrace this vision. If you, like me, have found it hard not to
wander away from these promises because they do not seem so present before us,
I invite you, I plead with you, like Paul. Take up the journey through Lent to
walk through the wilderness, and our fears, the journey from ashes to
resurrection-strength rekindled, relationships restored. Let us offer our lives
as the “Amen”- the “may it be so” and call upon God to bring life from ashes
still.
Amen.
[1] “for Ash Wednesday” by Kate Bowler, Blessings for the Lives We Actually Live, p. 201.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2025 All rights
reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written
permission.
Sermon
Text:
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
20b We entreat you
on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that
in him we might become the righteousness of God.
6:1 As we work
together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”
See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the
day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault
may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every
way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings,
imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity,
knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful
speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right
hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are
treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are
alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many
rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
[Jesus said to the disciples:] 1 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to
be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So whenever you give alms, do not
sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have
received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father
who sees in secret will reward you.
5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like
the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the
street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have
received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door
and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret
will reward you.
16 “And whenever you fast, do not look
dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show
others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their
reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your
head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your
Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves
treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and
steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break
in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your
heart will be also.”
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