Homily for Ash Wednesday 2010
The linen cupboard in our house had been in chaos for nearly two years. I could never find anything. Everything would fall out on top of me. Over the Christmas break I cleaned it out and now it is a joy to behold.
A few days ago I had a dream. As I woke I had a clear picture of shelf on shelf of op shop clothes and goods, loaded with stuff, spilling in all directions. The dream told me, what my conscious mind already knew – that I was too busy, and that I could no longer cram everything in.
As you come this Ash Wednesday to consider your life with God, what do you see I wonder? Do you see tidy shelves like my restored linen cupboard. Or is everything crammed in higgledly-piggledly?
Lent is a sacred time that let’s us look at our lives and assess what we no longer need. It is a time to sort, wash and tidy up. But this is not so much OUR work as God’s. It is not about us gaining control (this is often a mistake that can lead us to puritanical and self-punishing habits of life); it is about letting God have control. It is above all about letting go and letting God. It is about letting God re-prioritise our life and put it back the right way up .
The Desert fathers and mothers taught that sin is forgetting. Forgetting what? Not the commandments – important though those are; no, sin is forgetting who we truly are. Forgetting that we are the imago dei – the image of the living God. Forgetting that God presses God’s imprint into our dust.
The Orthodox preach that God became human that we may become divine – that as Gregory of Nyssa said, ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive.
Lent is the chance to remember this in a really conscious way. It is the chance to become more fully alive. It is not about being sad, morose and beating ourselves up about the things we wish we had the power and control to change in our lives. It is about taking the time, in whatever way – by praying, sitting, walking, whatever works for you – simply taking the time to let God look at us with love and sort out the jumble.
It is about letting God be in charge of our re-creation. About God re-membering us – that is to say, putting our members, our limbs, back together at every level of our being. As our OT reading said it is about ‘rebuilding the ancient ruins’ and creating in us a beautiful garden, filled with running streams of living water.
When we receive the ash on our forehead today it is a gentle, intimate reminder of our mortality – that life is sweet but short, so we should live it to the full and with as much love as we can for our fellows who are also but dust –
BUT the ash is also a reminder of the glory – that we are all stardust and will one day return to that state; that we are part of God and will return to be with God. The ash recalls us to our true, glorious nature as beloved children of God.
So today and this Lent rejoice and re-member who you are. Let go of the stress of trying to be in control of your life, and let God fill you with life abundant. Amen
