Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Ash Wednesday+Pastor Jodi Houge

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21

For most of my life, Ash Wednesday has been one of my favorite church days. It’s a strange thing we do. Church is strange in general but today is extra weird. And it’s always surprised and delighted me that people turn out so we can put dusty crosses on one another’s foreheads. I’ve witnessed people move their bangs and lean their foreheads toward this mixture of ash and oil in a variety of settings. On street corners, in worship spaces, at a local pub and once around a fire at Highland Park. Wherever we gather and offer them, folks arrive, willingly.

By the end of the ritual, the ash is ground into my skin and under my nails and smudged on my clothing. People don’t just lean their foreheads toward the ashes, they lean their babies and squishy toddlers toward it. Once, a woman not just great with child but great with twins wanted two ash crosses on her belly. 

 

We put ash crosses on those just beginning in the world and on those who have seen better days. Bodies in their prime and those riddled with pain. No matter your age, health, station in life, politics. Whether you have stockpiles of resources or are barely making it between paychecks. The truth is, the only way to live and grow and travel and someday die is inside a human body. It’s the only option. How remarkable it is to have one.

So today, we acknowledge the wonderful and terrifying truth—we are dust. And one day we will return to dust. We are earth. And one day we will return to the earth. 

 

We spend a lot of time and energy running from that truth. Sometimes, literally running. A few years back, I decided to get back into jogging. At about block three, my friend saw me from his yard and looked at me, alarmed. He yelled over, “Are you running?” And I yelled back, “Just denying my mortality!” So running and also creams and potions and special stretches and smoothies and the right amount of protein which is an absurd amount according to instagram reels.

Tonight is a collective deep breath from the running from and go right toward it. For an hour at least. We are dust.

I’m guessing it’s a big part of reason we are here. A day of honesty. It always feels like a relief to me.

 

But the heart of today isn’t just about dust. It’s two-fold. It’s not just the truth about death, it’s the universal and particular truth that you are loved. You are God’s beloved. The same cross we make on every forehead on the day of our baptism is the cross we make today. It means beloved. You are so dearly loved. So is the person sitting next to you. It’s true every day-every day we we walk around with invisible baptismal crosses. But today we get to see them. A glimpse of this holy and mysterious love.

 

Given all that, I do have some beef with this Gospel lesson that we get to come around every year on Ash Wednesday. Strange and slightly awkward to read a passage about not making a big pious deal of your Christian faith and prayer life and fasting. I mean, this is the one day a year when we make a public display. It’s a bold move for shy Lutherans to walk into the gas station after worship with an ashy cross. 

Every year, I get prickly around the fasting language because like probably many of you, I was raised steeped in diet culture. So I can’t help but turn fasting and giving things up into some terrible diet plan. And if you are one of millions of folks who has ever struggled with disordered eating, fasting is not an avenue to grace and freedom. Set the idea down.

But. If you want to talk about fasting from diet culture and body shaming? I’m all in. Orrrrrr, maybe this year we fast from isolation or despair or thinking our phones can save us. Let’s fast from hatred for those on the other side of what seems like almost everything we hold dearly. Let’s fast from thinking the world rides on our shoulders so if we aren’t busy we are worthless. I suspect could lead you to freedom and grace. 

 

It’s possible that this Gospel is showing us to why do we do what we do. We practice praying for our enemies and giving our money and time away and fasting from things like despair and hatred not because they are requirements to a life as a Christian, but because it’s good for our hearts.  And doing them creates more capacity within us to love ourselves and our neighbors.

There is one verse that I adore in this Gospel. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Who among us isn’t thinking about what’s important in life? What we treasure? How we want to live and spend our time? If these ashes crosses are reminding us that our days are finite, then each one is precious. Lent has everything to do with our own hearts—the excavating we need to do, the healing, renewing, the space making. 

 

The other assigned texts for today point to our hearts, too. The prophet Joel tells us to return to God, to rend our hearts instead of our clothing. Rend means tear. Tear your hearts wide open, church. Psalm 51 has us asking to have clean hearts created within us. Confess all that you need to, church. God can handle the truth of your lives. 

 

We have all these weeks of Lent to examine our own lives and what it is we hold dear. 

 

And, we get to do that same examination as the body of Christ. What is the heart of Gloria Dei and what is it that we treasure?

The foundation of what we treasure and the heart of what we have to offer the world begins with the simple act of gathering together. 

Church is super weird. We come to worship, a live event where anything can happen. It’s maybe the one hour a week where we separate our attention from our phones and beeping watches. Not to mention that when we come to worship, we submit to someone else’s playlist. And menu. We share the peace of God with strangers. We look strangers in the eyes and say the peace of Christ be with you. We sing with hundreds of other humans who we might never cross paths with again. Or it’s possible they will say a eulogy at our funerals. So it’s weird, but it’s the best kind of weird.

 

We believe so much is the treasure of gathering together that we are doubling down. Sundays aren’t enough, friends. So we are gathering on Wednesdays, too.

 

When we gather, we are tending this faith that began generations before any of us were born. A faith that has been tended and told and taught and caught and practiced throughout Christian history. Which means others have been in our place. Others have lived through the rising and falling of public leaders, of train wreck governments. All the humans before us have also lived in mortal bodies with finite days. And they did what we are doing: they gathered to hear a word from God. From God who creates us and loves us. And those gatherings gave them what they needed for the week. 

 

So we will follow suit. 

 

And we trust that it will be like pouring oil on parched skin. We will offer food to the hungry—our reading from Isaiah tonight makes it very clear that offering food to the hungry and satisfying the needs of those who are suffering will lead to your gloom being lifted. God will guide us, continually, and satisfy our needs in thirsty places. We do this trusting that God is leading us to watered gardens, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. 

 

Take heart, church. We are alive and God is here. Amen.