Sermon, Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2015

B Ash Wednesday BFC 2015

February 18, 2015

A poem by Maren Tirabassi

Mardi Gras

Gras (fat)

As in Mardi (Tuesday) Gras (fat)

Since Christmas I’ve had
a lot of gras weeks.
I consume and consume and end up hungry,
even if I’ve packed it on my thighs 
and my calendar.
When I eat up my
pancakes and bacon tonight,
it’s more than a Tuesday
celebration.

It’s the end, I hope,
of a carnival of running away
of eating, talking, working, playing,
worrying too much --
all those … gras things,
that keep me from the essential,
from the scant, spare
lentiness
that can name in my life
what is lasting …
and what is ash.

Jesus is often shown at feast in the gospels.  Feasting was part of his parables as a way of proclaiming the reign of God:  the widow celebrating the discovery of her lost coin; the shepherd finding his lost sheep; the father welcoming home his prodigal son.

And, in 21^st Century North America, we are rather good at feasting.  Many of our lives have become so filled with abundance such that we really have no need of God.  How can we possibly hear One referred to as sheer silence or still small voice if our plates are always filled to overflowing, our minds are constantly consumed, and the volume is always turned up?  We have no need of God.  For our plates are filled to overflowing.  And in those places where we experience pain or suffering or bareness, we simply pray for a miracle to return us back to our filled plates and cups. 

Lent is to be a time of deep hunger for God and an ache for a fleeting glimpse of God’s face.  But without spiritual practices or disciplines such as fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, we have no balance and our feasting is deadly.

For the Bible is clear about unacceptable feasting.  The rich man, who goes unnamed, gorges himself while Lazarus, in a twist, is named as the person who dies at the rich man’s gate.  The Bible is clear in its call for genuine, humble fasting.  Not as a pious gesture or a grim act of will, but as an act of repentance, a seeking of God, a creating of extra space in our lives for spiritual reflection.  Within Muslim spiritual practice, fasting is used to convey solidarity and remembrance of those who go without food on a daily basis.  So to feast without fasting is to dismiss connection, forget our own mortality, and refuse to undergo an inward looking.

To quote Joetta Handrich-Schlabach,

When affluence allows people to feast too frequently and independently of others, feasting loses much of its joy and integrity.  It results in ill health and dulls our sensitivity to the needs of others.  Reclaiming the feast may require learning to fast.  Regularly abstaining from meat and other rich foods can be a spiritual act of walking with other people.  Reserving for special events foods we might easily afford, but that are luxury items in the world economy, unites us with those who have less.[1]

In our Call to Worship, the prophet Joel calls the whole nation to a fast, to a corporate spiritual practice.  He asks them to not rend or tear open their clothes, but to tear open their hearts.  Upon hearing the death of a loved one, the Jewish people traditionally tore their garments “to expose the heart.”  This practice began, in the Biblical story, with Jacob, who tore his cloak and began to mourn when the bloodied coat of his son, Joseph, was brought to him.  Tearing a garment symbolizes the severing of a relationship.  It permanently mutilates something valuable that cannot be mended.  By “exposing the heart,” we also expose our own vulnerability. 

Within Jewish mythology and story is also the belief that as we hear the suffering of others our heart is scarred.  We then reveal those scars to God in prayer as a way to bring comfort and healing to the world.  So the prophet Joel is asking for a death to take place, a weeping over an old way of life from which the whole nation shall now abstain. 

Fasting is that will to abstain.  Joel calls for the whole nation to abstain from those things which bring about violence, destruction, and domination.  Can we even imagine the power of a whole nation strong enough, with humility and hope, that they would tear their hearts away from that which brings violence, destruction, and domination?  Can we imagine a whole nation admitting that they might be wrong and there is another way?  How could we, corporately, begin to fast in this way?  To not gorge ourselves on the blood of others?

Joel asks not some of the people but all of the people.  Everyone from infants to the elderly are enjoined to come to this public display of the fast beginning.  This is not about an individual’s way of life or evil and bad people.  Rather, it is about a system and structure in which the whole nation is caught and enmeshed.  Everyone seems to be pushed up to the table, feasting on violence, domination, and destruction.  For real repentance to happen then, the whole nation, the whole system and structure, will have to abstain and fast. 

Fasting is about forever declaring our freedom from our gorging and addiction to show our freedom for God.  God’s absence is given as a gift to creation so that we do not find God at the end of a path carved out by gorging and addiction.  Fasting is about the things, causes, and people to which or whom we will not give our heart.  We abstain from violent, destructive, and dominating things, causes, patterns, and institutions.  As a result, we are free to choose life-giving, loving, compassionate, and just things, causes, persons, patterns, and institutions. 

By fasting, we declare that we choose not to be everywhere.  We are declaring our freedom to be somewhere, on some path, that will lead to our old folk seeing visions, our young folk dreaming dreams, and the Spirit of the Living God being poured out not just on us individually, but on our community, our country, and our world. 

Tonight is our invitation.  Turn.  Turn from paths of violence, destruction, and domination.  Burn them in the purifying fire of God’s presence so that they become nothing but ash.  And begin to declare your freedom for the life God intends for us—together.  Fast. 

Imposition of Ashes

German scholar, Dorothee Soelle, believes that knowing we are all mystics, is the grounding for knowing we were also created in the image of God.  She writes, “The greatest sin of humans is to forget that we are royal children.  ‘Rabbi Bunam said to his disciples:  Everyone must have two pockets, so that [they] can reach into the one or the other, according to [their] needs.  In the right pocket are to be the words:  “For my sake was the world created,” and in [their] left:  “I am earth and ashes.”’” 

In the book of Genesis, there are two creation stories.  Each has a different view of what it means to be human.  One was told when the people were proud and mighty and conquerors.  That story said, “You were made out of the tillable soil, the dust of the ground, and to the dust you shall return.”  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  For that reason we apply the ash.

The other was told to the people when they were broken and despairing and conquered—living in Exile.  That story said, “You were made in the image of God.”  For that reason we apply the oil, a sign of God’s blessing and messianic choice.

We need to tell and hear both stories, for we must always know our “humus”, our humility and connection to the earth and our “imago Dei”, our divinity and connection to God. 

So for those who wish to receive the ashes and oil, I will say to you, “From ashes and dust you were made—to ashes and dust you shall return.”  I invite you to respond with “I was made in the image of God.” 

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[1] Carey Burkett, “Simple Feast,” Sojourners, February-March 1994, p. 27, quoting Joetta Handrich-Schlabach, Extending the Feast.