The Rev. Keri T. Aubert    February 25, 2009

Joel 2:1-2,12-17

Psalm 103

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

Ash Wednesday    

For Christians, the season of Lent is a traditional time of penitence. If we’re going to talk about penitence, we have to talk about sin, and if we have to talk about sin, we might well begin with Adam and Eve. Some say that the sin of Adam and Eve was disobedience, and the result of that disobedience was separation from God. I agree that our sin separates us from God, but I but I think it also separates us from other parts of God’s creation, and that it also separates us from ourselves. Separation from others, separation from self, and separation from God are entangled and can’t be disentangled. Separation of one sort causes separation of the other sorts.

Fortunately, connection with others, connection with self, and connection with God are also entangled. Connection of one sort brings connection of the other sorts. That rebuilding of connection might call reconciliation. Reconciliation must always begin with honesty. And so on Ash Wednesday in particular, we put aside our human tendency to blame others, we take responsibility for the ways in which we have all fallen short, and we accept the forgiveness that God has already given us. Rather than an exercise in institutional guilt and oppression, it is a powerful opportunity to acknowledge and lament our failures, so that we may begin to put them behind us once and for all.

Jesus speaks about almsgiving and prayer and fasting. And he says to keep them to ourselves. That may seem an odd thing to hear as we prepare to take on a visible sign of our repentance in the form of a cross of ashes on our foreheads. But I think that Jesus is saying to be careful about our motives. Don’t act out of concern for outside appearances or outside validation. I think that’s hardly a problem in our post-Christian world, a world that desperately needs reconciliation in so many ways. No, I don’t expect that any of us stands to gain much in outside appearances or outside validation because we came here tonight. Rather, I think we gather together to witnesses to one another’s willingness to engage in this powerful process, and to support one another in what for our culture is truly a radical act. As we send out vulnerable sprouts of reconciliation, looking toward the glory of the resurrection, may it be for us as Isaiah describes:

If you remove the yoke from among you,
   the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
   and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
   and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
   and satisfy your needs in parched places,
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters never fail. [Isaiah 58:9b-11 NRSV]