Here's the sermon I preached yesterday at our Ash Wednesday service at Trinity Lutheran Church. I tweaked the lectionary a bit and we read Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-23; Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21. We also sang "Beautiful Things" by Gungor (which helped inspire my sermon!).
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“Remember
that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These are the words that will
be spoken as an ashen cross is marked on your forehead. It is a strange honor
to be the one to say the words and smear the ash. After all, who am I to remind
you that you are dust?
It
is a strange honor, and also an emotional one. Today, my sweet five-month-old
baby will be marked with ash. And as I trace a tiny cross on his small, smooth
forehead, I am envisioning myself having to choke out these words, “Remember
that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Today,
I will mark with ash and say “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall
return,” knowing there is a chance that before next Ash Wednesday I will be presiding at the funeral of someone I
have marked. And at the graveside I will say, “In sure and certain hope of the
resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to
Almighty God our sister, or our brother, and we commit her body, or his body,
to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Today,
I will be marked with ash and will
hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These
words are a reminder of our mortality and our sin, a call to humility, and an
invitation to celebrate.
On
this day we are reminded of our mortality, reminded that death is a very real
part of being human. We are reminded that death eventually comes to all of us –
with no regard for our age, or social status, or bank account, or good deeds.
We can store up treasures on earth all we want, but they, too, will end up
covered in dust.
On
this day we hear a call to humility – we are not God. We are not in control. We
cannot make ourselves anything other than dust. We are called to release our
grip on control. To calm the frantic anxiety that comes from trying to arrange
everything just so.
And,
on this day we receive an invitation to celebrate – yes, you are dust.
God-breathed, God-redeemed dust! From Genesis we get this wonderful image of
God, the creator of the universe, kneeling down in the mud and dust and
sculpting a human. We are covered in God’s fingerprints and filled with the
breath of life – God’s breath. We are created and called good. We are formed
not alone, but together; created to be in relationship with God and one
another. Look what God can do with dust!
Why
else do we celebrate? Because, reminded of our mortality and our sin, we are
also reminded of Jesus’ victory over death and the grave. Confident in the
promise of eternal life, we know that death does not get the last word.
We
celebrate because, called to humility, we are reminded that while we are not
God, God is! God is in control. God holds our joy and our sorrow, our laughing
and our weeping, our life and our death. Our salvation is God’s business, and we
are freed from trying to be perfect, freed from feeble attempts to make
ourselves right with God. Redeemed, called to humility, we are then free to
love and serve one another not out of duty or obligation, but rather out of
genuine interest and joy.
On
Ash Wednesday, we come face-to-face with our mortality and sin. We remember
that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We remember that we are God-breathed
dust. God-redeemed dust. God-beloved dust. Yes, look what God can do with dust.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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