Gordon E. Ellis
Ash Wednesday
February 21, 2007
KNOW WHERE YOUR TREASURE LIES
And now, to the mercy of Almighty God, we commend the soul of our sister departed, and we commit her body to the ground -- earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust -- in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life through our Lord, Jesus Christ. THOSE are the words that we SAY at a Service of Committal, at a GRAVESIDE service, when a LOVED one is BURIED. And sometimes there’s a BODY, and sometimes there are only ASHES.
I remember the FIRST time I ever touched the ASHES from a human body. I was fairly NEW in ministry, just a YOUNG man. I had never even SEEN the CREMATED ashes of a human body before. There were about 5 POUNDS of fine grey matter in a black plastic BAG, inside a small square box. And the ASHES had BITS of white BONE scattered AMONG them. A family and I had picked them up at a local funeral home, and the youngest CHILD in the family HELD them in her LAP as we drove to a BRIDGE overlooking a SMALL stream, but a SPECIAL stream to this particular family. And WHEN we emerged from the car onto the BRIDGE, it was TIME! DAD and his 3 young children stood there NERVOUSLY for a few moments. Then the oldest child opened the box and unfastened the plastic bag inside. And for a MOMENT, time seemed to STOP. HOW could it BE? How could 36 YEARS of energy and beauty, joy and sorrow, strength, and pain — HOW could it be CONTAINED in that ONE small box? And HOW could it BE that I was actually AFRAID to TOUCH her ASHES.
The YOUNGEST child, who was just 5 at the time, must have SENSED my RELUCTANCE, because pretty soon she grabbed my HAND and shouted, Come on, Gordon, TAKE some! It’s only MOM! SO, very TENTATIVELY, I reached out and TOUCHED mortality. I took small handful of ashes and HELD them as I said a PRAYER out loud. And THEN, I carefully DROPPED them, a FEW at a TIME, into the rushing stream. As SOON as I was finished, the CHILDREN began taking FISTFULS of ashes and letting them FLY — arching over the side of the bridge and into the water. And THERE went BARBARA, passing from death BACK into LIFE, back into the gracious and eternal ARMS of GOD. She had been KILLED by the cruelty of CANCER over a period of SEVERAL years. And now, HERE she was: floating from that STREAM into the river, and from the river into the sea — into the sea of God’s INFINITE grace and mercy, I thought. BARBARA was finally FREE of PAIN and sickness. It had been a LONG, difficult BATTLE!
Well, IN the ancient wisdom of the church, EVERY Ash Wednesday we TOUCH each other with the ashes of our MORTALITY. AS we begin the DESERT struggle of the season of Lent, we are invited to acknowledge our FINITENESS, offer God our INCOMPLETENESS, and embrace our total DEPENDENCE on the wholeness and health of GOD. And AS the ashes SMEAR our foreheads in the SEMBLANCE of a CROSS, we HEAR again the traditional Ash Wednesday BLESSING: Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And IN the brutal HONESTY of this sacred RITUAL, we DARE, as we rarely DO, to tell the TRUTH about who we are. And IN the process, we have the opportunity to RE-COMMIT ourselves to becoming the people that God WANTS us to BE, the people we are CAPABLE of BECOMING.
BUT, it’s NOT easy! We MUST be focused! We MUST make choices! We CANNOT go through our lives on automatic pilot, as we often WANT to do! No, BECOMING the people that God CALLS us to BE is NOT easy! Look at Holy Week! LOOK at that LAST week in the life of Jesus, and the GRUELING choices that HE had to make. You see: in OUR culture, we have a VERY strong tendency to DENY death, even while our media is FULL of images of violence and death. But WE don’t want to think about the REALITY of it! We don’t want to TALK about it! We don’t want to ACKNOWLEDGE it! However, as MOST religious traditions TELL us, including our OWN, we MISS something DEEP and RICH and IMPORTANT when we try to IGNORE the fact that we will DIE. In fact, the BUDDHIST tradition TEACHES that we should live EACH day as IF it were our LAST day. Now admittedly, that’s a DIFFICULT practice, but it DOES teach us WHERE our PRIORITIES lie, or WHERE our TREASURE is, as Jesus says. THAT’S something that BARBARA, and ALL who face life-threatening illnesses learn the HARD way: ONCE you have stood on the BRINK of DEATH, things NEVER look the same AGAIN. What is IMPORTANT in your life becomes a MUCH clearer, and it’s easier to brush aside all those TRIVIAL things that try to CONSUME so MUCH of the precious TIME you have left, however little or much time that might be.
Well, living in the PRESENT moment is ALSO an ancient CHRISTIAN practice. And THIS is really the POINT of today’s Scripture Lesson: KNOW where our TREASURE is! UNDERSTAND what’s important and what ISN’T! And ALWAYS remain AWARE that LIFE is a GIFT, and TIME is a GIFT, and LOVE is a GIFT! SO, there’s NONE to WASTE!
Yes, Ash Wednesday REMINDS us of this FACT! It’s a day that calls us BACK to our human-ness, BACK to our MORTALITY, BACK to our finiteness. AND, it reminds us of just how important it IS to know WHERE our TREASURE is; and therefore, WHERE our HEARTS are. You know: OFTEN when we read this passage, or HEAR this verse about TREASURE, we think of it in terms of MONEY and POSSESSIONS. But our REAL treasure is NOT money or possessions. Our REAL treasures are TIME and people, our very LIVES and our relationship with God. And Ash Wednesday tells us to NOT take a moment of our TIME for granted, to TREASURE this beautiful world in which we live, to CHERISH those we love and who love US, and to TREAT this precious earth, and ALL of its precious INHABITANTS, every single DAY, with dignity and respect, kindness and compassion. For AS the old saying goes: the past is gone and the future has not yet come, so TODAY is ALL we HAVE! SO, pay ATTENTION to THIS present MOMENT, my friends. Know WHERE your TREASURE lies -- AND where your HEART really IS. And CHERISH it because it could ALL be GONE in a heartbeat. It could ALL be gone in the TIME that it takes to trace the sign of the CROSS on your forehead. Remember that, my friends, and LIVE. Amen.
Friends, let’s take a few moments in SILENCE to contemplate WHERE our treasure LIES, and WHAT it IS that WE need to CHERISH each and every day. And THEN, as the music begins, I invite ALL of you who WISH to receive ASHES on your forehead (or palm) to come forward, KNEEL or STAND at the kneeling bench, and receive the CROSS of ashes. Let’s be SILENT for a few moments.
A TIME OF SILENCE
MUSIC BEGINS: THE IMPOSITION OF ASHES
PRAYER: O God, our Strength and our Redeemer, we have now been marked with ASHES on our foreheads, palms, or hearts. May these ashes be symbolic of the fact that life is SHORT and precious, and MEANT to be LIVED fully and completely. Help us to live EACH day as if it were our LAST. Help us to SAVOR the moments and TREASURE what REALLY matters. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our SAVIOR, who taught us to PRAY saying, “Our Father….”
(My thanks to my colleague Susan Andrews for some of the thoughts & images in this sermon.)