Cleaning Out

(a meditation for Ash Wednesday 2024, based on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17)

There are times in each in our lives when it becomes not simply desirable, but necessary to doing some “cleaning out.” 

It might be the attic that has become too cluttered with a generation’s worth of records and keepsakes and other “stuff” you couldn’t bear to throw out; the workshop filled with all those unfinished projects; or, as is often true in my case, the desk that’s covered with “stuff” to be sorted through and business to be taken care of.  Now, you may well be a very neat and organized person, and I commend you for that (!); but for most of us, sooner or later the time will come when we look around at everything we’ve accumulated and know that the time has come simply to get rid of it!

I remember that on one of our moves from one church to another, the movers packed a box of things from our old home and labeled it “miscellaneous.” As I recall, as the movers were unloading things into our new home, I had absolutely no idea what this “miscellaneous” box might contain, so I told them to just put the box in the shed that was connected to the garage, figuring I would get to it later.  Well, seven years later(!) we moved again, and in the process of sorting and reaming things out, I finally opened this “miscellaneous” box… and discovered that there was absolutely nothing useful or meaningful or even remotely memorable inside of it!  The movers had carefully wrapped up some old magazines that had been on a nightstand; a couple of empty mason jars; and I kid you not, a few rolls of toilet paper that were under the bathroom sink!  It was all just… junk; and I had saved this box of nothing for seven years; letting it take up space in my life in the false belief that it had to be filled with things that were indispensable or irreplaceable!  Rest assured, that box got “cleaned out;” and for at leaste one small moment, our “burden of stuff” became considerably lighter.

Today begins the season of Lent which liturgically and spiritually is our journey to the cross of Jesus Christ, a time in which our worship and study focuses on the meaning of the sacrifice made upon that cross; and what it means for us to take up our own crosses and follow Christ.  It’s a time for deepening our relationship with God by seeking to walk a little more in step with Jesus on the journey of life and living.

And part of doing that, you see, requires some cleaning out of the things that hold us back or weigh us down: the burden of old regrets and past mistakes; the debris of nagging doubts and long held fears; the sheer suffocation of choices made that always seem to leave us mired in sin and regret.  It makes sense; after all, before we set out to go anywhere, we need to ready ourselves for the journey. So it is with our Lenten journey: to be spiritually ready means that we should be “cleaning up and cleaning out” our very lives, that we might rightly pick up our crosses and walk with our Lord with confidence and stamina.

We read today from prophet Joel, “Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast.” (NRSVU) This verse is a call to worship in the fullest and purest sense of the term, but what we need to understand is that this particular worship gathering is not primarily for the purpose of celebration, but rather of confession; this is a call to repentance and a return to God, a call for faith to be renewed and for loyalty to be restored.  This is a call for all the people to come in deep humility to receive the mercy and forgiveness of God.  “Rend your hearts and not your clothing,” says the LORD; in other words, there’s more required here than simply going through the motions of confessing our sin; this is about true repentance for the sake of God’s mercy, truly “cleaning out” the sin that separates us from God and from one another. 

And that, to say the least, is a difficult thing. It requires from us true honesty and deep humility of spirit; and it means that we confront our sin as something real (and without, by the way, adding the words, “yes, but…” as in, “Yes, I have sinned but I have several excellent excuses!”).  To return to God takes a willingness to leave behind old ways and old attitudes and to fix our course by the lead of the one who is wiser and more powerful than we ourselves.  It takes a determination to turn ourselves 180 degrees in the opposite direction of where we’re headed; and the openness to receive grace when we discover that we can’t make that turn by ourselves.

In short, we are being called to collect up all the cultch that keeps us from a faithful relationship with God, and then set it aside; assured that in divine love, that sin will be carried away for us, never to burden us again.  But the key here is that first, we have to bring it out of hiding, confess its uselessness and then… let it go.

On the wall of a church sanctuary that I know of in Maine hangs this huge, beautiful banner: all in the color of violet, which of course is the liturgical color of lent, but what draws you in is what’s pictured on this banner is a… broom! And beneath the broom is printed the words of a prayer attributed to a young girl from Africa: “O Great chief, light a candle within my heart that I may see what is therein and sweep the rubbish from your dwelling place.”

We have come here today to begin sweeping out the dwelling place of God within our hearts, so that we might remove the rubbish that has accumulated there.  Let us confess our sins.  Let us lay our burdens at the foot of the cross.  And in the process, let us also make room in our hearts and lives for Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of life and living. Let us do this so that the journey ahead – to the cross and beyond – may be traveled in the proper spirit.

Thanks be to God.

Amen and Amen.

© 2024  Rev. Michael W. Lowry   All Rights Reserved.

 

Burning Off the Fields

(A meditation for February 18, 2015, Ash Wednesday, based on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17)

And so now the journey begins …again.

Today the Christian Church begins its season of Lent, which both liturgically and spiritually speaking is our shared journey to the cross.  In one sense, what this means is that on the Christian calendar we set aside the 40 days (plus Sundays) prior to Easter to focus our worship and study on matters relating to Jesus’ “passion and victory;” that is, his willingness to be sacrificed upon the cross for the sake of our salvation, yours and mine, before God.  As I am fond of saying, as Christians it is essential for us, before coming to Easter’s Day of Resurrection, to encounter Good Friday; and that is where this Lenten journey takes us.

However, this “journey” is more than our merely moving liturgically from Ash Wednesday to Easter.  Lent is also time, or at least it ought to be, for each of us to reflect on our own spiritual journeys:  to consider the depth of our relationship with God in the context of our walk with Jesus; indeed to give thought and prayer as to what it means for you and me to call ourselves disciples of Christ in the context of life as we actually live it.  So as a journey, then, Lent provides an opportunity for us to get ourselves on course (or perhaps more accurately, back on course) spiritually speaking!

And it starts with Ash Wednesday.

Traditionally, Ash Wednesday has always been one of the more solemn observances of the Christian year.  It’s observed in differing ways in our churches, from the imposition of ashes to prayer vigils and times of silence or fasting; but whatever the ritual, this day is considered to be a time for each Christian to recognize and acknowledge the sin that both separates us from God and which tears us apart from one another.  Ash Wednesday is meant to be a day of confession: a time to admit our “secret sins” before God and to ask God’s forgiveness; it’s about repentance, taking our first step in turning away, 180 degrees, from the sin that destroys us, the sin that leads to death.  The very name of this day – Ash Wednesday – serves to remind us that sin and death are intertwined (after all, life is “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”), and none of us are invincible but quite vulnerable to both.

If all of this seems to be inordinately somber, you’re right.

But there is purpose in all the solemnity!  And we hear it in our reading today from the prophet Joel:  that the day of the Lord, “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness,” is coming.  So, says Joel, “call a solemn assembly; gather the people.”  There is a time and place for rejoicing and celebration, but that time is not today;  today is for “fasting, with weeping and mourning,” it is for us to “return to the LORD, [our] God,” because (and here’s the key), “he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”  To put it another way, it’s the heart that is both confessing and repentant that comes to know the forgiveness and love of God, so let us return to God now!

Actually, I’ve always kind of likened this to the old-time farming practice of “burning off the fields.”  This is not something that you see today as often as you used to, but back in the day it was the custom each springtime for the farmer to literally burn off his fields in order to make room for new crops to grow.  After the fall harvest, you see, there would be all the residue of what had grown there before: matted roots, broken stalks and all manner of other debris.  It’d be left there through the winter to protect the fields from wind and water erosion, but come spring, it would all have to be removed for planting to take place; and so often the farmer would opt to set the fields on fire and burn it all away!

I remember when I was very young seeing (and smelling) pillars of black smoke emanating from the farmland around northern Maine; and afterward, along all the roads up there you’d see acres of all these charred pastures.  But the thing was, this wasn’t a sign of destruction; rather it served as a symbol of renewal, of new life and of the planting that was soon to take place.  Even the ashes created in the burning had their place in the natural order of things; giving testimony to the truth that old things (and old ways) often have to die in order to make room for the new to grow.

It’s a good analogy for what we do on this Ash Wednesday; and for what this Lenten journey is all about. It is time, you see, for each one of us as people of faith to be burning off our own fields; time for us to be rid of the debris that clutters up the soil of our Christian living; clearing out old and outmoded attitudes to make room for the new spiritual growth that needs to take root within our lives.  How will anything grow unless our field is ready for planting?  How do we become the people God has purposed us to be unless we are open to his care and nurture?  And how do we truly receive the gift of life that comes in this journey to the cross of Christ unless our hearts are opened to receive it?

Truth be told, most of us, where the fields of our own lives are concerned, are all too comfortable just accepting all the debris that exists there.  We cling to old habits and false comfort, even when such things suffocate us or pull us away from a real and meaningful life; we bear the burdens of old fears and doubts; we carry the sins that keep us from moving forward; all of this to the point where the true life we need and desire gets choked out before it can even come to fruition! This is why the act of confession and assurance, of prayer and personal reflection is so very important in our Christian discipline, and why in these days of Lent we are called to draw near to God both in solitude and in community; that we might truly open ourselves to God’s spirit, perhaps to discover what it is that’s holding us back from growing in faith and in love; and then, in burning off that rubble, creating that place in our lives for God’s graceful love to flourish.

In a moment, we’ll have the opportunity to receive a gift; that of ashes rubbed on the forehead or wrist.  It’s the remnant of burnt Palm leaves from last year’s Palm Sunday processional; a graphic reminder to us just as that Palm Sunday does lead inevitably to Good Friday, sin does lead to death. But it there’s more to it that that; yes, it symbolizes the sins that are ours and which we confess, but it also represents the forgiveness we received, the price that was paid for that forgiveness; and above all, our deep desire to accept that forgiveness as a means to new growth through God’s gracious an merciful love and his unending caring. These ashes are symbols of… LIFE.

Thanks be to God for the life that only he can give us.

AMEN and AMEN!

c. 2015  Rev. Michael W. Lowry

 

“Ashes to Ashes…”

(a meditation for March 5, 2014, Ash Wednesday, based on Psalm 103:8-18 and Joel 1:1-2, 12-17)

When Lisa and I were first married, we lived in this sweet little bungalow that was completely heated by an old barrel wood stove in the basement.  And whereas today I can assure you that I much appreciate the luxury of a gas furnace and a thermostat, I also have to tell you that in those days I did kind of enjoy having wood heat.  Of course, I did learn the truth in that maxim that wood heat warms you twice: first, when you cut and stack it, and later when you actually burn it!  And we learned early on that you can’t go too far from home on a cold winter night without someone there to stoke the fire.  But it was a good heat: we were never cold; there was always this comforting rumble in the night as the wood snapped and burned; and there was the added benefit that whenever Lisa and I had one of those lover’s spats that newlyweds always seem to have, I could go down and chop kindling with reckless abandon until the moment passed!

One of things I remember most about burning wood, however, is how often I would have to empty out the ashes from the stove.  I had this great big old metal bucket and a small iron-handled shovel, and every four or five days during the winter I’d have to go down to the cellar, fill up the bucket with ash and embers from the bottom of the wood stove, and haul it out to the backyard, where I’d dump it out on a garden plot that was out there.  I always figured there was some appropriateness about that; after all, the cord of wood I’d burned that winter that had come from trees grown in Northern Maine soil, and now their ashes were being returned to that same soil, where come springtime something new and fresh would most certainly grow: my own personal example of the “circle of life!”

Ever the pastor, however, it also would put me in mind of the words of committal that you sometimes hear at a graveside funeral service: “We commit this body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”   Biblically speaking, those words have their source in Genesis, when first God forms man “from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” so that the man “became a living being;”(2:7) and when later on, after the fall, God says to Adam and Eve, “for dust you are and to dust you will return.”  (3:19)

It’s all pretty discouraging when you think about it; certainly we’d like to think of our lives as amounting to even a bit more just so much dust and ash!  But there we are: as the Psalmist says, we are mortals whose days are like grass; people who flourish like flowers of the field, but who are gone as quickly as the wind passes over.  It’s a stark reminder that in the end, all our eloquent words and good deeds will ultimately pass away.  All of our virtue and all of our efforts toward righteousness end up little more than an empty endeavor, because eventually, we’ll all return to the dust; buried and forgotten.

So if that’s the case, then why do we bother coming here today?  What’s the point? And why do we gather for something called “Ash Wednesday?”  Isn’t that simply belaboring the obvious?

Well, the answer is that it’s not as obvious as all that:  for while we do come here to remember, in all humility, who and what we are, more importantly we come to remember who God is, and what God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ.  The good news is that even though “we are dust, and to dust we will return,” God loves us.   In fact, through the cross of Jesus Christ, God has placed a sign of infinite value upon us.  God has chosen us for a better life than that which leads to the dust heap and the ash bin: God has chosen for us a life that is both abundant and eternal.  And all God asks in return is to accept his mercy, remember that we are sinners, and repent and believe in his Son Jesus Christ.

We are called to practice a piety that is not based on our own self-aggrandizement or the hope of human praise or reward – for all those things are worthless in the end, and they do pass away – but  rather we are called to a righteousness based on God’s infinite goodness.  In other words, God commits to us and it falls to you and me to commit ourselves to God and walk in the way of Christ, which is the way of the cross.

Friends, this is what the season of Lent – our shared journey to the cross – is all about.  And this is why it’s fitting we come together for this “solemn assembly” on Ash Wednesday; for if we’re to take this journey to the cross as persons and a people of God, it’s best we start out knowing exactly who and what we are.  It’s not a bad thing to remember that both at the beginning and at the end, we’re dust and ash; and nothing more.  But it’s also good for us to remember that in the funeral liturgy I spoke of earlier, after we say “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” we go on to say that we are “trusting in God’s great mercy by which we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

We are dust, friends.  We are ashes.  But in Christ Jesus, we are more than that… much more!

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory.

AMEN and AMEN.

c. 2014  Rev. Michael W. Lowry