ASH WEDENSDAY – 09 FEBRUARY 2005

ST PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ABQ NM – THE REV. P L HOLMAN

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

“…we commit her body to its final resting place -- earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

Ironic isn’t it, how death draws us into life.  A loved one dies, we gather to remember and to celebrate life.  Maybe a little death once in a while is a good thing after all. 

Remember you are dust …  It’s easy for us to forget that in these times.  Our pace of life is so fast, everything so plastic and available on demand: “instant gratification isn’t fast enough.”

 Remember you are dust …  It’s easy for us to forget that in these times, when economic and food and health security insulate us privileged ones so well from the darker realities of hunger and homelessness and illness untreated, until that security evaporates for us or for those we love, or it’s taken from us by cause beyond our ken …

Remember you are dust …  God calls us this day to come clean.  With the ashes of honesty and confession, of lament and silent petition, come clean. 

In the pool of baptismal waters the God who made us has claimed us, and set us free to live forgiven and blessed.  There is a part of that liturgical service, a part also echoed in the affirmation of baptism used to welcome new members, when the principle players are asked, “Do you renounce all the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises.”  Remember that?   Do you renounce the forces of evil … 

Psalm 51, the psalm we shared to open this service of worship, is traditionally understood to be David’s renunciation of the evil he had done, David’s lament before God for forgiveness.  Nathan confronts King David in the aftermath of the death of Uriah.  “You are the man, and I don’t mean just the wealthy one who stole the poor man’s lamb.”  Nathan drives David to confess that he killed one of his soldiers in order to obtain that soldier’s wife for himself.  David is convicted, and laments his brokenness: “Have mercy on me, O God … purge me from my sin … create in me a clean heart.”  It is a strong confession: “I cannot continue to live this lie, O God, I need you.”  Held accountable for his sin the king’s personal lament opens him up before God: “clean me, O God, and set right the spirit within me.”

In baptism God has claimed us and clothed us with the promise of forgiveness for the living of our days.  Living in the covenant of that promise we are set free – opened up, if you will -- to live lives of faith-based resistance, struggle, lament, and hope.  Resistance, struggle, lament, and hope.  The lament to which we are called is both personal – like David’s -- and communal – like the prophet Joel’s.  As Old Testament professors teach us, lament was integral to the ancient people’s covenant relationship with God.  Where the assembly gathered to praise God without lament, the covenant they honored was somehow suspect, mere pretense.  Covenant relationship with God involves both praise and lament.  Communal lament is the assembly crying out in distress to the God in whom it trusts, a cry of sorrow by the people gathered, a cry of grief and repentance and a plea for help in the midst of social affliction: Deep and sincere “communal lament … names problems, seeks justice, and hopes for God’s deliverance.”  Lament forms people, and when exercised in the context of communal worship helps keep the question of justice visible and legitimate. Christian ethicist Emilie Townes concludes: “If we learn anything from [the prophet] Joel it is to know that the healing of brokenness and injustice, the healing of social sin and degradation, the healing of spiritual doubts and fears, begins with an unrestrained lament…  It is a lament of faith to the God of faith that we need help, that we can’t do this ministry alone, we can’t witness to the world in isolation, we can’t fight of the hordes of wickedness and hatred with a big stick.  We can’t do this by ourselves anymore, God.  We need help …”  [PUBLIC CHURCH, C. Moe-Lobeda, p.68]

The reality of the suffering caused by the tsunami disaster in southeast Asia reminds us, as if we needed another reminder, we can’t do this by ourselves. 

“O God, we need your help.”  We need the help of the Crucified God who was in the midst of the tsunami carnage, listening to every sigh, collecting every tear, resonating with each fear-stricken heart.  We need the help of the Resurrected God who was in each helping hand, and in each decision to sacrifice one’s own life so that another could live.  We need the help of the God who suffers and helps and will not let go of any single one of us.  The reality of suffering and struggle, of injustice and death, propel us into lament.  And life. 

As we begin this forty-day trek to Holy Week and Easter, let lament join praise as we journey together faithfully. 

I can’t do this by myself, O God.  I need help.  

We can’t do this by ourselves, O God. We need help.

Let this lament shape our journey together through Lent: 

We can’t do this by ourselves, O God.  We need you….