Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 51
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Well, Jesus has set the bar pretty high for us, hasn't he? You'll notice in the Gospel I just read that Jesus doesn't say "if" you give alms do it in secret, "if" you pray do it in secret, or "if" you fast do it in secret, he's saying "when." When you give alms, pray, and fast, do it without others being aware of it. I think it's that "when" that gives us a lot of trouble. Because, let's be honest, very few of us make these things a habit. A dedicated few might make praying a regular habit, and fewer make giving alms a matter of course, and I know that I myself have never fasted. So already, we have failed to live up to the expectations Jesus has set before us. The gap between what we are and what we ought to be is insurmountable. The distance between who we are and the reality God envisions for us is infinitely vast.
It's no wonder then that we are constantly being called to "return to the Lord our God." You see, we are actually the ones responsible for the distance between us and God. It is our fault that we are estranged from the One who made us. How can we expect to be close to God when we spend so much of our lives thinking about ourselves - our goals, our successes, our failures, our survival? No relationship can survive when one person is constantly thinking about themself, and the same is true of our relationship with the divine. When, and notice I say "when" not "if", when we spend so much time on ourselves and so little time nurturing our relationship with God through almsgiving, praying, and fasting - to name a few examples - then we can expect to feel estranged from God, just as we feel estranged from friends and family if we don't take the time to call them, or visit with them.
The result of this estrangement from God is similar to our estrangement from any other person. We feel guilty, knowing we should do more but just not doing it. We feel resentful towards the other, trying to rationalize our behaviour by saying that the other person is asking too much from us. And when it comes to God, we also feel afraid, fearing that God will punish us for failing to live the way we know we should. All in all, our alienation from God leaves us feeling unsatisfied with life, and yet fearing death.
And so along comes this cross of ashes that we get imposed on our foreheads during the Ash Wednesday service. It's probably one of the most powerful rituals of the church year, coming forward, kneeling before the pastor to hear the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," and feeling ashes get smushed onto our foreheads. There is no other ritual in the world that reminds us so concretely that our estrangement from God ultimately results in death. There is nothing else in our culture that reminds us so forcefully that we are as far from the divine as we can possibly get, that all of our self-involvement is getting us killed. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." That's what we get.
But that's not all we get. In one of those holy paradoxes. the cross of ashes also becomes a symbol of reconciliation. Although it's made of ashes, the cross on our foreheads is a symbol of what it takes to be restored to the relationship we've abandoned. And what it takes is action by God. I implied earlier that the distance between us and God is uncrossable. And it is. For us, anyway. But not for God. Only God can bridge the gap between us, and only God can bring about reconciliation. That's why Paul, in our second reading, says "be reconciled to God." He doesn't say, "Reconcile yourself to God," which would require action on our part, which would be impossible. He says, "be reconciled." Let God do the reconciling, allow God to bring you back to the Lord. That is, after all, what God wants. That is why in Joel, God calls us to return with promises of grace and mercy, and steadfast love. God is not trying to threaten or bully us back into relationship - God moves towards us in love first so that we might turn from ourselves and face God and freely return that love. God is the one who takes the initiative and keeps things going.
Of course we know that God accomplishes all of this, reconciles us to God's self, through the cross. By becoming incarnate as Jesus Christ and dying on the cross for us, God makes our reconciliation complete; God absorbs all of our failures and self-obsessed behaviour in the greatest act of love ever. This is what Lent is about - not about berating ourselves for how sinful we are, even though we are, but about watching as God moves us ever closer to the sublime moment of reconciliation, as God completes our atonement - our at-one-ment - with God, and ends our estrangement forever. Lent - with its ashes of estrangement and its cross of reconciliation - is about the path God leads us on that ends in Easter.
That isn't to say that we do nothing during Lent. We can't do anything to bring about our reconciliation with God, but that doesn't mean we sit back as passive vegetables. There is a role for us to play, and it is the one Jesus has laid out for us. To give alms, to pray, and to fast. But rather than these becoming obligations and conditions necessary to be restored to God, they become instead responses to God already having restored us. They become signs that we believe that we are reconciled, they become offerings of thanksgiving for what God has done, they become preparations for the celebrations of Easter Sunday.
So as you prepare yourself to receive the Ash Wednesday cross upon your forehead, reflect on the distance that you have created between yourself and God, give thanks that God has bridged and continues to bridge that distance, and allow God to lead you through the next forty days to Easter. Amen.
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