Ashes on the outside, change on the inside
Ash Wednesday
February 25, 2009
The prophet Jonah was told to go and preach. To preach to the Ninevites. You know what happened. Jonah tried to run and God showed that you can run but you can’t hide.
Jonah fled by sea, but was cast into the deep and was consumed by the great sea creature, who spat him out onto the land. So Jonah trudged on to Nineveh, that land of sinners, the very center of all that was evil in God’s sight.
Oh, that God would smite them, Jonah wished. Smite them to the very last person, great and small, as a testimony to God’s vengeance on those who do not follow the Lord.
The Old Testament is filled with prophets like Jonah, who come breathing fire, warning of the smiting that will come if Israel and its cities and its people do not repent. Amos and Obadiah and Micah and more. Stop sinning, they warned, repent and turn back to the Lord. Follow the Lord’s will.
Feed the poor and show justice to the downtrodden and be generous in your wealth and be honest in your dealings. Do these things and avoid disaster, do these things and avoid damnation on the Day of the Lord.
Jonah is perhaps my favorite because he believed in repentance and preached it – but he was a sinner in God’s sight. Jonah thought he knew more than God, so he risked displeasing God by refusing to tell the Ninevites that it was their duty to please God.
We see what the story of the prophet Jonah is all about when the Ninevites do repent and put on ashes and sackcloth and plead for mercy. They are spared and Jonah is crazed with anger. The story is about Jonah, not the Ninevites. The story is about how we are to listen for God’s will and obey it – not to use God’s words for our own ends, for our own pleasures and agendas. God is God and we are … well, we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. We are what God makes of us and no more.
Today’s readings are not from Jonah, but Jonah has been on my mind this week as I have meditated on the ashes of Ash Wednesday. Because I want to be like the Ninevites.
They put ashes on their head in a sign of submission and meekness and repentance. They were so eager to please the Lord that they put ashes on all their animals, taking no chances on God’s mercy.
That’s what I want to do. Throw on some ashes, show God how he should be pleased with me, and move on. Simple repentance, quick mercy, easy grace.
If it were only so. But Jonah’s story shows that God wants something more. He wants true inward conversion, not only outward action. That’s why so many of the Old Testament prophets railed against Temple worship practices. Amos said, “I hate, I despise your festivals… Take away from me the noise of your songs.”
Amos and the others weren’t condemning the idea of true worship, but they were condemning the hypocrites who thought they could fool God with beautiful worship and sacrifices when their hearts were black with sin. Do not burn offerings or sing songs of praise, Amos said, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Repent in your hearts, he says, and show it with your actions. Do not merely throw on ashes in repentance, but be truly repentant in your hearts. Do not merely show up for Temple service but make yourself absent when a brother is in need. Do not merely offer ritual sacrifice but fail to give in time, treasure, and talent when the church, your community, your nation cry out in need.
The day is coming, the prophets warn, the day is coming. They do not ask for conversion just because a deadly deadline looms over us.
They ask for conversion because there still is time in our lives, time to repent of our sins, time to make good on our better impulses, time to live out in our day-to-day existence the belief and the love and the power that we claim when we douse ourselves in ashes in a mark of submission and meekness and – yes – repentance.
The prophet Joel cries out, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” And in that beautiful phrase, he says, “rend your hearts and not your clothing.” Be changed within, not merely without.
This is what Jesus means when he tells us to practice our piety behind closed doors. The great prophets always pointed to God and not to themselves. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, the Lamb of God, and not to himself. Jesus is telling us that we are to be like the great prophets, to point always to God and God’s gifts, not to ourselves and the gifts we claim as our own.
It is a call to meekness, to humility. It is a call to quietness in a clanging and boisterous world. It is a call to charity in a world of greed, to austerity in a world of excess, to love in a world of hate.
It is a call to prepare for the Day of the Lord. Not in fear, but in joy, because the Lord, Joel tells us, for the Lord will have pity on his people. The Lord “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”
The Lord will see our love, the love we have in our hearts. The love we show in our ashes – yes, in the ashes we don in this ritual of repentance and meekness.
For the Lord knows when we worship in sincerity and love. And the Lord knows when we truly recognize and admit to ourselves that we are but dust and to dust we shall return … ah, but what dust!
We are dust made by the Creator. We are dust that leaps to life with the breath of the Lord. We are the dust that is held, in love, in the palm of the hand of a merciful God.
Amen.
February 25, 2009
The prophet Jonah was told to go and preach. To preach to the Ninevites. You know what happened. Jonah tried to run and God showed that you can run but you can’t hide.
Jonah fled by sea, but was cast into the deep and was consumed by the great sea creature, who spat him out onto the land. So Jonah trudged on to Nineveh, that land of sinners, the very center of all that was evil in God’s sight.
Oh, that God would smite them, Jonah wished. Smite them to the very last person, great and small, as a testimony to God’s vengeance on those who do not follow the Lord.
The Old Testament is filled with prophets like Jonah, who come breathing fire, warning of the smiting that will come if Israel and its cities and its people do not repent. Amos and Obadiah and Micah and more. Stop sinning, they warned, repent and turn back to the Lord. Follow the Lord’s will.
Feed the poor and show justice to the downtrodden and be generous in your wealth and be honest in your dealings. Do these things and avoid disaster, do these things and avoid damnation on the Day of the Lord.
Jonah is perhaps my favorite because he believed in repentance and preached it – but he was a sinner in God’s sight. Jonah thought he knew more than God, so he risked displeasing God by refusing to tell the Ninevites that it was their duty to please God.
We see what the story of the prophet Jonah is all about when the Ninevites do repent and put on ashes and sackcloth and plead for mercy. They are spared and Jonah is crazed with anger. The story is about Jonah, not the Ninevites. The story is about how we are to listen for God’s will and obey it – not to use God’s words for our own ends, for our own pleasures and agendas. God is God and we are … well, we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. We are what God makes of us and no more.
Today’s readings are not from Jonah, but Jonah has been on my mind this week as I have meditated on the ashes of Ash Wednesday. Because I want to be like the Ninevites.
They put ashes on their head in a sign of submission and meekness and repentance. They were so eager to please the Lord that they put ashes on all their animals, taking no chances on God’s mercy.
That’s what I want to do. Throw on some ashes, show God how he should be pleased with me, and move on. Simple repentance, quick mercy, easy grace.
If it were only so. But Jonah’s story shows that God wants something more. He wants true inward conversion, not only outward action. That’s why so many of the Old Testament prophets railed against Temple worship practices. Amos said, “I hate, I despise your festivals… Take away from me the noise of your songs.”
Amos and the others weren’t condemning the idea of true worship, but they were condemning the hypocrites who thought they could fool God with beautiful worship and sacrifices when their hearts were black with sin. Do not burn offerings or sing songs of praise, Amos said, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Repent in your hearts, he says, and show it with your actions. Do not merely throw on ashes in repentance, but be truly repentant in your hearts. Do not merely show up for Temple service but make yourself absent when a brother is in need. Do not merely offer ritual sacrifice but fail to give in time, treasure, and talent when the church, your community, your nation cry out in need.
The day is coming, the prophets warn, the day is coming. They do not ask for conversion just because a deadly deadline looms over us.
They ask for conversion because there still is time in our lives, time to repent of our sins, time to make good on our better impulses, time to live out in our day-to-day existence the belief and the love and the power that we claim when we douse ourselves in ashes in a mark of submission and meekness and – yes – repentance.
The prophet Joel cries out, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” And in that beautiful phrase, he says, “rend your hearts and not your clothing.” Be changed within, not merely without.
This is what Jesus means when he tells us to practice our piety behind closed doors. The great prophets always pointed to God and not to themselves. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, the Lamb of God, and not to himself. Jesus is telling us that we are to be like the great prophets, to point always to God and God’s gifts, not to ourselves and the gifts we claim as our own.
It is a call to meekness, to humility. It is a call to quietness in a clanging and boisterous world. It is a call to charity in a world of greed, to austerity in a world of excess, to love in a world of hate.
It is a call to prepare for the Day of the Lord. Not in fear, but in joy, because the Lord, Joel tells us, for the Lord will have pity on his people. The Lord “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”
The Lord will see our love, the love we have in our hearts. The love we show in our ashes – yes, in the ashes we don in this ritual of repentance and meekness.
For the Lord knows when we worship in sincerity and love. And the Lord knows when we truly recognize and admit to ourselves that we are but dust and to dust we shall return … ah, but what dust!
We are dust made by the Creator. We are dust that leaps to life with the breath of the Lord. We are the dust that is held, in love, in the palm of the hand of a merciful God.
Amen.
posted by Michael+ at 5:15 PM
