Sermon: Take us by the hand and lead us – Ash Wednesday – Rev. J.McDougle

Isaiah 58:1-12; Ps. 103:8-14; 2Cor 5:20b-6:10; Matt 6:1-6, 16-21

And so the forty days of Lent begin.   Lent, the lengthening and greening of the year, as our world tips in its delicate orbit around and toward our warming sun.  Lent, that season of the church’s year when we have an opportunity to take stock of things, when we are reminded that our lives here on this beautiful planet are short.

There are very few certainties in this life, but we can be sure of one thing: we will all, sooner or later, die.    At some time or other, don’t all of us wish that weren’t so, but it is.  If it were not so, life would be unbearable: there would be none of the freshness and beauty of the newly created: everything would just ‘be’, with no sense of wonder and adventure.  Imagine not even noticing an exquisite fiery sunset, or the magic of the soft unfolding of the magnolia buds by the Sharon Heights Park.

Here we are today:  peering into the desert sands of the next forty days.   What will we do with them?  Business as usual, or something different?  

Today we have our yearly wake up call.  And that wake up call is not one that we should reach out a sleepy arm to silence for a while longer.  Paul is very clear about it:  “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!”

And what is it what we are called to do?   Isaiah tells us to shout and to lift up our voices: ‘shout and do not hold back!’  Paul tells us to ‘be reconciled to God’ and be open to God’s grace.  It sounds to me like this is serious time for some spiritual stocktaking.    And how are we doing?  Put your finger on your dancing pulse.  Can you feel the lifeblood of the universe pulsing through you? Your heart, beating as it has since about two weeks after your conception? Take the time to remind yourselves that you are breathing:  remember it is the breath of God that flows through you, and has always flowed through you.

We are all part of something so much larger than we can possibly imagine, and the more we understand that, the more is asked of us.  Life can be filled with joy, but it isn’t a picnic, and never has been.  The Corinthians may have been swanning around, living life as if there was no tomorrow, but Paul is clear.  There are trials to endure, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, and sleepless nights.  And that is as true now as it was then.

But it’s not all there is.  Our dancing pulses are calling us somewhere, but where?  And where is that holy wind blowing us?  Maybe those aren’t even the right questions.   Maybe it’s all about the dance that we’re dancing right now.   A dance that is so much more than a solo event.   A dance across time and space, that has us twirling and twisting together through the labyrinth of our lives.

 

So maybe this Lent we might think about where this exuberant cosmic dance might lead us.   It doesn’t feel like something that wants us to sit quietly in a room by ourselves trying to think Holy Thoughts instead of …..chocolate.   It sounds to me instead as if something that is calling us to be out in the world, continuing the apostles’ teaching, persevering in resisting evil, proclaiming the Gospel, serving Christ in all persons, and striving for justice and peace among all people.

Brian Wren, a contemporary hymn writer has written a marvelous hymn that we will sing this evening.  It  begins:

Dust and ashes touch our face,

mark our failure and our falling.

Holy Spirit, come, walk with us tomorrow,

take us as disciples, washed and wakened by your calling

and its chorus:

Take us by the hand and lead us,

lead us through the desert sands,

bring us living water,

Holy Spirit, come.

We are marked by dust and ashes today to remind us of our finitude, of our failings and our fallings, of our greed, our pride, as well as our prayers, our struggles, our gloom and our grieving.  And that’s okay, because those things are true:  we know them well.   We do have a choice though with what we do with them: we can sink beneath those all too human burdens, or we can take that outstretched hand that God is offering us.  Perhaps it’s Jesus lifting us up into service, like Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, from our Gospel reading a couple of weeks ago.   Perhaps it’s the hand of the Holy Spirit, with her sleeves all rolled up, ready for action.  Perhaps it just is.

There will come a time when each of us will shift into some new, ecstatic gear, and move beyond the confines of this particular dance.  But, until then, let us join hands and hearts with our families and friends, our communities, those far and near, those known and unknown, as well as the dispossessed and the marginalized, the hungry and the homeless, the sick and the lonely.    Because, it is then, that as Isaiah tells us:

“If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places,

and make your bones strong;  and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.

Sung:

Take us by the hand and lead us, lead us through the desert sands,

bring us living water, Holy Spirit, come!