Ash Wednesday Homily

I had the pleasure of preaching tonight at AUMC's Ash Wednesday Service. Below is the outline of the homily. I hope your Ash Wednesday was God-haunted!

Ash Wednesday Homily
February 25th, 2009

Three thoughts about death. Depending upon your sense of humor, you might find some of them funny!

1. Ryan’s story: On the Florida/Georgia Border a farmer has painted a large sing that hangs next to the interstate that says: “Welcome to Florida! State mortality rate: 100%”
2. Your sign on the dorm room door in college that I now recant as bad theology: “Don’t take these things too seriously, no one gets out of here alive anyway.”
3. “Memento Mori”: a Roman way of reminding the greats that they are only human.

I. Death

Just like the Ancient Romans, we remember our own mortality tonight.

No matter how good you are at what you do, love, good shape you are in: you will die.

It is an inevitable part of life. We are mortal, we do not live forever.

God made us from dust, breathed the breath of life into us and it is to dust that we will return. We are truly humble creatures in this respect.

That is why you will have the option of dust placed on your forehead tonight.

From dust you came and from dust you will return.

II. Sin

We also remember tonight and during this season of Lent that we are sinful people, that we are broken.

We don’t like to recognize, nonetheless talk about our sin, because it’s embarrassing, hurtful, perhaps humiliating.

But recognize it we must. Because this is what sin does:

Sin dis-integrates our life with God.

In the very beginning of the Bible we see the perfect picture of what life with God is like: God made us to partners with God in tending to God’s creation, to be helpers, stewards, caretakers.

But our sin causes us to push ourselves away from God.

It is important to note that God NEVER leaves us because of our sin! God’s grace is always radically present in us in the form of previent grace.

You see, God has dreams for God’s creation; God has hopes and plans for you, and for the world. But when we sin, we take what God has planned for us and we remove ourselves from it.

We dis-integrate our lives. God calls to be a part of what God is doing in the world, to live a fully open and integrated life that partners with God. When we sin, we push ourselves away from God.

And so, we must acknowledge our sin because our sin is devastating us. Whether our sins are personal or corporate or both, they are keeping us from being fully apart of what God is doing, right here and right now in the world!

III. Metanoia

That is why we God heard through the prophet Joel calling the people of Israel to return to God.

One of the most important words in the New Testament is from the Greek language and the word is Metanoia.
We often translate that in English to the word “repent.” But metanoia means more than just repentance: it means a fundamental change of mind, a reorientation, and a transformation of outlook and of life.

We are called tonight to metanoia: to leave behind the roads that lead us to a dis-integrated life with God and to choose new life, and new paths and new ways of being.

We must recognize our sin, the things that keep us from living fully in God’s plan for our lives and then we must turn away from them and lead lives that integrate our story with God’s story.

During this season of Lent we have the opportunity to try to lay the things that hold us down, that keep us from being truly free to love God and our neighbor, to the side, and to embrace life-giving and freeing practice.

That’s why some people things up for Lent. The spiritual discipline is that you give up something that is not good for you in order to spend time with God and embrace practices that lead to life.

Our worship tonight is not supposed to be fun, but rather solemn. And that can be a tough thing for us. But, it is necessary to truly walk with Christ on a day-to-day basis. For if we don’t acknowledge our mortality and our sin, and our need to turn to new life then the grace that we claim to receive is cheap grace.

We want to move right to Easter but new birth requires death. It requires it. In order for us to take the joy of Easter seriously, we have to take the rest of the story seriously as well.

IV. The Cross

Tonight we will impose ash on your foreheads, if you wish. But we won’t impose in just any old way.

We will make the sign of the cross on you. Because death and sin isn’t all there is!

There is so much more, because our hope as followers of Christ is that, Jesus, through his life, death, resurrection sending forth and ascension has defeated death, sin, and the powers and principalities!

God wins! God is in the business of making all things new! God’s ultimate plans for God’s creation, including you and me, cannot be ultimately defeated!

And, so, even in recognizing our own mortality, our sin, and our need to be reintegrating our lives into God’s Life, we proclaim that God loves us and that God is making all things new!

So during this season of Lent, remember that you are a mortal being. Remember that we are called to live justly and righteously, and that our faith should impact how we life on everyday basis.

Won’t you turn from the things that hold you down and embrace the way to life and freedom in Christ?

God has made you for wonderful good things. God has plans for you, God has ministry for you to do. Because God loves you, God loves you so much that He doesn’t want leave you the way you are. But rather wants you to become what God made you to be: fully human, fully alive, fully free, and fully integrated into a life with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer, may it be so. Amen.