Church of the Incarnation

Today begins Lent, a season of repentance, a time to turn from our old ways and commit ourselves once again to loving and serving Jesus. Joel tells us, "Return to the Lord with all your heart." But our hearts are so laden down with the things of this world - with the things we love and the things we fear, the things that keep us awake at night and the things of our daydreams - our hearts are so laden down with these things that we can scarcely drag them to the Lord.

Ash Wednesday is a day to let go of those things, to remember that everything we hold so tightly in this life is fleeting, momentary, of no lasting significance. It's all dust, common and everywhere, yet carried away by the slightest breeze.

We, too, are dust in these earthly bodies. We're small and simple, helplessly tossed about and gathering in dark corners. Like the band Kansas said, "all we are is dust in the wind."

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." 1

In the Creation story, the Lord took dust, common and lifeless, and formed a person. But the person was nothing more than dust until the Lord breathed into him, blowing the dust from his lungs and bringing a flush to his cheeks, awaking his mind and enlivening his spirit. And still today, without the breath of God filling us, we're nothing but dust. I don't know why we can't remember that - why I can't remember that. But I forget, and I start to think that I can fill my own life and the lives of those I love. I place myself at the center and start to think that the things with which I fill my days are more than dust.

Tonight we have the opportunity to join with the thousands of millions of worshippers since long before the time of Christ who've knelt before their Lord and received ashes on their foreheads as a sign of their repentance, of their desire to turn from the dust of this world and to cling instead to their Lord.

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

But remember also that by sweeping away some of the dust that's clouding our minds and hearts, we make room for God's breath, God spirit, to fill us, enliven us, inspire us.

On our own, we are no more than dust. And so we repent, we let go of the things of this world, the things of dust, and we kneel before the Lord asking him to fill us again, to breathe life back into us.

There's a poem by Edward Hays that's become my Lenten prayer. It's called "Lenten Psalm of Awakening."

	Come, O Life-giving Creator,
	and rattle the door latch
	of my slumbering heart.
	Awaken me as you breathe upon
	a winter-wrapped earth,
	gently calling to life virgin Spring.
	
	Awaken in these fortified days
	of Lenten prayer and discipline
	my youthful dream of holiness.
	Call me forth from the prison camp
	of my numerous past defeats
	and my narrow patterns of being
	to make my ordinary life extra-ordinarily alive
	through the passion of my love.
	
	Show to me during these Lenten days
	how to take the daily things of life
	and by submerging them in the sacred,
	to infuse them with a great love
	for you, O God, and for others.
	Guide me to perform simple acts of love and prayer,
	the real works of reform and renewal
	of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.
	
	O Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ,
	help me not to waste
	these precious Lenten days
	of my soul's spiritual springtime. 

Amen.

References:

1. From the Book of Common Prayer, p. 265. These are the words spoken as ashes are imposed during the Ash Wednesday liturgy.