Ash Wednesday (February 18, 2015) – Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Beloved Dust
Ash Wednesday – February 18, 2015
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,
we hear on Ash Wednesday.
Who wants to be dust?
Dust is annoying. Dust is useless. Dust is what you sweep under the carpet.
But on Ash Wednesday we are named dust.
And in that naming we claim to acknowledge some truth and some honesty.
I have said many times that if you can’t be honest in church, where can you be honest?
Funerals are a welcome time to speak the truth and be honest about a person.
Funerals are for sure a time for thanksgiving,
and so they are a time to speak of what God has done in and through a human life.
But they are also a time to acknowledge and give thanks for all a person was,
for God does not just love the good bits, God also loves the not so good bits.
Our whole selves are beloved by God.
And so there is also a time at a funeral to acknowledge that
there were things a person struggled with, and that this person was not perfect,
as none of us are perfect – but God loved them anyway.
And God was at work in their lives anyway.
And God did great things through their lives anyway.
Any of you who have heard me preach at funerals know that I almost always acknowledge
that truth: so and so was not perfect, as none of us are perfect.
That is the great truth of Ash Wednesday.
And isn’t it refreshing?
We may not be perfect for many reasons.
Sometimes we are not perfect because of bad decisions we have made.
Sometimes we are not perfect because of bad things others have done to us.
Sometimes we are not perfect because of grief, or loss, or relationship struggles,
or mental illness, or poor health, or unemployment, or addiction.
And sometimes we think this is the dust we must sweep under the carpet in order to
present a beloved, together self that is worth loving to the world.
But thank God that is not something we have to do at church.
At church, you are making this day special by just being you – in all your dustiness.
We can be honest at church and acknowledge that we are not perfect,
and the person beside us in the pew is not perfect.
That is the great thing about Ash Wednesday and our big Ash Wednesday confession that
we made at the beginning of worship.
Isn’t it a great relief to be honest about all that?
Isn’t it a great relief to have somewhere to name that – publicly?
That we are not perfect, that we have erred, that we have been bruised, that we are dust?
And yet, that does not finally define who we are.
That is not the end of our story.
Because the thing is: we are not just dust: we are beloved dust.
In baptism we are named dust that is beloved.
In baptism we are named dust that God will never let go.
In baptism we are sealed with the very Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Jesus forever:
we belong to him and nothing can change that.
We are dust animated with the breath of God.
As the Lutheran preacher Heidi Neumark writes,
[We are] dust that Jesus embraced and claimed for glory when he first drew breath in a dusty stable and died on a dusty cross. The good news is not that we are dust and will die but what God can do in, with, and through that very dust.
Yes: the truth on Ash Wednesday is that we are dust.
But the further and final truth of Ash Wednesday is that we are beloved dust,
and what God can do in, with, and through that very dust.
We can live an intimate life with God in prayer.
We can fast from that which harms us.
We can help our neighbours in need through our generosity.
We dusty people can even be the restorers of streets for all to live in in safety and well being.
That is good news for us on Ash Wednesday, and that is good news for the world.
So together let us say, “Amen .”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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