A Sermon for Ash Wednesday
[Susan Russell, All Saints Church, Pasadena | 12: 10 p.m. February 14, 2018]

“Holy God, We live in a world that is gripped by fear and hatred. Too many of our national leaders seem intent on steering to the low road. Time seems to be in short supply as jobs, families, and various electronic gizmos compete for our attention. Now more than ever, we need Lent. Amen.”

We have arrived at Ash Wednesday again – the entry point for yet another 40-day Lenten journey toward Easter. We hear again the words as familiar as their outward-and-visible signs etched on our foreheads: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

On this Ash Wednesday, as the liturgical season shifts from Epiphany to Lent, we are called to make a shift, too.

During these weeks since Christmas our lessons have focused on the “epiphanies” of those who encountered Jesus along the way and knew somehow, at some point, in some perhaps indescribable way, that they had experienced the holy: had experienced one of the “Ahas!” of God.

And now our focus shifts, as it does every year at this time, from stories about those outward manifestations of God’s presence among us to a more interior place as we journey with Jesus on the road we know leads to Golgotha – to the cross – and ultimately, to the resurrection.

Now more than ever, we need Lent. The words of the prayer I began with today come from clergy colleague Scott Gunn — but the prayer comes from a deep down collective place of knowing and yearning: knowing that the world is not as it should be and yearning for it to be transformed by the love that called it into being in the first place.

It is, I believe, that knowing and yearning that drew millions of people into the streets in January in witness to the interconnected values of love, justice and compassion — values that are not just Christian values or American values but human values: God’s values.

And it is, I believe, that knowing and yearning that draws us — at least in part — to this church, to this moment, to this opportunity to commit ourselves to the Lenten journey we need more than ever.

This afternoon I’m remembering the narrative our friend Bishop Gene Robinson offered a few years ago when he was with us here at All Saints. He shared it was his deepest conviction that at the moment of his baptism Jesus not only heard the outward words “You are my beloved” — he also heard the inward question “Now what are you going to do about it?”

And that’s what the wilderness was about: that’s what the forty days of temptation were about for Jesus. That’s what Lent is about for us.

It is about claiming the fact certain that we are utterly beloved of God — loved beyond our wildest imaginings. And then about finding the stillness below the quiet to find our own answer to “now what are you going to do about it?”

What are we going to do in response to a God who loved us enough to become one of us in order to show us how to love one another? What is the fast we choose for this Lent 2018? Hear again the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly.

The fast Isaiah calls us to isn’t about giving up Twitter or Starbucks or Girl Scout cookies for Lent … it’s about getting ANYTHING out of the way that gets in the way of our being aligned with God’s love, justice and compassion … as we journey into these 40 days of Lent and beyond.

• If we are to be a people who have bread to share with the hungry we must challenge those who would balance our budgets on the backs of the least of these.
• If we are to serve the God whose fast is “to let the oppressed go free” we must keep speak out against the policies and the politicians enshrining and proclaiming fear, division and polarization.
• If we are to choose the fast Isaiah offers us this Lent, we must continue to undo the thongs of the yokes of the racism and sexism; of Islamophobia and homophobia – of anything and everything that continues to keep this country and this church from being all that God would have them be.
• If we are to live up to our baptismal covenant we must advocate for just immigration and living wage policies that will truly respect the dignity of every human being.

The fast we choose is nothing less than making that kindom come on earth our Lord Jesus taught us to pray for not just a prayer we pray but a reality we live. It is transforming the world back to what God created it to be rather than what we have allowed it to become. And we start by believing that it is possible.

Hear the words of another prophet, artist and musician: Ana Hernandez:

Another world is not only possible
She is on her way
On a quiet day you can hear her breathing
She is on her way

Now more than ever we need Lent. We need both the chance and the challenge to clear space in the chaos to find the quiet. To hear her breathing. To remember that she is on her way.

Today my prayer is that on this Ash Wednesday – as we begin our individual and collective journey with Jesus on the road we know leads to Golgotha – to the cross – and ultimately, to the resurrection – we do so knowing in the deepest core of our being that we are utterly loved by the God who created us in love and that all God asks in return is that we love absolutely everyone else the way God has loved us.

It is absolutely that simple.

And the greatest temptation of all may to make it more complicated.

To make it so complicated that another world seems impossible to imagine as we look around at all that ails and afflicts this human family of ours.

So let us make it our goal this Lent to resist that temptation. To not only believe that another world is possible … but that she is on her way.

And then
to get quiet enough
to not only hear her breathing,
but – in the stillness under the quiet –
to find our part
in clearing the path
into the land of peace,
justice
and wholeness
for all creation.

Because now — more than ever — we need Lent.