Joel 2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand— 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was in ancient times nor ever will be in ages to come. 12 “Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” 13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. 14 Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God. 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. 16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. 17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”
That’s
what this day, Ash Wednesday, is all about.
And this day is also about the other meaning: ”Be Careful! Be full of care. Care full."
Full of care for your own heart and mind and strength and soul, and full
of care for God’s ways. Full of care for
your neighbor, as yourself. We are dust,
and to dust we shall return. Embrace
that, and who knows what blessings God will bestow. Being careful can make all the difference.
Our world has its bright spots – like the daffodils peeking
up on our front lawn, and the laughter of the children playing in the snow,
teachers who reach the hearts of their students, the countless examples of folks
helping neighbors and first responders acting quickly and saving lives. It’s not the first time – there’s been beauty
in the world ever since the world was the world. The Garden of Eden was beautiful, the animal
diversity on the ark, under the rainbow, the lilies of the field. In 1967 Louis Armstrong recorded how he
thinks to himself, “what a wonderful world!” and we’re still singing it. Our world has its bright spots.
But there are darker forces at work too.
An intelligence official recently said if you were to make
an around the world tour of all the conflict spots you’d be busy hopping from
place to place for a lonnng time.
A Christian youth ministry newsletter recently came into my
inbox saying that teens today are experiencing a dating world that is radically
different from even a few years ago. If
a teen broke up with another back in our day, you wrestled with it
yourself. Now because of social media,
before you get home you may have 100’s of comments from bullies and online
trolls.
Lower income workers – like in the home health care industry
– are making less than they were a decade ago, when you adjust for
inflation.
And don’t get us started on this Pandemic.
Marvin Gaye sang in 1971 words in Inner City Blues that are
still true today. “Makes me want to
holler, and throw up both my hands.”
All throughout the Bible, there are good times, and bad
times. In the scripture lesson for Ash Wednesday
evening, the prophet Joel is describing the onslaught of a nation-decimating
army. It’s an army of millions – very
small but devastating. Evidently,
there’s been a locust plague. Huge
swarms of big grasshoppers, eating the very livelihood and future of a
nation. The people don’t have
pesticides. They don’t have
transportation to migrate to other places.
They don’t have semi trucks and freezer storage and canned goods and
international relief organizations to outlast the crisis. People are dying; futures are ruined; society
has ground to a halt.
Maybe that sounds too much like today. Lent is a time to remember our own hearts are
in play in this life. Maybe it is time
to remember the sanctity and wholeness of our own heart. Our heart keeps beating, keeps feeling, keeps
longing to be seen and held and appreciated, keeps desiring to be in
brother/sisterhood with our neighbors and with our creator. Ash Wednesday is a day to remember who we are
without the noise. From ashes we came,
and to ashes we will return. The man who
lives a subsistence lifestyle off the grid in northern Siberia is just as much
dust of the earth as the jet-setting executive.
The one who is making a fancy dinner and has the habit of taking a
picture of it for me to drool over is no more worthy of God’s love than the one
who burned the grilled cheese and is not sure whether there will be food
tomorrow morning. God’s son came into
the world for all of us. You are a human
being. Yes you. The cross of ashes we so often receive
reminds us that we are simply trying our best, that we have made dust-like
messy decisions, that we have failed more times than we can count, and it
reminds us that God loves us soooooo much that God would reach out and touch
our priceless bodies through the body of Christ the church.
The world won’t get better if I blame Them. I certainly can’t change Them (although I can
bear witness to the resurrection and hope that God’s grace sinks in), but I can
remember who I am in God’s sight – the subject of God’s love. Maybe during these forty days I can be
reminded to quiet the noise and tune into my heart – to gently set aside those
behaviors that have helped me forget who I am and what I’m meant to do.
So Joel’s passage, set in the midst of a decimated world
that was literally being eaten away, reminds us to not let the headlines
distract us from our own heart-life. The
prescription, the medicine, the remedy, is a returning to God, fasting (going
without some habitual comforts), weeping and mourning for the losses all around
us. The remedy is to focus on our own
lives, to examine and weep for our condition, to put God back in the
center. To strip away that which
distracts us from who we are, to turn our backs on that which would cause us to
scapegoat someone else for the problems of the world, remembering that God’s
salvation is always at work.
And lastly, Joel’s passage inspires us to not sink into a
me-first survival mentality. No, God
tells God’s people, people of faith like you and me, ordinary people in the
midst of bad times, to come together – to gather together – to pray and worship
God and encourage one another. This is
critical stuff. Joel’s words even use an
example to portray the urgency – let the bridegroom leave his room and the
bride her chamber. Don’t even let what
seems like urgent stuff – even a wedding in this example! - delay your coming together to dwell together as
God’s people – to cry out to God on behalf of the whole people. Going to church isn’t just a bolted on event
to make you feel better about your week.
Doing life together as God’s people – praying together – caring for one
another – sacrificing together – is a necessity for survival – for God’s
blessings to be poured out. Let the
elders come, and the nursing babies, and everyone in between – to follow God
together. Even in the midst of the
assembly, it’s tempting to take a me-first attitude. Have you ever seen one of those survival
shows where someone gets caught with a secret stash of snickers bars? We all have our stashes, don’t we? We all fall short. Hence the ashes on our foreheads – we aren’t
perfect, we’re like dust, the cross reminds us that Jesus forgives our sins
because sin we do. The cross reminds us
that the stashes are for sharing; for losing; and in losing, finding salvation
together.
Let us pray: Dear God,
help me Be Careful. Open my eyes to watch
out – to resist temptation to go it alone – to resist the temptation to blame
another – to resist the temptation to forget who God made me to be. I know, God, that there are plenty of chances
to veer off course. Help me to be
careful. Help me to be full of
care. Full of care for my own heart and
mind and strength and soul, and full of care for God’s ways. Full of care for my neighbor, and for myself. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. Help us all to embrace that truth, and who
knows what blessings God will pour out upon us. Amen.
--Pastor Ed
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