2-22-23 Sermon & Scripture

Right before what we just read from the Apostle Paul in Corinthians, he says, “We don’t not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Christ’s sake.” I try to not preach myself, I preach Christ, because I am dust.

I’m nothing special, but I have noticed that people generally like me. Way to kick off this season of humility, right? Well, it’s just something I’ve observed and I don’t want to exaggerate that beyond what is true, but I also wonder why, and I’m not really sure. But one thing that helps is that I am very comfortable with imperfections, my own and other people’s. I don’t take myself all that seriously, and I am very accepting of others. I have become aware that a lot of life, including religion, is downright laughable if it wasn’t so sad. But there’s a lot of pressure for people to be so serious and uptight about certain things, and here comes a clergy person willing to give permission to people to point out absurdities and to get to the business of taking a load off and being honest. And for some, it’s refreshing to, you know, have a pastor come down to “our level.”

But that’s where you might get it wrong. I’m not coming down to your level. I’m coming up to your level. I’ll confess something to you today. I’m about to get vulnerable here, taking a risk that maybe at least someone out there knows what I’m talking about. This surprises people when I mention it, because I seem so positive and happy, and I am genuine when you see that, but I tend to hang out in the darkness a lot of the time. That doesn’t mean I’m living a scandalous life. It means I have depression, for which I have been on medication for years now. I have gray colored glasses on. The reason I say I come up to your level is that this job, and you people, save my life. You force me, well, you pay me, to wrestle with the scriptures and mine out hope. And I try to do that well, for your sake and for mine.

But I’m comfortable with brokenness and pain, and I’m relatable that way, and people feel at ease around me because I’m easy-going and not uptight about things. But part of the reason for that is that, a dark side, is that there’s a guy inside my head who has the attitude that nothing really matters at all. Nothing to get uptight about. We come into brief existence as very tiny specks on this very tiny speck, orbiting around a tiny light, indistinguishable at a distance from the billions of lights in the galaxy around it. And so on. Might as well just be one of these specks of dust on a forehead somewhere. So precarious. Such a difficult toil of existence. No control over forces at work on this tiny world for this brief existence. So we might as well laugh at it all – eat, drink, be merry. 

I was talking to someone the other day who has dealt with her grief by watching Hallmark movies, where every story ends happily. I understand this. But I deal with grief by being allergic to Hallmark movies, because there aren’t necessarily happy endings to every story. 

Now for those of you in the Hallmark category, I want to reassure you that this sermon does have a happy ending. Maybe not Hallmark, but still a happy ending.

Psalm 51. If what God wanted was a sacrifice, I’d bring it. I’d burn it to ashes on an altar for the Lord. No matter the cost, I’d purchase it, give it, God is happy, I did what I needed to do. The psalm says that what God wants is something I don’t need to go out and get. I already have it. Brokenness. A broken heart. The hard part, though, is that I need to hand it over, surrender it to God to make something out of it. Which means I need to give it up, no longer be in control of it, no longer spin the narrative about what it is. It is God’s now. And I need to trust. And hope. That there actually is a happy ending to every bit of it.

It's so much easier to despair. It’s easier to have a hard heart. The managing expectations thing. I’m just trying to avoid being too vulnerable; I’m just trying to avoid taking responsibility for my own destiny. I can manage, live with my own pain and tread water most of the time with all that right under the surface. And like I said, doggonit, people like me. Hope is harder. Working, cooperating with God to build something with my life, with my grief and pain, in hope, that’s harder. To break open the callousness, again, to hope in God, is taking a risk, when being let down by God, this time, just might destroy me for good.

But it’s time. It’s Ash Wednesday If I’m really going to lead you into authentic trust in God, I need to be leading myself. Let God own my brokenness, and turn it into something beautiful. God owns my brokenness anyway. God purchased it fair and square with Christ’s brokenness on my behalf. It’s not about me; it’s about God. So I come before God today, acknowledging my own frailty, mortality, vanity before God by being marked with ashes. But I won’t stop there. I will let these ashes be made into the image of the cross, which represents God’s magnanimous sacrificial love for me. And I will make that symbol with all of the other specks of dust which are Christ’s people. And I will take of Christ’s flesh and blood, broken and poured out for me, and I will surrender my own self to Christ’s death, that I might be united with him in resurrection. It doesn’t mean I won’t have my brokenness anymore, but in some important ways it means it won’t have me.

This is what Ash Wednesday and Lent are all about. Facing the truth of the darkness within and around us, our own powerlessness, captivity, and even the silliness of all these things we and others take so seriously. But Lent is the deep work of trusting that the soil of our brokenness and ashes is the most fertile ground for gardens of goodness and love to take over all the dark haunts of our lives and the world. Believing beyond anything else that God works everything for the good of those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose.