Sermons from St. Thomas
Return to the Lord
Ash Wednesday, 5 March 2014: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 103:8-14; II Corinthians 5:20b-6:10;
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
My first Ash Wednesday service was during my senior year in high school. A friend whose
father was the local Episcopal priest invited me to his church. I borrowed my mother’s car and
drove to a small, simple building. We sat in folding chairs with little metal kneelers attached to
the back. The altar rail looked like aluminum porch railing. I now understand that this was a new
church start, but for years I thought all Episcopal churches met in simple buildings and used
folding chairs.
The next service I remember was during a college semester in London. It was the last semester of
my senior year. I had been in the city for only a few weeks. At that time I had no clear plans
about what I would do after college. One evening I started walking around the city by myself. I
was lost vocationally and emotionally and soon realized I was also lost geographically. I walked
for hours, I think, and finally found my way to Trafalgar Square. I wandered in to St. Martin in
the Fields Church. A service was underway and pretty soon I realized it was Ash Wednesday.
From then on, I made it a point to be in an Episcopal Church on this day if at all possible. Even
when I was serving Baptist and Methodist churches, I found my way to the Episcopal liturgy. I
wanted ashes on my head and a litany of penance and an absolution.
For some this may be a first, but many of us return to this service on this day year after year after
year.
We come to hear the invitation to a holy Lent. We come to put ashes on our heads and
remember that we are dust. Different parts of the confession may resonate with us at different
times. Some years we hear in powerful way that we have been deaf to the call to serve. Other
years we mourn our self-indulgent appetites and ways. Still other years we are convicted of
uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors.
No matter how often we return, no matter what we bring in our hearts when we return, the
reassurance is always the same - God pardons and absolves all those who truly repent.
The prophet Joel spoke the word of the Lord to his people. “Yet even now, says the Lord, return
to me with all your heart.” Joel is an interesting prophetic book. It seems to have been written in
response to a catastrophic plague of locusts that occurred in Jerusalem sometime after the exile.
Many believed this plague was a sign of God’s punishment and anger.
Joel’s message was even more emphatic. If you think the locusts were bad, just wait until you
see the day of the Lord.
But Joel also reminded the people that God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love. In calling the people to repent, he was not inviting them to beg for
something God did not want to give. He simply invited the people to return to the source of all
mercy, to avail themselves of all that God is.
As we gather this day, we are not trying to make God love us more. We cannot add to the
infinite. We are not trying to earn God’s forgiveness. We are not trying to avoid punishment. We
are not trying to prove anything to anyone.
We simply return. Like the prodigal son who came to himself and realized his father was waiting
for him at home, we return to the one who loves and calls us and is making us and all creation
new.
And as we return, we hear these words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will
return.” On one level, they speak to us of death, that someday we our lives will be consumed and
we must make the most of each day we have. But on another level, these are words of life. Dust
is the creative ground from which all things were made. As God sent Adam and Eve from the
garden, God reminded them – they were made from dust and they would return to dust to be
remade again. The ashes on our heads are an invitation to trust the creative mercy of God.
The prophet Joel is no longer with us. The plague of locusts is long gone. But still there are
calamities and disasters, in us and around us. Still suffering and injustice and resentment eat at
us. Still we and all the world need to be reborn.
This liturgy is our prophet. It calls us to return from alienation toward reconciliation, return from
empty piety and sincerely open our hearts to God, return from busy-ness and embrace quiet,
return from worry and sink into trust.
And like the prophet, even as it calls us to return, it also reminds us that God’s mercy is
abundant, and God is ever ready to make us new, beginning even now.
Create in us clean hearts, O God.
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© 2014 The Rev’d Grace Burton-Edwards
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
2100 Hilton Ave.
Columbus, GA 31906
StThomasColumbus.org
706-324-4264