“Come to Him in Excellence”

February 22, 2012: Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58: 1 – 12/Psalm 103: 8 – 14/2 Cor. 5: 20b - 6: 10/Matthew 6: 1 - 6; 16 - 21

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D. D.

Ash Wednesday is a beginning of a Season of reflection, weighing out the things that God has given to us, and evaluating where we are in our relationship with Him. Some have made this Season as though it were a Season of putting down the people of God or belittling them.

I come before you with confusion or struggle in my own mind and heart about the purpose of some of the things that are said and done on this day in the Church.  When we proclaim that, “You are dust; from dust and to dust you will return,” it is a proclamation of the curse that came upon man because he disobeyed God.

In my theology and reading of Scriptures, when Christ went to the cross, I believed He nailed the curse to the cross.  I struggle bringing back the curse almost as though it would be an affront to this sacrifice that God has given to us to set us free.

In the Orthodox religion, they do not use ashes on the forehead on this day.  They use instead chrism oil or oil that is meant of anointing to proclaim the work of Christ in our lives and at the same time to call us to memory of all that God has given and done to us.

I am not an expert on theology and I don’t proclaim to be; and if I would really tell you my heart, I don’t want to be.  I just want to know what God says.  I am not so concerned about me as I am Him.  If I don’t understand things, I do my best to follow them, out of obedience, and then He will open the door and He will give understanding as we walk.

Today, as we look at the meaning of this day, I believe that the meaning here is vital for us.  As a people, we have become very arrogant, very proud, and very rebellious.  We do not bow our knee to the One who has given to us everything.  Instead, we take what He has given to us and we use it for our own good; and in our arrogance and in our pride, we throw that imagery in the face of others, sometimes putting them down or injuring them.

As we have gone through some changes in the Cathedral, I stood fairly strong on a principle that I have: rubrics and law are not important if they destroy the ministry of God.  It doesn’t matter who is important.  What matters is worship.  What matters is putting God first in our lives.  If somebody is not accomplishing their part or doing their job, then you fill in.  You do it to make certain that God is not put at a point of embarrassment or shame.  We give of ourselves regardless.  We are not too proud to step into some situation to fulfill some other tasks.   We do not allow anything on the outside to hinder us from fulfilling our ministry.  Our ministry is the most important thing that we have and nothing breaks it.   God is the most important thing in our lives.

Lent challenges us because it is much like a family.  Many of you will understand this very, very painfully.  Parents bring their children into life. In many cases, they sacrifice to see that their children are given the best that they can.  They may not be the best of everything but the best they could.   As a child comes to a certain age, sometimes the child, having been given so much, becomes very arrogant and proud.  They decide that they will make their own decisions from now on.  At this point, we find conflict between the parent and the child. The child stubbornly saying, “This is what I am going to do.  This is what I want.”  Dad or Mom says, “No.”   The child gets angry.  He gets upset and goes to his room and sulks or rebels because he wants to do what he wants.

Everything that we have had, everything that we now have, has come through our parents.  Yet we think that we are so great, so awesome, and so important that we can do what we want.   We don’t see through the situations around us.  We don’t see the dangers.  We don’t see the pitfalls because we think we know everything now.  It is amazing how that when you get a little older, you begin to realize how dumb you are because you see things which you never saw before. When you look back, you realize that your parents knew more than what you gave them credit for.

We treat our relationship with God in much the same way.  God has given to us everything. The imposition of the ashes on your forehead will not come with the curse.  We will not say to you, as priests, “From dust to dust.”  We will only say, “From dust you have come.”  This is to waken us up and to help us realize that if it weren’t for God, we would be nothing.  If God hadn’t taken that dust and put it together in the form of a body, if He had not breathed His breath into that dust, we would simply be dust today.  Because of His compassion, because of His love, we are what we are.

Coming from nothing, He has made this awesome being – the heart, the liver, the mind and all these other organs that function within us.  We think we own them and they are ours and we can use them for our own direction and for our own good that we can even slap other people in the face and put them down. We say, “Look at me.”  We have come to a place in society where we flaunt our so-called knowledge. We think we can handle everything.  We don’t need God anymore. If we are not careful, we will find ourselves simply going back to dust because we have ignored Him.  We have not paid attention to Him.

The challenge for us today is whatever we do, we do it with humility.  We don’t do it out of bitterness.  We don’t do it out of anger or letting people see how important we are.   We do it because it is what God wants out of us.

Possibly, the Orthodox are more accurate in their celebration this day using the chrism oil instead of the ash in the forehead.  Whatever it is, it is a reminder of the greatness and the provision of God in our lives.   This day is dedicated to confession because confession is a sign of our humility.  It is a fact that we don’t hide things or keep things from God.  It should be that in our walk with God, we don’t even have to keep things from our friends because we have love for each other.

In our societies today, when we find out something evil about someone else, we want to tell everybody to destroy them.  We see it playing out in the scenario of our government at this point – trying to destroy.  This is not what the Church is supposed to be.  This is not what you and I are supposed to be.  We are supposed to be building, healing, reviving and bringing life – not destruction, not condemnation.  As human beings, we make mistakes. We fail; we are not perfect.  But God did not count our weaknesses against us when He sent Christ to die for us.  He saw behind our failures.  He saw behind our weaknesses – something that He created; something so awesome. It was something so powerful that even with the façade on the outside, He reached through it and wiped away the very root of the problem by changing our heart and giving us new life.

In our own lives, we should be thankful for this that we do our best to try to live out everything that He has given to us.  At times, it is difficult because your emotions, your feelings make you want to double up your fists and fight.  But the compassion of the heart of God is gentleness.  Sometimes things are given to us from whom we don’t agree with.  But if it comes from those in authority, we do it regardless of whether we like it or not because we are not the ones making the choice. The arrogance of thinking, “Look at me. I know everything. I am not going to do it.”  This is when we get in trouble because we need to learn to submit to God and to those in authority over us.  The most important thing that we can do in our lives is build His kingdom.

We have been given in the Season of Epiphany an understanding of some of the power of God toward us.  That which He has given to us will not be manifest in our lives until first we are humble and open to Him. When we acknowledge His kingdom and our need of Him then that which He has given to us has the ability to come forth.

When we stand on our own recognition, in our own pride, we build a wall.  We build a dam that does not allow the very grace and mercy of God to flow through us.  Whether we like it or not, God put compassion in our hearts.  God put mercy in our hearts.  God created us to be like Him, the very foundation of our being is love.

One of the reasons we struggle with life today and one of the reasons we have the problems we have is because we are not living out who we really are.  Be yourself.  You don’t need the façade.  The world teaches us that if you only get these brands of clothing and you wear them or you put yourself behind them, everybody will think that you are so great.  They say so that they can make money off of you.  It is not true.  The real truth of who you are is revealed when you have nothing covering you up.   You don’t need anything to hide behind not when you realize what God created you to be.

When God created Adam and Eve in the Garden, they were so perfect. They did not need Louis Vitton.  They did not need all of those brand names because they were perfect in creation.  When sin came, they first thing that they did was to cover up the perfection of God. They hide it. Since that time, man had nothing but struggle, battle, and pain because he is not honest anymore.  We can’t be honest.

The challenge this day is the confrontation to us to recognize that without God, we are nothing.  It is also recognizing that since He has given to us everything, there is a tremendous potential in our lives, if only, we handle it properly. It is up to us.  The challenge: what will you be?  What are you going to take that ash and make out of it?  God gave His life to it.  Will you listen to God or will you listen to yourself?  What will we do with what God has given to us?  We are accountable for that.  We are not accountable for what we don’t have but we are accountable for what He gave us.  What are we doing with it?

God has given each of us talents and abilities.  Sometimes we are using these talents to build our own kingdom and our own imagery rather than building His Church.  He did not give these talents for us to use them for self.  He gave these talents for us to be a blessing to others.  It is a confrontation to us today because we have allowed the world to take over our lives and we don’t give to God what He gave to us.  We don’t take what He has given and bring back a result to Him.

The challenge of Ash Wednesday is to cause us to wake up and realize that without God, we would be nothing.  But He has caused us awesome ability and we should bring honor to Him in the midst of it.   Not oppression but awareness.  Silence so that we observe and we have time to think to allow God to speak to us.  Sometimes we hide ourselves in the rhythm of life around us.  We can’t hear.  We put earplugs in our ears and we don’t let God speak to us.  There is a time to be silent.  This is not wrong.  This is not oppressive.  This is simply honesty, “God speak to me. I don’t like to be the one talking.  I like You to talk.”

Let us listen to Him and prepare ourselves for the greatness that He has provided for us that we will bring glory to His Name.