Message Delivered at Christ Church

Ash Wednesday 2008

TEXTS:  Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Delivered by Paul A. Johnson

 

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              There’s an old Jimmy Stewart movie not many people have seen called “Shenandoah.” It’s based on a true story about a farmer named Charlie Anderson.  He has five sons and a daughter, and he wants to stay out of the Civil War.  That becomes impossible to do when his teen-aged son is mistaken for a Confederate soldier and is taken captive by the Yankees.  So Stewart, playing one of those determined kind of characters he played so well, vows to get his son back.

              It’s mostly not a particularly happy movie.  There is violence and loss.  And the journey for the stolen child is futile.  They can not find the boy—who in the movie is simply called “Boy”--and they return to the Shenandoah Valley empty.

              I first saw the movie on television when I was eight or nine, and there are scenes in that movie that an eight or nine year old would remember for quite some time.  Again, most of them pretty sad.

              Except for the last one.  The character played by Stewart is a skeptical Christian, but the movie finishes with him in worship.  It’s a small, wooden country church.  The congregation is singing to a feeble accompaniment, and Charlie Anderson is clearly resigned to the fact that Boy is not coming back, and that he has lost another child.  And then through the front door of the church comes the one he is waiting for, thin and on crutches, but finally home.  Though Charlie couldn’t find him, his boy could make it back.  So one more time in this sad movie there are tears, but this time, they’re the right kind. 

              Homecomings can do that.  It’s like that when the separated are brought together.  If ever we’ve been truly lost, or if ever someone we love has been truly lost, we know that.

Today begins Lent.  There are many ways to understand this season, not a few of which are somewhat weighty.  If there is ever a time when the church tells us to do things, it’s during Lent.  They’re good things, but there are a lot of them:  fast; say your prayers; read your Bible; come to worship; do acts of service.  The already long list of things we’re supposed to do becomes even longer, and it’s easy to fall into a “works righteousness” kind of mentality…sort of, “if we do enough right things Easter will mean something.” 

Of course, fasting; and praying; and studying; and worshiping; and serving are all virtues.  They’re good things to do. 

But what I invite us to remember is that the disciplines are the path, not the destination.  The destination is God, and the first words of Lent are not “do this,” but “come home.”

              It is a season of repentance.  And that’s what repentance means…to return; to come back; to come home.

              It is said, of course, that you can’t go back home; that once you’ve left, you can’t return.  On one level, that is true.  We leave home, we have different experiences, and become different people.  On our own, we know a freedom we didn’t have when we were under someone else’s roof, so it is that when we come back we may chafe at the restrictions.  Some of us who’ve had college age children return for the summer know the frictions that situation can create. 

              As well, the reality for some of us is that we come from home lives such that we can’t wait to leave, and get out on our own.  Because we are human beings, we don’t always treat one another the way we are supposed to, and so sometimes our homes aren’t everything we would want them to be--so that we don’t really want to go back ever at all.

              But still the notion of home is powerful because deep down in us there is this elemental yearning to be connected with our origins; to be able to come back to a place where we can rest and where our return is greeted with joy.  Like the Prodigal Son, we go on our adventures and seek our fortune; we move from being boys and girls to being men and women, with all that means; we grow wizened through both our successes and failures.  All this is a necessary thing that we do.  We aren’t intended to stay children forever.

But like the Prodigal Son, at some point, being made whole usually involves some coming home.  We want that safe place to come back to—a place where we are accepted for who we are; where we can be most real; where we can limp on our crutches, and be greeted with tears of joy.

And what Lent reminds us is that God is that place, and that the Lord desires nothing more than for us to come home.  “Return to me with all your heart,” God says through Joel.  “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”

That’s what Joel says.  What Jesus asks is that we “get real” so that we can come back.  No more play-acting; no more pretense.  The one with whom we can be straight, with all our warts and secrets, is Jesus.  So when you pray, he tells us, pray; when you give, give; when you when you fast, fast…not for show; not for the sake of others, but for the Lord’s sake, and your own.  All that is enough.  Into the Lord’s presence Jesus invites us, so it is that he asks us to be present.

In a few minutes, we will invite you to receive the imposition of ashes, and we will say over those who come forward “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words are intended to remind us of our mortality, and we are intended to be reminded of our mortality so that we might place first things first.

But we are also intended to be reminded from whence we cometh.  Even the dust comes from God, and even the dust has its home in the Lord.  If we choose, we can focus on the dust in these words.  But maybe something new would be revealed were we to focus not on the declaration that we are dust, but on the promise that we can return.

Whatever our Lenten disciplines might be, may they be a blessing.  Self-examination isn’t such a bad thing, and so whatever self-examination you enter into during this season, may we remember that its purpose is not that of leaving us to ourselves, but clearing the air so that we might respond to God’s eternal invitation to return.  Confessing our sin is important because by it we clean out the guilt and shame that keeps us from coming back.  All these things are part of the observance of Lent, not as ends in themselves, but for the purpose of returning to the One who is always waiting for us.

For our wandering need not be forever.  Walk through the Lord’s door, and we are never turned away.  Our longing need not be unrequited.  The promise we celebrate, and upon which we meditate this season, is that always we can come home.  Always.