The Venerable Richard I. Cluett
March 1, 2006
Joel 2:1-2,12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Do you know that there are two kinds of people? I'm not referring to male and female types, or rich and poor types or other types either. The differences I'm talking about are more basic than even those. The first type of person is the one who goes up to bed at the end of the evening, goes to bed tired after a long day, and then cannot go to sleep. Rather, as the eyes close, the mind revs up; and before you know it, you are off on a whole of host of issues, at breakneck speed.
The other kind of person is my kind of person. I can go to sleep at the drop of an eyelid, no matter what cataclysm or chaos is impending. But between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, my eyelids spring open, my mind kicks into gear and I'm off.
In the middle of the night I know myself differently than I do at any other time. For me, for many of us, I think, it is a time when we are most aware of ourselves as sinful creatures.
At that time I know myself, my shortcomings, my failings, my inadequacies, my sin. They are spread out before me in an unending parade of night images. As if they were laid out on a smorgasbord table, I can pick and choose one to worry on; or I can take a bite of each offering. Failings as husband, father, provider, priest, archdeacon, friend, brother, human being, disciple of Jesus or child of God. In the night hours I assault, I afflict myself with my sin. “I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.”
But in the morning, we can be different people, can't we. At least, I can be. In the bright morning light, I can arise refreshed, with energy, ready to meet the day and whatever it has to offer with a sense of security about my person. Some days, even confidence. Some days, even arrogance about my abilities, my gifts, my person, my wonderfulness. But at the core, I know I am, to use an impolite expression, “full of it.”
All of which leads me to say that this day, Ash Wednesday, may be for some of us the most important day, the most wonderful day in the Christian calendar. With the exception of Good Friday, all the other days are major feast days, days of remembrance, celebration, and contemplation of the acts of God – in the past. Even Good Friday is something like that; the day is totally focused on the acts of Jesus.
But today, today is about us. It is a very personal day that has solely to do with our relationship with God, and with ourselves. It is a day that provides a unique opportunity for us to say, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "Free at last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, free at last!"
This is the day we can be released from whatever it is that has bound us for so long. This is the day we can be released from whatever it is that has separated us. We can be released from whatever it is that has isolated us. This is the day we can be released from whatever it is about us that has condemned us in our own sight. We can finally lay the burden down, the burden of guilt that we have laid upon ourselves.
Garrison Keillor says that "Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving" - and we give it to ourselves. We bind it upon our backs.
But this is Ash Wednesday. This is "Get out of Jail" day. This is "Get home free day". At the end of this day, at the end of this liturgy, we can be washed clean. At the end of this day, at the end of this liturgy, we can be made be made dazzling white, cleaner than any fullers bleach could make us. Fresh and clean as a newborn babe, as a newly baptized babe. You and me – a new creation.
If we will repent and re-turn to the Lord, "our God will have compassion and he will richly pardon." And we can begin again. We can start anew. We can get over it - whatever it is. We can get over ourselves, and get right with our God, and begin to get right with those with whom we live, and among whom we live, and with the rest of God's creation.
Today is about us - about God and us. It is a day to get over ourselves, beyond ourselves, outside ourselves, and get on with life as God intends it to be. Get on with our life in the fullness God has prepared for us.
Today God says, "It is over. What is done is done. I love you and you are now forgiven. I absolve you from all that has separated you from me. I absolve you from all that has separated you from your family or friends or neighbors. I absolve you from all that has separated you from yourself."
William Countryman is a wonderful teacher and theologian. He writes about it this way:
"The message of forgiveness says to us, Get over yourself! Get over your goodness and your righteousness, if they threaten to keep you from full participation in your humanity. Get over your faults, your inadequacy, if they're what hold you back. Get over whatever it is that makes you self-obsessed, whatever makes you reject God's wooing of you, whatever makes you feel that you would rather not go in to the party, whatever makes you feel like you belong to some separate and superior race of beings, whatever makes you feel like an eternal victim, whatever makes you imagine that there's something in this world more important and more fundamental than love."
No wonder the prophet Joel says to:
Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation;
assemble the aged;
gather the children,
even infants at the breast.
If we repent and turn to the Lord, we "may obtain of the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness". Do you hear that? "Perfect remission and forgiveness." Made worthy to stand before God. Washed through and through from our wickedness and cleansed from our sin.
Freed from all that binds us. Freed from all that separates us. Freed from all that isolates us. Freed from all that condemns us. Free at last. Free to take our rightful place at the table. Free to get on with life. Free to get about the work of building the kingdom. Free to help release others from whatever binds them or diminishes their God-given humanity. Free at last! Today.
It’s Ash Wednesday.
Thanks be to God.
