"How Do We Cleanse Our Hearts?" Ash Wednesday 2013

Psalm 51 2nd Corinthians 5:20-6: 10 Remember you are dust of the earth, and to dust we shall return. On Palm Sunday, we join together to sing The Palms, and the fronds are fresh, green and supple, as we join the everlasting chorus in shouting Hosanna at the coming of the Savior into Jerusalem. Within the week, the shouts changed from Hosanna to “Crucify Him”. Now a year later, the Palms fronds are dry, brittle, and tinder for a fire. Earlier this day, we burned Palms from last year to create the Ash. Burning the leftovers from throughout the year, becomes like a Burnt Offering of our lives finally being let go, turned over to God not as a sacrifice of our first fruits, but as something we no longer can bear. We let go the words and actions and relationships that have wounded and betrayed, the things we have endured, the afflictions, hardships, calamities, sleepless nights, the ways we too shouted at one another “Crucify Him.” All that is left is Ash and Soot and Smoke hanging in the air. On Monday, the abandoned Cutlery Factory in Camillus caught fire and for hours throughout the day & night, old chemicals and building structure burned; last night, though the fire was put out, the smoke restarted the fire again. Sometimes where there's smoke there's fire, but at other times, smoke can create chaos, and heat and damage and fear. I recall almost 30 years ago, awaking to the morning news that a parishioner's home had burned, a space heater catching fire. They were thankful, truly humbled and thankful everyone was alive and unharmed. But everything they had, everything they owned, Children's report cards and drawings, wedding photos and clothes, everything was damp and dirty and smelled of smoke. How do we clean, the smoke and ash and soot from our hearts, from our memories, from what we have done to one another and what we have become? A friend serves a church on an intersection in Kansas City. On one corner is a Car Wash, opposite this is a Dry Cleaner, on the third corner is a Drug Addiction Rehab Center, and on the fourth corner stands St. Mark's Church. My friend describes this is the place in the inner-city where people come to get clean. You can get your car cleaned, your clothes cleaned, your body clean of poisons, and a cleaning of your heart. Psalm 51 which we sang and read this evening was written by someone who knew there are different ways and different abilities at “cleaning.” The verbs here are: WIPE, WASH, CLEANSE, PURGE, BLOT OUT, REPLACE, RESTORE, TEACH and DELIVER, taking us from a spill to soiling to spoiling from clothing to the whole of a person and community and world. We are part of a disposable society, where everything is planned to grow obsolete, to wear-out and break-down, and if it does not fit, has a chip or crack, we purge it from our lives. If a relationship is hard we blot it out. HOWEVER, the Bible names that our relationship with God, recognizes REDEMPTION, RESTORATION, TEACHING, And DELIVERING as New Again. The difficulty is that we often look at SINS as external, cursing at another driver, having one drink too many, the eating of chocolate. When according to Scripture, SIN is more internal than external. The description that I think resonates is SIN is ADULTERY OF OUR OWN HEART. More than bad habits, white lies or little spills, we have utterly betrayed and broken the most intimate of vows, that we would be true and transparent to God, to ourselves and one another. Faith is more than words. More than paying a debt, saying I am sorry, and going on unchanged. I think there is great power in the circumstance of this year. NOT that yesterday was FAT TUESDAY and Mardi Gras in which we Indulge and Consume, assured that the following day is Ash Wednesday when we will feel guilty. BUT RATHER, that this is Ash Wednesday, when we name and Own the brokenness in our lives, we are marked with ashes as the most base of creatures, and we share communion, that we not the Elements but we are the Body of Christ, and we hope and pray for Christ's Reconciliation for one day possibly being made new as ambassadors for Christ, and Tomorrow and all the tomorrows are Valentine's Day. Which is not about Chocolate or Cards, or flowers, but sincere statements of love.