2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,

"At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you."

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see-- we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

From Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians: “…now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!”

I will never forget the first time I saw ashes that were the cremated remains of a human being. They were the ashes of a six-foot plus tall man who was heavily involved in the first congregation I served in. He was to be buried in a memorial garden much like ours here at St. Paul’s—one in which the ashes would be placed directly in the ground.

The ashes arrived at the church in a carefully sealed cardboard container which I then opened in order to place them in the wooden box we used to hold ashes such as these during funerals. What I was expecting to see when I opened the container was a largish amount of the kind of ashes you might find in a fireplace after a large fire.

Instead, what I found was a surprisingly small amount of what looked more like sand

I remember thinking to myself, how is it that a large, full-size adult could be reduced down to a few small handfuls of sandy dust? How is it that after all the living and eating and breathing and doing, someone who loomed so large for all of us could be reduced down to this small and concentrated amount of matter?

In the 1950’s NPR began a radio effort entitled “This I Believe” which was hosted for the first five years by Edward R. Murrow. Murrow explained the program this way:

“This I Believe. By that name, we bring you a new series of radio broadcasts presenting the personal philosophies of thoughtful men and women in all walks of life. In this brief time each night, a banker or a butcher, a painter or a social worker, people of all kinds who need have nothing more in common than integrity—a real honesty—will talk out loud about the rules they live by, the things they have found to be the basic values in their lives.”

And so Murrow and others recorded scores of personal philosophies from people—from Jackie Robinson, Albert Einstein and from people more like you and me. All were bare-bones, brief, concentrated statements, “reductions” if you will, about what that person stood for, what that person staked his or her life on.

And so we hear from Jackie Robinson: “I believe in the human race. I believe in the warm heart. I believe in man’s integrity. I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that the society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it—and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist. My fight was against the barriers that kept Negroes out of baseball.”

We hear from Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious—the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty.”

And finally, we hear from Oscar and Esther Hirschmann, married thirty years and the only couple ever to deliver a “This I Believe” statement together: “We believe…we, two people, united in a long marriage that has been marked by love and understanding (who) have neither fame nor wealth and are known to a very small number of people, (we believe) we have known love and found it good, and we have tried to live compassionately and to be just to our fellow (human beings). And when someday we shall (be separated by death), the one who remains will grieve and be sad, but the power of love will act as a strong and continuing will to live and to marvel at the unceasing wonder of life and the universe.”

Today/tonight is Ash Wednesday. It’s, of course, the first day of Lent, the day someone rubs ashes on our forehead, a small smudge of ashes made from burning a prodigious amount of Palm Sunday palms.

The words we will all hear as this is done are: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Some might think of this as simply morose, as a kind of depressing reminder that all our priorities and plans, all the things of our lives, will come to ashes.

But this is not the tonality or intent of Ash Wednesday. Rather the day is about a call to examine our own “This, I Believe”, what our lives stand on as Christian people AND to face what we might need to clean up and attend to in order to live out those lives as the whole people—forgiven and free, connected and compassionate—that God has recognized and created in us at baptism.

Ash Wednesday tells us that the time is now for this kind of work.

Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird described watching her close friend, a single mother, die of cancer and of the advice she received from a mutual friend.

“Watch her carefully right now,” the friend said, “because she is teaching you how to live.” Lamott goes on to say, “I remind myself of this when I cannot get any work done: to live as if I’m dying, because the truth is we are all terminal on this bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence. Time is so full for people who are dying in a conscious way, full in a way life is for children. They spend big, round hours. So, instead of staring miserably at the computer screen trying to will my way into having a breakthrough, I say to myself, “Okay, hmmm, let’s see. Dying tomorrow. What should I say today?”

Yes, Lent is a time to explore questions like this in the light of our baptismal identity and purpose—an identity grounded in the love of God and lived out in relationship to ourselves and to other human beings, and a purpose that is all about pouring ourselves out for the life of the world.

This identity enables us to explore these questions with rigorous honesty, looking at our brokenness, what we call “sin,” square in the face—brokenness we will detail together in the litany of penitence we will say in a moment. This identity also allows us to rest in God along the way, to come to the table as we will also do today and to lean upon a love that feeds us a grace that goes before us.

And so the questions I want to offer you with today are:

First, if you were to die tomorrow…what would you want to say today? What would you want to say about what you value, about what you stand on? How are those values connected to the values of your baptism?

And, second, if you were to die tomorrow, what would you want to do today? What would you want to stop doing? What would you want to keep doing? What would you want to start doing? How are these actions connected to God’s sending you out into the world for the life of the world?

I want to end with one more “This I Believe” statement that integrates much of what I value about Ash Wednesday—the beginning of Lent as time for the sons and daughters of the Most High who will not live on this earth foreverto reflect on what’s really important to them and to begin to take action.

This statement is from Jeffrey Hollender, the CEO of Seventh Generation. It was recorded in 2007!

“Six years ago my younger brother Peter, who was my closest friend and the only remaining member of my immediate family, ended his life. Nothing I have ever experienced, or have experienced since, has had such a powerful impact on what I believe.

‘Til then life often slid by me, my mind lost in reviewing what had just happened or anticipating what was to come. The present seemed to disappear between the past and the future. The life most of us lead is short to begin with; the more we miss, the shorter it gets.

I vowed to myself that I would honor my brother’s death by being present in my own life. I found a new world opened up before me — a life of richer detail, and both wider and wilder. The autopilot I’d been running on for God knows how long finally shut off. I began to see new possibilities for thought, vision, caring, and action: to say what too often remains unsaid, to admit that often I have no idea what to do….

Now I try to ask questions, not give answers. This isn’t easy for me to do. I’m someone with a lot of answers….

I see that my own mind can be my greatest limitation….or the gateway to what matters most to me — the big stuff — environmental sustainability, world peace, the end to hunger, the beginning of true social justice for all. I used to think that these possibilities were beyond our reach, impossible to hope for, silly to believe in. But if we don’t believe in our own ability to make them happen, they never will.

I’ve found that my decision to be present, that is, filled with attention to what is, is foundational.

I often cry when I think about my brother. It’s one of the few things I let myself cry about. I missed opportunities with him because I wasn’t present — missed opportunities I will never have again….I don’t want to miss any more of my life, any more than I already have. By being present and conscious, aware and awake, I believe that I can honor my brother, just a little bit, every day.”

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