Wednesday, 10 February 2016 Paul E. Hoffman
+Ash Wednesday, Series C Seattle, WA
Luther Memorial Lutheran Church
There is infinite wisdom in the church’s tradition of burning last year’s palms to make this year’s ashes. There is even more wisdom in having those palms in our homes for the ten months between the two celebrations – hanging behind a cross, or folded into a Bible. Even when they just lay around in a pile in the sacristy as most of Luther Memorial’s palms did this past year, they are significant reminders of our need for this day.
Our family has long had the tradition of bringing our palm branches home and placing them behind the cross in our entry way. And there it hangs for the better part of a year, its eyes and ears open to see all that comes and goes. All the sadness, all the joy. All the good intentions gone bad; the laughter and the tears. The shouting and the door slamming; cross words exchanged; the danger and the damage.
Even if last year’s palms have just been laying on the floor in a back corner of the sacristy – as most of yours here at Luther Memorial have done – there is plenty for them to see and hear. The weekly confessions from the congregation drift under the door and land upon them. I’m told that palms have particularly big eyes and ears, so the gossip, disagreements, and the back-biting that seem to be present in every congregation have landed on them as well.
And now here they are. All concentrated into this tiny little bowl. Last year’s palms, that even then began with questionable intentions. Remember? Many who shouted Hosanna on Sunday were by Friday morning shouting “Crucify him”? So here all of that is: burned; ground; rendered into the ashes that the liturgy reminds us. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
[TRANSITION]
Richard Selzer, a surgeon with an extraordinary gift of writing describes a memorable scene [from his medical practice]:
[He writes] I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut that little nerve.
Her young husband is in the room. He stand on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. The young woman speaks:
“Will my mouth always be like this?”
“Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.”
She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles.
“I like it,” he says. “It is kind of cute.”
…he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, so show her that their kiss still works.”[1]
“Return to the Lord your God. For God is gracious and merciful,” the prophet Joel calls to us this evening. And again, “God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
“See now is the acceptable time,” St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, and to us. “Now is the day of salvation.”
Jesus himself punctuates the urgency of Ash Wednesday’s invitation. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but store up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust consumes…”
It is as if they are all right here with us whispering in our ears, “the kiss still works.” The kiss of the Almighty, planted on the lips of God’s beloved people, still works. Despite all that the palms have seen and heard. Despite all that we have said and done. Despite the sinful shame of the human community turning us over to the dust and ashes from which we were formed.
Will it always be thus? we ask. And honestly, knowingly, but lovingly – oh, so lovingly, God nods an almighty head and says “Yes. Yes it will. It is because the nerve of our trust has been cut over and over again. It has been so ever since Eden.”
And yet, here we are. God has gathered us. God has gathered us together and in this place to remind us: it is not too late. Now is the acceptable time. Return, for God is gracious and merciful.
The kiss of Christ still works. It is laid upon us despite the crooked sinfulness of our palsied lives.
Our Lenten journey begins with this sober truth. But it does not end here. It continues and winds its way through the 40 wilderness days ahead to the cross and empty tomb. And even this night, there is a taste of that eternal kiss of hope in the bread and cup extended to sinners.
In the name of the Father and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Donald W. McCullough, The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Diety. Colorado Springs: Navpress Publishing Group. p. 147-148.