"Dust you are and to dust you will return."
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, forty days until Palm Sunday. Protestants of my stripe are not much into Lent--too "catholic" in feel. And I'll confess as a Wesleyan that I'm never really comfortable with an assumed need for constant post-regeneration confession ;-) ... particularly the ritualization of the confession of sin. We affirm the power of the Spirit to give consistent victory over temptation!
But Lent is the practice of the church universal, and I have to take it seriously: forty days of repentance and of the foreboding of sorrows. It is a time to remember that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. It is a time to remember God's grace and our never ending need for it.
This generation is a strange combination of qualities on this subject. On the one hand, this generation is quicker than any to believe that "we're all sinners." And yet it takes that statement perhaps the lightest of any generation.
Here's an experiment, go up to someone in your church and ask them,
person 1: "Should a person judge others in the church"
person 2: "Of course not."
person 1: "Why?"
person 2: "Because we're all sinners. We've all sinned. All sin is sin so no one is any better than any other. We can't judge others because we're just as guilty as they are."
person 1: "So you're a bad person? You deserve to go to hell? You're a worm? a wretch?"
I believe at some point in the pursuit of this question most people will begin to feel uncomfortable at what you're suggesting. Most people feel pretty good about themselves. As one prof once found after a survey of his class, 80% of the class thought they were in the top 20% of students.
This is a generation that believes they are sinners... and that's not too bad.
If there is no God, then we are just animals, nothing more. And if there is a God, as we believe, then we are not God. Next to God, nothing is really anything.
It is only the fact that God loves us that makes us--and in fact God's whole creation--extraordinary. The authors of Job, Ecclesiastes, and many of the the psalmists understood this better than us because they did not yet know about the resurrection. We are dust and to dust we will return (Eccl. 3:20).
Before Christ's resurrection, this is where we are. Before the resurrection, we are without hope. Before the resurrection, we are of all people the most miserable.
Remember your death... then remember your Creator.
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"Remember your death... then remember your Creator."
Amen.
Amen!!
Paul understood his identification with Christ ("I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live and the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me"). He rebuked Peter and others who said that they must be separate from those who were uncicumcised. He called them hypocrites. In this passage, it seems to me, that God is the greatest humanitarian, a humanist. That is NOT a bad word, for humans ARE His creation. I for one have not been informed enough on the "outside world" and have separated the sacred and secular for too long. And I trust that God is removing these scales from my eyes, as he has taught me that his heart is not some "spiritual" salvation, apart from restoration for all of "man". I seek to understand what that means for me personally, and request prayer from everyone reading this blog site. (My husband and I will be in D.C. for the next academic year with a position that will be educational on a "world level", which is what I need for growth, the exposure and challenge to my thinking, so that my faith will be given a "reason" and that my heart can be restored in "hope" and "vision".)
Others who have "made a difference" have identified with the people they represented...and made change for those who were oppressed, discriminated against, the minority voice, the unpopular opinion....a dialogue with others unlike us, so that wisdom can win the day, as understanding occurs. This understanding is NOT JUST spiritual, but political, cultural, etc. It is understanding of the "part" so that the "whole" can benefit.
Thanks for doing the service. Please keep driving worm theology home... it can be soothing.
My favorite line from the liturgy is the Lutheran benediction (standing):
"May God give you strength to raise up the ancient ruins, wisdom to follow in the cross of Christ, and the guidance of the Spirit in the desert places of our world."
As Wesleyans we sometimes worry too much about ritual thinking we are too "Catholic" in appearance. Although I agree we don't have to keep confessing sin and be too involved with ritual, I think observance of Lent and Ash Wednesday helps us focus on the Cross and put us in a proper state of mind.
Rev.Keith Kiper
www.wesleysocialgospel.blogspot.com
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