"David, Ecclesiasties, and Remembering we are dust" - Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2016

Sermon:

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Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who washes us clean.

         I worked at Outlaw Ranch, a Lutheran’s Outdoors bible camp out in the Black Hills for a summer after I graduated from College. The first two weeks are youth camp, during which you have no time, you have to watch your group of kids all the time. No real rest time away from them, and certainly no time to shower yourself. It’s summer and you’re putting 2 or more layers of sunscreen on the whole time, you’re sweating and just gross and grimy. But, then the end of the week hits and the kids go home Friday afternoon, you go through camp clean up and then free time, and you finally get to shower. The water hits you and there are just streaks of dirt coming off and down the drain. Those were the best showers I’ve ever had, it’s just an amazing feeling, finally clean.

         And that cycle of getting dirtier and dirtier and then finally getting clean goes along with lent so well. The forty days leading to the great three days. It’s a time to look at who we are and what we have done. It’s a time of repentance, of asking God to forgive us. We look to our mortal selves and how little we are without God.

         The words from later in our service hit hard, driving this home. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. We are dirt, messy dirt, muddy dirt, dirty dirt. Everything we do makes us dirtier, we constantly sin, and each moment adds a bit of grime to us. We are covered and caked with it. It’s what makes us mortal, it’s sin that kills us. The imperfect nature of humans to turn away from God who gives life, to things of this world that don’t.

         Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. I’m reminded of the beginning of Ecclesiastes, Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” We spend all our time trying to find ways to have life, to live forever, to give ourselves meaning, and it all fails. We want to cling to everything, and nothing lasts, nothing really matters.

         Except one thing, Christ and him crucified. We are marked with ashes tonight that remind us that everything we turn to just dirties us, it gives us imperfect hope that does not last, but we are also marked with the cross tonight. In that ashen cross we find God. And we find that one thing that gives us meaning, the naming as a beloved child of God. Which brightens our darkness, rises the sun of our day, and washes us clean.

         Yes, Lent is about seeing our sins, seeing our dirtiness and how we constantly turn from God to things that do not give life. But even more so Lent is about seeing that God loves us. That even the worst of our dirt is washed away through Christ. It’s the time to see our dustiness and ask for God to cleanse us. Our psalmist gives us the words, create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

         Our psalmist this evening, the writer of psalm 51, is King David, and the instructions for this psalm are, “For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.” David had indeed committed adultery with Bathsheba and had sent her husband Uriah into the heaviest fighting so that he is killed. And Nathan comes to David and says, There was a poor man who had a lamb, who loved and cared for it. And there was a rich man who had a whole flock of sheep. The rich man had a visitor and so took the poor mans lamb and killed it and served it for his visitor, so that the poor man had nothing. David yells, who is this man so I may kill him. And Nathan says, you are that man! You killed your servant Uriah and committed adultery with his wife Bathsheba. And David falls to the ground in anguish finally realizing what he has done. And out of that moment he composes this psalm.

         Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

         David finally realizes how far he has turned from God, sees how great a sinner he really is, and asks God to forgive him.

         Tonight, we acknowledge that we too are sinners, that we are covered in the dirt of our sin, that we have so often sought life outside of God, sought our own things instead of looking to God. And we too ask God for forgiveness, and we ask God to wash us clean, to give clean hearts.

         And God most gladly does. God forgives you, God washes you clean, God renews your spirit, God will never cast you away, nor take the Spirit from us. God gives you salvation and sustains your spirit.

         Lent is a time to look at our faults and our failures, our sins and the dirt of our lives, but it is always with Christ on the cross in view, and his resurrection in sight. Just as we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return, we remember that we are God’s and to God we shall return. Our sin, our dirt, our dust will be washed clean, but the cross marked on our foreheads at baptism? That will never leave us. Amen.