Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

‘Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

Some years we need Ash Wednesday more than others, it seems to me. We always need it, don’t get me wrong – this day that marks the beginning of this season; this season when we lament and repent; these days when we acknowledge and confess our sins; when we are reminded of our mortality by these ashes on our heads; when we hear this simple, profound – sometimes sad and scary – promised refrain: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

But this year … today … because of all that’s transpired and is still unfolding in Ukraine, I hear those words … that warning … this ominous, woeful promise – “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” – and I think, “No kidding.”

As we watch, again, but somehow anew, this war unleash itself with all the fear and anxiety and uncertainty that that kind of violence and evil and inhumanity and sinfulness heap upon our hearts and minds and souls and spirits… with all of that swirling around and within us, this very timely, obvious reminder is hard to deny, difficult to dismiss, impossible to ignore: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

And many of us don’t need the global calamity of a war to find this reminder timely. “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It comes by way of the diseases that sicken us – “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (No kidding.) It comes by way of the sins that burden us – “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (No kidding.) It comes by way of the grief that has found us this past year – “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (No kidding.)

These reminders of my mortality are relentless and many, these days. I’m not sure I need this smudge of ashes on the ever-increasing real estate of my forehead to be reminded, yet again. Thank you very much. (My oldest son turned 18 today, which is its own kind of mortality reality check, I have to say.)

But last night at 11 o’clock, I was watching Anderson Cooper, live from Lviv, Ukraine, interview Clarissa Ward, live from Kyiv, Ukraine. (These journalists who hurry into war zones are a special kind of crazy courageous, if you ask me.) Anyway, at 11 p.m. here, it was 6 a.m. there – and already Ash Wednesday, in Ukraine. And Anderson Cooper and Clarissa Ward were having perfectly ashy conversation, if you will.

They talked about the war games of closing off air spaces and attacking civilians; about sanctioning oligarchs and elites; about marching, launching, upping the ante in this “continued bloody onslaught”; about striking and hitting civilian targets; about how all of this could or would likely get much worse, sooner rather than later; that we are facing a potentially major humanitarian disaster in the days ahead. Another reporter, Jim Sciutto, even got Biblical and called it all a “David and Goliath conflict,” in which the math does not add up in support of the Ukrainians. And, of course, it’s all layered with the not-so-existential-again threat of nuclear war.

“Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” No kidding.

But just as Clarissa Ward wondered about the what, the when and the how of a 40-mile column of tanks and armory and heavy Russian weaponry cutting off and laying siege to the capital of Kyiv – where she was standing as she spoke, remember – she said without a hint of irony – “and God only knows what will happen next.” And just as she said it … no kidding … the church bells somewhere near to her location started to chime, as if the Holy Spirit herself had blown in to affirm the truth of what she had just said: “and God only knows what will happen next.”

I’m not saying it was a miracle. The clock in that church’s bell tower had just struck 6 a.m. But it was Ash Wednesday, remember. Which is why it got my attention, moreso than it did Anderson and Clarissa, I have to say. They didn’t miss a beat.

But those church bells ringing, on Ash Wednesday, in the midst of that conversation – and all of their grim reporting – in the very valley of the shadow of death? – sounded like a measure of truth and hope to me … and, I hope … for anyone else who heard them ring, on their TVs, or in their homes or hospital beds, in their bunkers or bomb shelters, in their tanks or trenches, too. “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

See, these ashes we wear on our foreheads and these words we hear from Jesus and the promises we read in Scripture remind us that we need not fear the sin and death that send us running and reeling, dodging and denying, scurrying and scared and sad so much of the time.

Instead, in the midst of it all, Jesus calls us to tend our faith. We practice our piety, faithfully and quietly – not before others, in order to be seen by them. We give our offering without expecting applause or accolades for being generous. We pray, we fast, we worship, we learn, we serve.

And there’s more. We love our enemies and we pray for those who persecute us. We love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. And we love our neighbors as ourselves, too. All of which is a little easier, I think, when we remember more often that we are all dust – each and every one of us – and to dust we shall return.

And we live this way, with hope, in spite of these ashes and all they represent – but because of them, too, these damned ashes. Because it is by way of ashes … dust … dying … and death that God does God’s best work, remember.

Our God looks forward to repairing what is so broken in our lives and in this world.

Our God has plans to redeem the ashes and the stain of our sinfulness.

Our God promises to breathe life into the dust and dirt of our dying.

Because our God makes beautiful things – even out of the dust from whence we’ve come and of the dust we will one day be again.

No kidding.

Amen

Matthew 6:25-33

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?”

“Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all of these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

We just need to be reminded, sometimes, right? Reminded to do this, to do that, to say this, NOT to say that. My calendar reminds me 10 minutes before a scheduled meeting is about to begin. I got no less than half-a-dozen reminders that I was supposed to drive my son to a doctor’s appointment this morning. (My family’s faith in me is remarkable.)

Of course, at Thanksgiving I think about how much time we spend reminding kids to say “please” and “thank you,” to send “thank you” notes, to BE grateful, to appreciate what they have, to count their blessings. And none of that changes just because we’re older. We still need reminders and nudges and opportunities to do the same – to count our blessings, to be grateful, and to say so, I mean. Which is what this evening and this week and our lives, really, as followers of Jesus are all about … being reminded about that for which we are grateful, finding ways to share that gratitude, and realizing that it matters, deeply, for us and for the world.

In that first reading in Joel that we just heard, from sometime around 400 BCE (give or take), the prophet could have been talking to you and me, really. The people of Israel had endured a plague – not of COVID-19 – but of locusts that threatened their land, their livelihood, their way of life. And the prophet called the people to hope, called them to patience, called them to a longer view and a greater memory about the power of God’s love for them, in spite of the suffering and struggle they had endured.

I’m not sure what to think about things since last Thanksgiving, where our own “plague” is concerned. Things seem different … better … on-the-mend, in some ways … more hopeful, perhaps. Last year, my family didn’t make our annual pilgrimage to northwest Ohio to be with my in-laws. Instead, we – the Havels on Redbird Trail – stayed in Indiana, and traded food with my parents a mile away. We were still quarantining, so I mean we traded food and went our separate ways. We didn’t actually get to sit down, break bread, pass the food around, or pray together. We’ll do all of that in a couple of days, but we’ll be staying in Indiana, since people are sick with fevers and whatnot over in Ohio.

Still, we have blessings to count. We still have to be careful, but there is science and there are vaccines and boosters, too. We are worshiping this evening, in-person and online, which we couldn’t do last year, and things are better than they were, thanks to all of that. Our God has done great things… Our God has dealt wondrously with us… We shall eat in plenty and be satisfied… the Lord is our God and there is no other.

We need reminders of that from time to time.

And in that bit from First Timothy, the early church was reminded of some things, too. They were called to pray on behalf of – and in gratitude for – all people, all people: leaders and kings, Gentiles and Jesus followers alike, understanding that God is, indeed, the God of all people.

We need reminders of that from time to time, too.

In many of the gatherings I’m a part of lately – especially if they have something to do with racial equity and justice, but not always – it’s becoming a thing to acknowledge the indigenous, native peoples who lived on the land wherever we might be gathering, by naming them.

It’s an effort to honor those people, in spite of how poorly they may have been treated in so many instances. It’s an expression of gratitude, for those who have gone before and for whatever wisdom and relationship may have been shared along the way, or learned about since. And I feel like it’s an act of repentance, too, for whatever hurt and harm was done by one group of people to another over the course of human history, such as it is.

I think it’s something like the “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings to be made for everyone,” which God’s people were asked to do in that reading from First Timothy.

So, because our national Thanksgiving holiday is so often wrapped up in fictional, warm and fuzzy fairy tales about the early days of our history with the indigenous peoples who lived on this land long before the Europeans showed up, I thought it would be meaningful to acknowledge and give thanks for and name the Lenape tribe of Indians. Indiana means “the land of the Indians,” after all, and the Lenape lived in east central Indiana, in this neck of the woods, from the 1790s into the early 1820s when, under the Treaty of St. Mary’s, they gave up their land and were forced to migrate west to Kansas, and then Oklahoma.

So cheers, gratitude, prayers and supplications to the Lenape – and to the Shawnee and the Miami and the Potawatomi, too – for those who have gone before us; who tended to and cared for and lived on this holy ground; who were and who are Children of God, just like you and me, wherever they find themselves, and wherever they are found by their creator … these days and into eternity.

It’s good to be reminded from time to time.

Which brings us to the Gospel for this evening. In Matthew 6 – with all those reminders about how and why we shouldn’t worry – Jesus is speaking as someone who loves his people – his friends, his family, his followers, and all of creation – and as someone who wants the best for them, for it, for us.

So the thanksgiving we’re called to as followers of Jesus is meant to be more than just a discipline or a chore – certainly not just an annual extravaganza around a table overflowing with our favorite food and crowded with some of our favorite people – or not-so favorite people, if that’s a pickle for you on Thursday.

The thanksgiving Jesus calls us to is meant to be a daily blessing for our lives – one that does a good work through us and for us, by putting our struggles into perspective; by putting our lives into balance; by helping us to see what is good and righteous in our midst, even if we are surrounded by so much to the contrary, too.

Because our thanksgiving, in Jesus, reminds us that we are blessed in spite of what can be so hard in this world. We are made strong through our weakness. We are rich when we are poor. We receive when we give. We are promised new life, even in the face of death. We just need to be reminded of that from time to time – and remember that we are changed for the better, by the thanks we give, when we do.

Amen. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ashes to Ashes. No Kidding.

Thanksgiving Reminders