February 22, 2023

Ash Wednesday

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Almost three years ago, in early March before we all knew what was really going to happen, I said these exact words in an early Lent sermon: “And in the latest coronavirus news, Tim Horton’s is cancelling this year’s Roll Up the Rim to Win campaign…some say it’s because of fears surrounding staff handling cups that customers have sipped out of and shoved their fingers into to roll up that rim to win. I’m guessing that about 16 of you think that’s the silliest thing you’ve ever heard. 37 of you just think it’s kind of funny and that maybe it’s a slick way to begin a sermon. And it’s entirely possible that the rest of you think that it’s about time. The real truth is, none of us really know if it’s a great idea or a dumb idea. Maybe it will save Canada from certain disaster. But we don’t know. The truth is, none of us really know where this whole corona virus thing is going. Or what’s going to happen this afternoon, or where we’ll be in a week’s time.”

To be honest, I probably kind of thought I was being witty and slick, and maybe even charming. And smart. But we really had no idea what would be happening in a week’s time. And now, three years later, I’m preaching via Zoom, from a room in my house, because what’s happened for me with that whole coronavirus thing is that I avoided it for three years and then tested positive just a few days ago. So here I am. One of those COVID people. By myself. Not a cup of Tim’s in sight. This year “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” will have a different ring in my ears than it ever has before. Maybe it will be like that for all of us in some way. Or maybe for some of us “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” is just a reminder of what we know too well, because we have returned more than enough loved ones to the dust, or our own health and life is turning out to be, well, dusty. And this week, and throughout Lent, and throughout our lives, we’re called to return again to the God who breathed life into our dust, and to follow along with Jesus who became dust like us and whose dying and rising will breathe life again into you and me and the dust of all creation.

As we follow along with Jesus today he talks to us about how to pray, and how to fast, and how to practice generosity, and what’s striking about it all is how Jesus says three times, “And your God who sees in secret will reward you.” When you fast, don’t draw attention to yourselves to impress anyone. Your God who sees in secret knows what you’re doing. When you give alms, when you practice generosity, don’t make a show of it, don’t even let you left hand know what your right hand is doing. Your God who sees in secret knows what you’re doing and will reward you. When you pray, don’t go on and on in public. Just go to your room and pray. Your God who sees in secret knows what you’re doing.” Did you hear that last part? When you pray, just go to your room and shut the door. Pray there. God sees and hears and knows what you’re doing. Just about three years ago we were sent to our rooms, weren’t we? Just a few weeks after we heard Jesus tell us to go to our rooms to pray we were told, all of us, to stay home, to go to our rooms for the health and safety of us all. So we went to our rooms. Some of us went to our rooms afraid. Some of us went to our rooms obediently, some of us went under protest, some of us went angrily and some went with a shrug. Some of us were kind of relieved to be told to stay home and stick to our own rooms. We’re called introverts, and we kind of like it that way. And through the months and years after that all of us remembered now and then, or maybe needed to be reminded now and then, that even when we were apart and were confined to our rooms, our own houses, our own yards, we were not alone, and God had not forgotten us. Our God who sees in secret saw us, and stayed with us. It’s the same, really, as Jesus tells us to go to our rooms to pray. Our God who sees in secret sees us and hears us…not in a creepy surveillance kind of way, but in a gracious and caring and “I will never abandon you” kind of way. So in these days and weeks and a lifetime to come you or I might go quietly to our room – whatever that might mean – to pray, and our prayer might be a prayer of confession, like a prayer in which shame runs deep or “I can’t believe I did that and I wish I hadn’t and I’m so sorry” is all over the place. And our God who sees in secret hears that prayer. We’re not abandoned to fend for ourselves. We might pray in our room and our prayer will be a prayer of fear, because something is happening to me or to someone I love, or you might be so afraid of what’s coming tomorrow or the next day, and your God who sees in secret will see and hear, and will not leave you to fend for yourself. It could be a prayer of gratitude that any of us pray, because what could be better than bright blue sky on blazing white snow, or the touch of someone you love and who loves you dearly, or the taste of that cheese that is a gift from God or that small kind word that someone spoke to you when you most needed to hear it. Our God who sees in secret hears that grateful prayer too, and rejoices with us in the good gifts of life. In your prayers of fear or frustration, in your anger or joy or worry or gratitude, in your room alone whatever you understand that room to be, your God who sees in secret sees and hears you, notices you, remembers you, and hears you pray. Our God who sees in secret sees and hears us, notices us, remembers us… “And your God who sees in secret will reward you.” It’s not a reward, like a prize for getting it right; it’s a reward that’s really a gift: We can go to our rooms and turn to God, and be honest about the way it is – we don’t need to hide or pretend; and that’s a gift. You can go to your room, I can go to my room, and this cross, this ashen cross that we see today or this cross that’s just become part of our skin as it was marked on us in baptism, this cross will remind us that we are mortal and not perfect and that’s OK because there is nothing else that God demands us to be. And this cross will remind us that God has made peace with us, and is making peace with all things. We do, of course, leave those rooms and private spaces and step out into a life where we really don’t know what’s coming next….But that’s OK. Because we who are dust walk with Christ, among all the people who come from the same earth, the same dust, the same creation, that is being healed and made new by the same Christ whose dusty cross we bear.

AMEN.