Rev.  Tina  Lang    •  Wednesday,  February  10,  2016  

Text:  Isaiah  58,  Matthew  6          

                                                                                 

Ash  Wednesday  Meditation    

There  is  a  story  about  a  wise  teacher  who  once  said  to  his  students:  “If  you  raise  a  speck  of  dust,  the  nation  

flourishes,  but  the  elders  furrow  their  brows.  If  you  don’t  raise  a  speck  of  dust,  the  nation  perishes,  but  the  elders  relax  their  brows.”    

A speck of dust - what is that? What kind of power lies in a speck of dust? Well... if you talk to anyone with dust in his or her computer, or camera lens, or digital sound system, or contact lens, you will get one kind of answer.

But I suggest that the wise teacher had a different answer in mind. For the teacher and maybe for us, to raise a speck of dust is not nuisance, but necessary. To raise a speck of dust might be to stir up goodness, to struggle for justice, to speak up for those who don’t speak the languages of power or who can’t speak for themselves, to band together and stand resolutely and non-violently before any form of evil and refuse to be absorbed into it or intimidated by it. Do this, the teacher said, and the powerful will furrow their brows. Neglect the dust specks and the powerful breathe easy, relax their brows...and the people perish. To me, the teacher’s story sounds very like our Christian call: to stir the spirit, to practice compassion, to confound the horrors of inhumane living.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of a season of repentance or “turning away” from old, destructive behaviors and moving toward new, life-giving behaviors. It’s a season, as Isaiah reminded us, to loose the bonds of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke that binds. It’s a time to fully open our hearts and minds to Jesus the Christ and to new visions of hope through him.

Lent doesn’t have to be a time of sorry self-deprecation. It can be a time to stir things up. It can be a time when our generous thoughts are stirred up so they seep into the world like the scent of perfume infused into oxygen molecules and distilled in the air.

It can be a time when our selfless actions are stirred up like specks of dust that travel readily from place to place. Lent can be a time to stir things up, but in America’s Original Sin, a new book about racism, white privilege, and

future possibilities for our nation, author, Jim Wallis, warns us about stirring things up. In the introduction to the book, Jim, a white male who knows something about white privilege, says, “I wrote this book because I believe truth-telling about America’s original sin of racism must not be left to people of color alone. Crossing the bridge to a new America will be a multiracial task and vocation. As I have talked with black friends about this book, especially with black parents, the line that has elicited the most response is this one: “If white Christians acted more Christian than white, black parents would have less to fear for their children.” Some of my black friends’ reactions have been, “Are you really going to say that?” “Oh my, what are white Christians going to say about that?” “That’s going to stir things up!”

Lent can be a time to stir things up, to raise specks of dust. It can be a time when we deliberately choose to fast from attitudes and behaviors that disempower others, a time for enabling others to flourish, for encouraging and giving hope to those around us, for strengthening the bonds of community, and reminding us and everyone around us that we are not alone, that we are not left to despair, that we are as surrounded by goodness and grace as we are surrounded by the mostly invisible specks of dust that fill the air. Lent is a time when we once again, seek out the present-ness of our God, a sacred, loving presence that hovers in and around us, waiting to be found, embraced and stirred up.

Lent is also a time that reminds us not just of whose we are, but who we are. We are reminded that we’ve all been brought forth from dust and to dust we all will return. It reminds us that we’re all children of God, we’re all created in God’s image. And because that is our primary identity, our diversity is something to celebrate as a gift for our future together.

Lent is often perceived as the darkest season of the Christian year, but it is also a time when the Spirit of Hope abounds, because, thanks be to God, the Spirit of Hope can be found even in the midst of dust and ashes. As Fredrick Buechner says in his book titled Whistling in the Dark, “If sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.” That is our prayer this Lenten season, that this season may transform us to be Easter people: resurrection-living, life-giving people for God’s world. Like specks of dust that permeate the air, let us rise together into that hope. Amen.