“The Journey Begins With a Smudge On Your Face”

Psalm 51 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

February 9, 2005 (Ash Wednesday)

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

I was just wondering which part of a trip excites you the most. Is it getting in the car, winding your way down city streets, going through traffic signals, getting on the by-pass, like I-630 and I-430, coming to the point of no return, merging onto the interstate, getting your car or truck up to what it is going to take to compete with traffic, on your way north or south, east, or west? Maybe you are like me, you live for getting out of town every once and a while, and when you can and when you do, you leave everything behind. As a pastor, when I do that, I leave someone else in charge. Pastor friends of mine cover the emergencies. Our capable staff here field the questions, make the hospital calls, make sure things run just as smoothly as if I were here. I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, the thrill is in getting on the interstate. For me, the thrill is starting out on the trip.

But maybe that is not you. Maybe the charge for you is not leaving town, but arriving at your destination, whether that is at grandmother’s house or at the rented condo near the beach in Gulf Shores or some place like that. By now most of you know that Susie, Annie Grace, and I spend a week at the beach sometime in early July. It is a tradition for us now. We usually spend seven days and six nights with Susie’s mother and father, sometimes her brother, near the beach. We started this tradition when we arrived at St. Paul, because we heard that it was another family’s tradition. Susie liked the idea. I agreed to try it. I’m glad that I did. When we returned from our vacation last summer, someone asked me on my first Sunday back what I liked the most about my vacation. I said this, “Getting there!” I said that not because Annie Grace had learned to ask, “How much longer until we get there” but because the whole week of relaxing and doing only what I wanted to do was before me.

Now that I think about it, I have just asked what excites you most about a trip, and I have told you that I like both starting out, getting on the road, and getting there. Are you like me in that? The part that is harder, I think, happens between those two times, the six or so hours it takes to get to grandmother’s house, or the eight or so hours that it takes to get to the beach.

Or the forty or so days that it takes to get to Easter Sunday. For some, today, Ash Wednesday, is the ramp, where we build up speed, on our way towards the interstate towards Jerusalem and Jesus’ cross. Jesus provides the model for us. Just as He spent forty days in the wilderness, he was tempted by the devil; he fasted, and he prayed. So we, too, are supposed to take these next forty days to get our spirits worked out before we stand in our pews and sing or listen to the Hallelujah Chorus. And the temptation, or at least one of them, is to take the trip superficially, gazing down at it like you might the landscape from your seat on an airplane, without touching it, standing on the heights with it, or down in the depths with it. If that is what you are going to do, then I think that I should tell you that your journey these next forty days will be a pretty easy one. Because if you don’t put much into it, you don’t get much out of it. But those of us who are really interested in traveling this lenten road with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross, well, if that is what you are planning on doing, it will be a harder road.

You might say that Lent is more like a long trip than it is a Sunday drive. And Ash Wednesday reminds us that the trip is a life and death matter. You have to prepare carefully. You have to make sure that you have everything that you need for the trip. Now, I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, when I go on a trip, I tend to take everything. After all, you never know when you will need a pair of snow shoes for a trip to the beach or a cooler full of coca-colas just in case I happen upon a picnic somewhere. The arrival of Annie Grace and her things in our lives hasn’t helped with traveling light. We have considered taking a u-haul when we go see Susie’s folks. If it is in my closet or if I think that I might need it, I throw it in the bag that I take on this trip. But I almost always realize that I don’t need half of the things that I take.

It is that way on our way to Jerusalem. As we start out, we take stock. We pause for a minute, and see where we have fallen short. We remember the things about our lives, our mortality, our sinfulness, our tendency to forget who we are and whose we are. We think about those things, those bags, that we might need to get rid of, the anxieties and the shames and the sins that slow us down, the bad habits, and the old grudges and we try to toss them to the side.

Because you don’t need all of those things where you are going. You can’t use those things where you are going. You can’t take those things where you are going.

To be honest with you, I feel a little like John the Baptist and not John the Methodist tonight. He cried out in the wilderness. You remember his words, don’t you? Repent. The kingdom is near. Turn away from your sins. Prepare the Lord’s way. In his sermon on the Mountain, Jesus mentions three spiritual disciplines that we might think about taking on this trip of ours’. Listen to them. The first one is almsgiving, that is giving to the poor. The second one is prayer. The third one is fasting. Which of the three are you in the habit of doing? Any of them? I know, I know, they all seem kind of crazy. Try to get your kids to do these things for forty days and they will look at you as if you have lost your ever loving mind. Somewhere in our minds, we have come up with the idea of giving up something for the Lenten season. My dad jokingly says that he will give up cauliflower for forty days, as if dad ever ate cauliflower. Some of the rest of you will give up things like sweets, chocolate, cokes, that sort of thing (which is a good discipline, any time of the year). Three or four Lenten seasons ago, I gave up giving up things for Lent. Instead of giving up things, I decided that I would do more things, like pray more, give more, help out more, be a better father, those kinds of things.

But why do we bother with these things? Why do we journey with Jesus to His cross anyway? Why do we put ashes on our foreheads tonight. Why do we remind ourselves that after all is said and done, we are mortal; you know, human. Why do we think about scripture lessons like this one, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, shall find it?” And what, really, does that mean? What does it really mean to lose your life and the things in your life?

I have never had the chance to do this, and to be honest with you, I hope that I never do, especially with any of you. But I have minister friends who have stood with someone whose house had just burned. If you have done that, then you know what loss really is. We think that we have things that rust and moth can’t destroy, that is until we lose them. A minister tells of standing with his grandmother in the ashes of her home for more than sixty years. Tears were streaming down her cheek, and the only thing that she had left, were the pictures, housed in a wooden box. Even our best memories and our brightest dreams sometimes end up in ashes.

And before us tonight are the symbols of the things that we are made of, ashes and dust. We are not made of immortal stuff. In the end, we cannot hold on to anything except the only real thing worth holding on to, Jesus. And we had better hold on to him or dear life. We take this trip, make this journey because no one has the words of eternal life except Jesus. You will remember that it was Simon Peter who said, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life?” We take this trip because no one loves us like the one who gave himself up for us. And this Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And taking this trip really means taking it with your mind, but mostly with your heart. And it’s exciting to start out, leaving things, like hurts and grudges and responsibilities behind. I love the thought of seeing things that I have dealt with in a rear view mirror.

So where is your heart tonight? The scriptures of the church, the lectionary, give us some possibilities for scripture lessons for tonight. We read two. The first one comes in the midst of Jesus’ sermon on the mount. The second one that we read, my favorite one prescribed for this night, is attributed to David, the one who was once a young shepherd boy who wondered why a giant from Gath was getting the best of God’s people. His story has soap opera strands running through it. In the spring time of the year, when he should have been off at war, he stayed home. He noticed a beautiful woman bathing on a roof top. She was someone else’s wife, but for the moment that did not matter. When the consequences hit home, he tried to cover up his sin. The cover up becomes his prayer. Listen to the power of it’s words, “Have mercy on me. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.” To his credit, David does not deny what he has done. He knows that God desires truth in the inward being. He hopes that God will hide his face from his sins, and blot out his transgressions. But the power in the passage it seems to me, in fact the power in all of the passages can be found in the heart. David prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Joel prophesies, “ ...return to God with all your hearts....rend your hearts and not your clothing....” Matthew has Jesus saying, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So where is your heart? What is the condition of your heart this night?

Well, whether you like starting out on trips leaving responsibilities behind or getting there with the week or weekend ahead of you, unpacked in the condo or safe in grandmother’s arms, you have to take the trip. The getting there is always the hard part. My prayer is that you will not be afraid of this Lenten season’s hard part. Let us pray.