Ash Wednesday Sermon Joel 2, 2 Cor. 6

All living beings share that condition. In the second creation account we are told that we are from and of the earth, of the soil, of farmland. Ash Wednesday marks us as grounded in the soil. Often, the human response is to claim that we are the crown of creation- that we should be above it all. The other response is what I urge on us today: the virtue of humility.

Then very word comes from the soil, the humus. Humility is a virtue that grounds us for who we are: human beings. Let’s be clear. I am not speaking of Ash Wednesday as a day of self-abasement, of being humiliated or humiliating ourselves. We are still made in the image and likeness of God, and nothing or no one can change that signal religious fact.

Joel reminds us of proper humility in our worship. Of course we need a pattern to follow, but human beings have a way of displacing the goal and mistaking the means toward the end as the most important thing. Tearing a garment was a sign of grief, and it was a sign of repentance, of contrition for the wrongs we do and the good we fail to do. The point is that worship frames our spiritual experience. The rending of garments is a sign of a heart, a life torn apart by sin.

Part of the inner deal with make in faith is a hidden contract with God. If I am good, I should be immune from trouble. I should be above it all. No lonesome valleys for me, I deserve only mountaintop experiences. Paul disabuses us of that quickly with his listing of the troubles we face. If Jesus would face temptation and trouble, where would we get the diea that we should be shielded from it all? This continues to follow from his basic metaphor in this section, that we have treasures in frail vessels, clay jars, and earthenware vases.

We have limitations. Ash Wednesday starts us off in a period of the church season where we work on and through our imperfections. If we were perfect we would have no need of deliverance from the things that assail us, no need for salvation. I am working a a Bible study on the injunction to judge not. A local professor, Terry Cooper has written on being judgmental. he makes the case that our judgmental attitudes may appear to be full of pride, of a supercilious air. he wonders if they are all a cover for a deep seated sense of being unworthy, of not being good enough, of not ever measuring up to some internal ideal that we can never achieve. Humility, an acceptance of limitations, of our own imperfections and misunderstandings, frees us. We don’t have to be right all of the time; we don’t have to prove ourselves to be the superior one; we lose the need to put other people down, to humiliate others in a desperate bid to prop up our fragile sense of self, always in comparison with someone else.

Martin Luther was an earthy guy. he was also afraid of death, and afraid of god. When he started to see god’s justice as leaning toward mercy, and instead saw God’s movement toward us as justifying, centering us from our extremes, he found solace. Paul Tillich, centuries later, saw the word lose its potency, in its stead, he replaced the word, justify, with the word acceptance. God accepts us, welcomes us, draws us into one big family.
If we are good enough in the eyes of God, earthy, earthly, creatures whome we are, then we can be good enough for each other.