Ash Wednesday Sermon 1996 | Matthew 6:19-21

Nearly five years ago, a friend of mine and I were enjoying ourselves tremendously at an event that was part party and part political rally at an enormous five-story house in San Francisco. Videos were going on two floors, tattered newspaper stories from past campaigns lined the walls of the patio, the wine was flowing, and at least one mayoral candidate was schmoozing it up, shaking hands with everyone but the cat.

Relaxing in front of one of the large screen TV's, I suddenly noticed that it had grown very quiet. I was alone in the room, and the cheering and boasting that had only moments ago filled the air was suddenly still. I rose to investigate (and to find an open bottle of champagne), and when I reached the third floor, I found everyone in the house crammed into the living room watching the smaller television.

On the screen was a world in flames. We all watched, frozen, transfixed, terrified--and all the more so when we learned that the fire we were watching was happening at that very moment, and that those tongues of flame were lapping up the lush Oakland Hills.

Now, I was living in Concord at the time, and my first thought was "I'll never get home, the tunnel has got to be blocked." A moment later I realized the inherent selfishness of my thoughts, as I reminded myself that I still had a home to go to.

So many people were not so lucky. Over the next few weeks I read story after story in the newspaper about those who survived the blaze, making daring escapes down the narrow winding roads that criss-crossed the hills. I also read about those who did not make it. I had a professor who lost her house, and with it nearly a million dollars worth of archaeological artifacts. I had been visiting at St. Giles, and was devastated to learn that the husband and wife who pastored that mission had also lost everything.

I watched on the news as those whose homes had burned to the ground returned to the ruins and tearfully picked through the charred remains and the ashes for something--anything--salvageable from their former life. The rain fell, and the ashes turned to mud. It was a time of mourning for the entire Bay Area.

And the destruction did not end their. Further violence ensued as insurance companies defaulted on their obligations. Families remained homeless through months of litigation, as the nightmare continued, and their lives continued on through this dark hell that they did not ask for, and which surely very few of them ever deserved.

How many of them, as they sank up to their ankles in the muddy ash, were able to reflect on the mystery of this tragedy? Houses that had stood for a hundred years, gone in moments, consumed by an insatiable wall of flame; children who had their whole lives ahead of them, found here their untimely end. Every imaginable possession, countless, priceless, taken in the blink of an eye.

And there, in the aftermath, sorting through the waste and the ruins, the people returned to sift through what was left, to try to discover a little of what they had lost.

This story, tragic and true, has much to say to us if we have the ears to hear it. It echoes the Psalmist when he said, "As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more."

It says, as Jesus tells us, "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."

It speaks to us of the transitoryness of this brief life, that everything which is fashioned of the earth, be it mortar & brick, or flesh and bone, must someday return to it. The Oakland Hills fire was a rude awakening for many people to a truth that awaits us all: that we are dust, and to dust we must return, that life is short, that possessions are not truly ours, that the only permanence we can ever hope to have is found only in the promise of God; the only treasure that is truly ours is born of the justice we make, the faith we inspire, and the love that we give in the short time we are given.

But the tragedy did come to an end. Within a week of the fire, tender green shoots of grass, the seeds of which had been borne in on the breeze, began to peek up over the ash. Within a month, construction trucks were winding up the narrow roads to pour new cement. People returned to the places their homes had been, and started again, seeking a new life in the wake of their suffering.

And this is the cycle of life that all of the earth bears witness to: after the death of nature in the winter cold, the warmth of spring brings resurrection to Creation; old ones go to the grave, as young ones spring from the womb; after crucifixion, resurrection follows as assuredly as day follows night.

Today is the first day of the season of Lent, the time when the church calls us to evaluate our lives, to remember the brevity of our years, to make amends where we have fallen short of our potential. When the ancient Hebrews made public confession of their sin, they would tear their clothing, don sackcloth, and smear ashes on their heads. This was a sign that they admitted their destructive patterns of behavior and were committed to new and life-giving patterns instead.

Later, in the early church it was customary to observe with great devotion the days leading to Good Friday and the festival of Easter. It was a time in which new converts were prepared for baptism, and those who had been separated from the Christian community through serious wrongdoing were restored through penitence and reconciliation.

The word "religion" literally means to re-connect, and during Lent conscious effort was made to re-connect the outcast to the community, and the individual with God. Tonight we are invited to participate again in the season of Lent with the imposition of ashes; the sign of our earthiness and mortality;

It is a time to enter the cave of the heart,
To meditate upon our lives,
our motivations and our integrity;
To see where we have become disconnected,
Where we have become out of touch
With ourselves, with each other, with the Earth and with our Creator.
A time to remember that all that we have is temporary,
That all that we have, everyone we love, even our own lives
can be taken away from us in the blinking of an eye.

We are also called to remember those things which are truly important,
our connection to those things which endure,
integrity, the earth, and the unfathomable love of God.

Let us pray:

God of both the living and the dead,
Tonight we set out with Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem,
Re-enacting the mystery play
Of birth and death and birth again,
Of the blessed Creation of whose substance we are,
Of a vision guiding the courageous spirit forward through the pain,
towards healing and resurrection.

Help us to walk with Jesus into the unknown,
Give us wisdom for the journey,
Eyes to see where we have lied to ourselves,
And courage to view our deeds and attitudes
with honesty, humility, and integrity. Amen.