February 9, 2005 - Ash Wednesday - Mother Stephanie Parker

FIRST READING: Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17
PSALM: 103
SECOND READING: 2 Corinthians 5:20b - 6:10
GOSPEL: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Many, many years ago, almost 20 years ago now . . . . hard to believe; time goes by so quickly . . . . I was on a trip with my family. Several of my nieces and one of my nephews were involved in a little peewee football and cheerleading competition in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was during the Thanksgiving Holiday, so we made the decision as a family to go up and celebrate Thanksgiving and spend those three days at this competition with all of these little cheerleaders and football players. So, of course, we were up in Gatlinburg, far from home in Georgia, in the mountains, and the venue for my niece's cheerleading competition was across the mountain from where we were staying at a high school somewhere over the mountain. And, of course, the people who had planned this particular event for months, and even the people at the hotel, had provided very wonderful directions for all the participants to this venue. Now, on this particular trip to this competition, my father was driving, and it was my father, myself, my niece, who at that time was about 12 or 13, and one of her little friends on her cheerleading team. So, not trusting, of course, the local people who had put together this event and their math, my father, with all of his skills in his world travels, had decided he could find . . . what? A short-cut! O.K.? So, of course, he plots it on his map, and we set off across the mountain. The directions that we had received said it should take it us about 20 minutes to get to the venue with the route that they had chosen. So, about 25 or 30 minutes into the short-cut route, we started to get the feeling - I think all of us, even my niece - that something maybe had gone wrong, and that the short-cut wasn't going to be as short as we thought it was. Finally, my niece perks up from the back. I am just trying to be very quiet, which is hard for me, I will admit - I will repent of that, but I didn't want to incite a 12- or 13-year-old to riot behind me - so I am being very quiet, hoping my niece is so caught up with her little friend and the excitement that she won't notice that, quite frankly, we should have been there long before now. But no - from the back seat comes the voice, "Papa, shouldn't we have been there by now?" And, of course, my father says, "No, no. We're fine." "Well, Papa, I think we should have been there by now. Are we lost?" "No we're not lost!" It was immediate, you know, sort of an "I have driven . ." - and I love this speech and we kid him about it to this day - "I have driven all over the world. I think I can get across this little bitty mountain". So, we just all quieted down for a minute, and we are driving, driving, driving. We drive for about 15 more minutes and still haven't reached the venue. You can feel the agitation from the back seat like a piercing laser beam at the back of your head. Suddenly, we passed this little cabin. Now, if you have ever been up in the mountains, especially in the Blue Ridge Mountains, you pass these little cabins where you can go in and see what life was like back in the 1700's or 1800's. We passed this little cabin that I, myself, had noticed we had passed on the same route about 20 minutes before. So, I am thinking to myself, "Please, dear God, let my niece have been looking down; don't let her see this". But no - "Papa!! Isn't that the same cabin we passed before?" And, of course, at this time, my father had nothing to do but to own up to the fact that he was hopelessly lost on his short-cut. So we all sort of had a little laugh for a moment, but, up until that time, he was ready to defend with his life and his honor the fact that he had not gotten lost on that mountaintop.

And so, I think the reason that story has come to me is that, as I prepare myself to enter into this Lenten season, it occurs to me all the ways that we become so easily lost - so easily lost - and what a wonderful opportunity this season presents to us to take a look, to just stop for a moment and assess where and how we have been lost and just exactly how we can turn around; because, my friends, like my father on that trip, if we can't admit we're lost, it is going to be impossible for us to turn around and be found and to find ourselves where we were headed in the first place.

The more I think about life and the more I think about the pace that we have today, it is so easy to become lost in so many things. I think the biggest thing we become lost in is busy-ness itself. I think there is so much of life that calls our attention away from God and away from our partners, and we get caught up in it so easily. Often, we don't know how far we are out in that wilderness of lost-ness until we wake up one day and realize we haven't talked to our children about a significant event, our spouse or our partner, or our parents, in some time; and we look back to see what had filled up that space, and it was really nothing all that pressing or all that important. It was simply busy-ness - those things we do to cram into our every day - and those places are typically fairly easy to turn around and return from; but, often, and we know this is true, we become lost in anger; we become lost in hurt feelings; we become lost in some form of pride or ego. And when we are lost in those places, time can slip by so very quickly, and the walls that we erect to protect ourselves in such a place can get so high that, when we actually stop to realize that we have become lost in anger or unforgiveness, it is so hard to admit where we are and to turn around and find our way back.

And so, I think this Lenten season provides a guidepost, sort of a way-point, if you will, almost a marker like that cabin did for my father and for us, to say "there is no denying, right now, that I am lost". And then you have a very easy task. It is easy once you admit it, because I think the hard thing is admitting where we are lost or that we are lost at all.

That is one thing I love about the Psalm we are going to read as we finish the imposition of ashes, Psalm 51. Now, tradition holds that this is a psalm that David wrote after he came to his senses and found his place where he was lost in his big affair with Bathsheba. So, we have this notion, and it is one of my favorite stories in all of Scripture, that is supposed to precede this by tradition, where Nathan (do you remember the scene?) comes to David and tells him this horrible story, because David was the judge over all the land. He tells him this story about this horrible man who stole the poor man's ewe when it was his only one, and this rich man had so many; and David was outraged by this man's abuse. He could not stand that this had happened in his kingdom, and he said, "Bring him to me; this man must die". And, in one of the best lines of all Scripture - I think it is worthy of an HBO movie - Nathan says, "You are that man!" Suddenly, David realized he had become very lost indeed. David had not intended to become this kind of king. Remember David? He was so faithful; he was so true. So, I think, as we read this Psalm, it is a perfect example and a reminder that we need not fear those places where we have become lost. We need not shelter ourselves from admitting that we have strayed or that we are wrong, because the good news, my friends - and in the Gospel, everything bears this out, day after day, month after month, in our faith journey - there is no dark place that we can journey that God is not there to meet us. And I think that, when we are coming back from places of lost-ness, and we gird up our courage to look at ourselves and see where we are, and to enter into that place, I think we find God there waiting, saying, "My child, I am so glad to see you. What took you so long? What took you so long? Let's go home. Let's find our way back. All you needed to do was come and find Me here. I have been waiting. Let Me lead you".

So, I think today, as we get those ashes marked on our foreheads and are reminded not only of our baptismal covenant in that moment when we were marked as Christ's own forever, we put those ashes on and not put a cloak of mourning on ourselves, but almost have a joyful Lent, a celebration, "This is my badge of courage. This says I can go into the lost places. I can go into the darkness of my worst fears. I can go into those places I don't like to even admit exist within me, and I will find God there. And when that sun rises on Easter Day, I will be whole, and I will be complete. I will not be hiding from God or anyone else." And we can stand and rejoice and celebrate. But, until then, go into the dark places; find your lost places; be not afraid; because God is there waiting for you.

In Jesus' most Holy Name, we pray.

AMEN