I had a conversation with someone following a worship service who was new to Presbyterianism. She told me how much she enjoyed the service; she enjoyed the music, the sanctuary, the kind people, and that on most days the service was shorter than at other churches in town.
“Thank you,” I said.
And then she said something that caught me a bit off guard. She said, “You Presbyterians like to focus a lot on how sinful and broken people are.”
I believe she was referring to our weekly Opening Prayer of Confession.
“Yes,” I said. “But don’t let that distract you from the much larger themes of grace and love
…and so can I mark you down for coming to our Ash Wednesday service where we repent in confession and ashes?”
Now, this is not the first time I heard someone speak about the church’s focus on sin and brokenness as being one of the reasons they don’t necessarily enjoy going to church these days.
It’s understandable: people don’t want to feel judged and condemned for simply living their lives.
After all, the vast majority of people really do try to lead good, honest lives in this world.
In fact, I go through seasons of this myself when writing such prayers for our worship services. Wouldn’t it be nicer to focus on God’s love rather than on humanity’s shortcomings?
Yes, it would!
And yet, we still all will agree that, try as we might, humans just have a knack for messing things up in this world. Despite all of the advancements in society, science, and technology, we still find ways to go to war, to experience homelessness and poverty, and to feel as isolated and lonely as never before.
Theologians have gone back and forth on these topics of human nature, original sin, and the need for confession over the years.
The church has admittedly come a long way from the days of Augustine, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and the “fire and brimstone” sermons and theology from days of old.
In fact, we can look back and see how the church has used different motivation for people to devote themselves to Jesus as a disciple over the centuries. Churches still vary with their messaging today, as it is not unheard of to hear about churches within this same community who still use fear and judgment of salvation as inspiration for their worshipers.
But the question we must ask on this Ash Wednesday is this:
what motivates you to follow Jesus today?
For me, well, I choose grace.
Grace. This idea that despite our imperfect broken ways as humans, God loves us and chooses to invest in us…that’s transformative.
But grace doesn’t exist if we understand ourselves to be perfect just as we are.
Grace is based upon an observation that, try as we might, we as humans, as Christians, continue to mess things up.
The Jewish people understood that humans were well-intentioned, and also incredibly flawed. Just think back to all of these wonderful stories in scripture: people like Jacob, and Moses, and David…the list goes on and on.
There are several accounts in scripture where people and even entire communities were seeking to be cleansed of their sinful ways by wearing sackcloth and ashes. They spoke of cleansing and of God’s mercy.
But it wasn’t until Jesus did this idea of grace truly come to be understood. It was when people tried to make sense of Jesus going to the cross that they began to articulate such an unmerited favor from God for us as imperfect children.
And so today, on this Ash Wednesday, we begin with ashes.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy,
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin. (Psalm 51:1-2)
We will journey through this season of Lent to the cross of Jesus.
We will give witness to death and resurrection.
And we will celebrate that our brokenness and sin as humanity,
is just a small part of the much larger theme of grace and love in Jesus Christ for the world.
We remember the words of the Apostle Paul, another very imperfect figure in scripture, who helps to capture the unique gift of God’s grace in our lives.
4 but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—
by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them. (Ephesians 2:4-10)
On this day, in this moment, may we repent in ashes, placing our faith in the God of grace and love. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Jeff Binder 