All That You Are

 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 (NIV)

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 6 As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. ² For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. ³ We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴ Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵ in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶ in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; ⁷ in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;⁸ through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;⁹ known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

 

All That You Are

It’s almost spring – time to plant new gardens, turn over the soil, prepare the ground that has been dormant, make it ready for new growth. This job is more than just a little dusty. Before you plant a new garden, you have to break apart the old dirt. The same is true of our faith – to dive deeper requires some broken ground. Sometimes this is painful while others it feels like we can finally breathe – feel fresh air. Dealing with brokenness is much like mourning, and we Americans are usually not so good at airing those emotions – instead we bury them deep and rush to get through.

This is not true of our many of our native American brothers and sisters. At the Navajo reservation in Ganado, Arizona, I experienced a memorial service like none I have witnessed before or since. Our small group from Grace Presbytery was there for a mission project when a matriarch of their community died unexpectedly. Without delay, her memorial became the top priority even though it was the middle of VBS. We were given smaller tasks and relegated to one end of the small building with the kids. Before I knew it, the wailing and screams of mourning from the chapel could be heard in direct counterpoint to songs of “Jesus Loves Me” from the lips of children.

I was dumbfounded at the raw, honest and faithful display of grief especially at how the children took it all in stride. Much of that week, my job was to rake the dirt. Literally – back and forth like some giant meditative sand exercise, breaking down pebbles, smoothing out the church yard.

I joked with my work partner about how far we came to rake dust. We were covered in dust, annoyed at so small a task. Yet, looking back, perhaps this was one of the most precious gifts of all. To give us a tool to smooth the yard, to be covered in dust, numbed to outside disturbances and truly hear a Christian community embracing mortality – no cleaning death up or hiding it from the children, no gentling the moment, instead bringing to God our emotions – sorrow and anger as part of who we are as the church. Embracing all of who we are as mortals connected each one to another.

Ash Wednesday is a day for that kind of honesty, vulnerability – look at the opposites in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians – “…glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;⁹ known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. Paul doesn’t deny our brokenness and makes it part and parcel of who we are working on Christ’s behalf. Be reconciled to God and do not receive the grace in vain.”

We do remember we are dust and to dust we shall return, but the more urgent part of Paul’s message is where we turn our attention in Lent 2022 – Paul implores us be reconciled to God and urges us not to receive God’s grace in vain. The Reverend Nadia Boz Weber sees Lent as the time to set aside our ‘sin management program’ and allow God to be God for us. She says, “So Lent isn’t about punishing ourselves for being human – the practice of Lent is about peeling away layers of insulation and anesthesia which keep us from the truth of God’s promises. Lent is about looking at our lives in as bright a light as possible, the light of Christ. It is during this time of self-reflection and sacrificial giving and prayer that we make our way through the over grown and tangled mess of our lives. We trudge through the lies of our death-denying culture to seek the simple weighty truth of who we really are.”

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, the 40 days plus six Sundays of preparation that precede the crucifixion and Easter. Yet, this scripture in verse two says – Now is an acceptable time, Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time to turn over the dirt. Some of us are like Texas clay - the tilling may be rough going and require intentional work, nourishment, water – letting the air in. Letting the Spirit brush against us - the Holy Spirit into our being to fill us back up and ready us for new growth. With a bit of awareness, in the end, we remember that reconciled to God and overflowing with grace – With God - All that you are is enough.

All that you are is some pretty amazing dust. Scientists put forth that much of the matter that makes humans is actually star dust from supernovas blasting from the corners of the universe. The power of God’s dust – from digging in the garden, a smudge you wipe off a child’s face to a force of the universe to be reckoned with. The Holy Spirit blowing through something mundane and bringing it to life. Stir the garden, rake the dust, to awaken the grace within so that it overflows into the world.

We mark our foreheads with ashes and remind ourselves of reconciliation – the up and down mark to reconcile to God and he side to side cross bar to remind us to be reconciled to one another. Give something up if it helps you remember this season, but may the main focus be the abundant, overflowing grace God places before us, mere dust. The cross on our foreheads claims us, reminds us of this amazing grace and points us outward to reconciliation with God and one another.

God offers us hope. The Holy Spirit will blow through even the mere specks of dust uniting them in a glorious garden, making of us a whole. now is the time for salvation, now is the time for going into the world as the church – a force for unity and reconciliation. May God’s garden flourish around us with extra care, attention and nurture this Lent. With all you have and all you are, share Chris’s abundant overflowing grace with the world. Amen.