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Shape
Overpowers Substance:
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Shape
Overpowers Substance:
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For many years on Ash
Wednesday I have focused on the meaning of the ashes – this ancient tradition
of ashes being smudged on our foreheads in the shape of a cross.
I have come to value this action and the symbolism it holds; this gesture
rooted in Baptism.
What’s happening here
is that shape overpowers substance. The
ashes, a substance of death, are traced in the shape of a cross. The
shape takes the ashes in and makes of their very soot the shape of a
resurrection cross. And this is what
happens for us in baptism. Sin and
mortality run head-on into grace. God
meets our death-reality with life.
As we sit here with one
another, with ashes on our foreheads, we hear
It’s like getting a
100% on your driver’s test and refusing to receive the license.
It’s like being a member of the happiest family on earth, but unwilling
to attend a family gathering and share in the joy. It’s
like being a member of the Museum and never viewing the art.
Paul urges us to not
accept the grace of God in vain – to not refuse to let it be for us what it is
– a grace – a freedom – a power over every death-dealing the world wants
to deal us. For Paul it has
everything to do with reconciliation – with shape overpowering substance.
Paul calls us
ambassadors, not for the
The fact that the
disciples were broken people with smudges on their brows did not hold the last
word. Their substance of smudge and
soot in their lives was overpowered by the reality of God’s almighty grace.
They, we, who are ashen-smudged, are the ones God calls to carry on the
ministry of reconciliation in the world.
The crucified, risen
Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” He
came back not to judge or even to set things back the way they were.
He came back to reconcile and call his followers to the ministry of
reconciliation.
And perhaps it will calm
us as we try to take this call seriously that not even Jesus always bore fruit
from his reconciling efforts. People
turned their backs on him. People
ran him out of town. People called
him names and criticized his efforts. So
if we cannot always be successful at being reconcilers, neither was Jesus.
And sometimes it is us
who turn our back on Jesus, because we are human, limited in our thinking,
fearful of the very love that would set us free.
But God loves just the likes of us and calls us again to be ambassadors
– to carry on the ministry of reconciliation.
God chooses us – the broken and bruised; the wounded and limping ones
– reminding us that shape overpowers substance.
The shape of the cross trumps all other realities.
God tells us to rise –
even with the smudge on our forehead and go out into the ministry of
reconciliation – not counting our grievances or our wounds as excuses for
refusing to work towards the reconciliation already granted.
Jesus rose from a crucifying death a reconciler and calls us to do the
same.
But we are not divine
like Jesus. Both our wounds and our
grievances wear long on our hearts. And
likewise, we are not perfect. We who
are wounded can also wound. A simple
sign of our propensity to making mistakes is the Spell Check on our computers.
We have to be checked all the time. Who
doesn’t miss-spell, miss-speak, miss-interpret, miss-step or misunderstand?
If we don’t commit the sin of commission, there is always to sin of
omission to name. Few can ace the
spelling bee all the time. But our humanness doesn’t take us off the hook.
Shape still trumps substance.
Neither does grace
absolve us from following the call. That
grace abounds does not give us license to forego the ministry of reconciliation.
Grace is that tap on our hunched-over shoulder telling us to stand up and
go out as ambassadors of reconciliation in whatever way we can healthily go –
even if it means simply to not let what could crush us do so.
As we are reconciled to
God through Christ so too are we reconciled to one another.
It’s already done – whether the world knows it or not; whether we see
or feel it or not. Reconciliation
has already been granted by the power of the cross.
And it becomes our work to spread the news, crazy as it is, in whatever
honest ways we can. As far as it is
possible for us, we are not to take in vain this reconciliation that is already
accomplished.
Even where there are
estrangements in our world, personally, communally and globally, ultimately God
has taken care of them. And, again,
as far as it is possible for us who are human and not divine, we are called to
be reconcilers – to live as ambassadors of this grace – not that we can
fully taste the joy of what God promises, but that we can begin to believe it is
true even this side of heaven.
Sometimes in this world
mending estrangements is not possible. Sometimes people die before estrangements
are healed. Sometimes things are too
broke to fix. But ultimately, God
reconciles all things in Christ. This
is grace and we are urged to not take it in vain.
Shape overpowers
substance at the cross.
Ash Wednesday begins a
season of remembering how far grace goes. Ashes
acknowledge our frailty, but the cross into whose shape the ashes are drawn
trump the frailty and raise us to new life.
It takes a whole season to take this amazing gift to heart.
I look forward to these
five weeks of Lent, for I want God to remake me – to help me live a little
closer to who God intends me to be as a reconciled and reconciling child of God.
I cannot remake myself, but God who knows what wounds I carry, carries
them with me and in doing so assists me in bringing God’s appeal of peace to
the world. God does not forget our
sorrows, but takes them into God’s very self so that we can set them aside.
And if we are pliable and
receptive, which is the call of this season, God can have at us a little better.
This isn’t a season for low self images or for feeling bad about ourselves. It
takes strength and self-love to be pliable and receptive to letting go of
balancing the scales. It takes bold
trust to relinquish the imbalances of life into God’s loving hands so our
hands can be free to extend God’s appeal of peace.
Amen.
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson,
to the glory of God
Faith