Matthew 6: 1-6 16-21

Sisters & brothers, grace to you & peace from the God of all mercy, the Christ of consolation and cleansing, and the Spirit who renews our hearts. Amen.

This morning as I sat down to prepare this Ash Wednesday’s message, my doorbell rang. It was Stephanie, our un-official “neighborhood watch” lady from one block over.  Stephanie walks her dog a number of times daily around the blocks of our neighborhood, but believe me it’s not just dog-walking she’s doing when she’s out and about. Hers are the eyes and ears of the neighborhood, and also the mouthpiece. She was stopping by to let us know that there had been a break-in just down the street from us, on our block, yesterday afternoon around 3:00. Thieves had broken in to our neighbor’s home while no one was there, and stolen some valuables. Next-door neighbors who were at home at the time had no idea.

I thanked Stephanie for stopping by, told her we would be vigilant, closed the front door, and got back to tonight’s message.

As I read through the sixth chapter of St. Matthew, I was startled by the immediacy of Jesus’ words from verse 19: “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 you heart will be also.”

I began to think about home security, and homeland security, and our own personal security and well-being. Our homes can be locked up tighter than a drum, but when a thief wants in they will get in. That’s why it’s called a break-in. Our homeland can be guarded from another terrorist attack like on 9/11 and homeland security can be on orange or red alert, but when a homegrown terrorists want to perpetrate an act, they will. That’s why it’s called terror. And in terms of our selves, we may be doing everything right: diet, exercise, rest, driving defensively, and we may even be blessed with good genes, but when the diagnosis comes, or the accident occurs, or the illness persists, or the loved one departs from us, we are confronted with our own mortality. That’s why what we do tonight in a few moments, with the ashes, is called an “imposition.”

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Death will one day come like a thief, and will rob you of your breath. And meanwhile, along life’s way, death’s minions – illness, addiction, brokenness of relationship, economic upheaval, hunger, poverty, homelessness, war – along life’s way these thieves will break-in on our world to remind us that we are vulnerable, that we are not 100% secure, that we are mortal – not the god of our own lives.

Last night on a cable news program, Gavin Newsome, the mayor of San Francisco was interviewed regarding the economic stimulus package recently approved by both houses of congress, and was speaking of the hope that its infusion is bringing into the major cities of our beleaguered country. He used a phrase which caught my attention with regard to the use of those funds, from which a more earthquake-proof highway on either side of the Golden Gate bridge is to be built. The phrase he used was “shovel ready projects,” meaning of course that there were plenty of projects all poised and ready to go, which will put people back to work, and at the same time restore the weakening infrastructure.

Tonight’s ashes remind us that we, too, are “shovel-ready projects.” If you’ve ever stood at the grave of a loved one, you know that just around the corner, perhaps just out of your immediate sight range, is a back-hoe and a crew of gentlemen with shovels, waiting to move some dirt after the gathering disperses, and to set in motion those words from the burial liturgy, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

And yet this night, dear sisters and brothers, though ashes may be the order of the evening, the promise of the Gospel is that our times are in the hands of a God who does marvelous things with dust.  From creation, when God took the dust of the earth and breathed into it the breath of life, to the deliverance of the people of Israel from its 40 years of wandering in the desert’s dust and sand, to the compassionate Jesus who, mixing his own saliva with the dusty earth made a muddy paste and quite imposed it on the eyes of the blind man, restoring his sight.

Yes, dear people of God, your life, my life, our lives are in the hands of this God who loves the dirt, who loves the dust, and so much so that out of love fashioned and made us from it, fully-equipped with hearts ready to love God in return.

And when thieves break in and steal, and that love for God and our neighbor grows cold (as in our broken humanity it most certainly will), we hear the promised-filled summons of this night: “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

And remember your God, who is a lover of dust, who creates new hearts, who is the healer of our every will, and whose promise in the death and resurrection of Jesus is to make all things new.

Amen.