Ash Wednesday 2023

 

Lectionary texts: Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, and 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10, and Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21.

‘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, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain-offering and a drink-offering for the Lord, your God?’ Joel 2:12-14

Joel’s community are devastated. The harvest they depend on has been destroyed by locusts. There are rumours of war, an invasion force massing at the border. Dark days ahead. They are scared, like children; perhaps pretending to be brave, like children. And Joel calls them to (re)turn to God.

Joel reminds them of the time when God revealed to Moses what God is like: gracious and compassionate; slow to anger; abounding in steadfast love.

hannun we-rahum, gracious and compassionate: hannun, from chanan, to show favour; and rahum, compassionate, from the same root as rechem, womb. This God is like a mother, who, moved by a visceral love for the child she carried, acts to help them in their need.

erek appayim, slow to anger, literally, having a long nose, or nostrils. The image is that of breathing in through the nose, when angry; of drawing in breath slowly, taking time. This maternal God gets angry at times, when we mess up, and rightly so; but she doesn’t have a short fuse. She isn’t the kind of mother whose children walk on eggshells, never knowing whether they are going to get nice mam or nasty mam. This God has a tell-tale sign, that drawing in of breath that alerts us to the reality we have a moment, a window of opportunity, to say sorry, when we have pushed her too far in taking her for granted.

hessed, unfailing love, covenant loyalty. This God is committed to us, will always be there for us, whatever we have done, whatever consequences we must live with.

One of the accusations thrown against God is why a loving and powerful being does not intervene to prevent suffering? But we cannot live as if God does not exist, and blame God for the consequences. God is not a maid to tidy up behind us, or a nanny to keep us from harm. But God does intervene, by responding to our cry, our longing, our recognising that we really do want God more than life without God.

The Season of Lent is an invitation to come home, to God, who sees the state we have got ourselves in, envelopes us in strong and loving arms, draws us close and holds us tight, spits on her handkerchief and rubs our grimy forehead with the sign of the cross.

Full disclosure: it isn’t spit, but anointing oil, a sign and symbol of the compassionate grace of God, mixed with the ash of our mortality. And with it, God brings bread and wine, meets all our needs, in Jesus, who draws our suffering into his own, that it may be transformed. For all that hurts or harms us will, in the end, be utterly consumed in the fire of love, until all that remains is a perfectly safe vulnerability, where we are seen, known, and loved, and see, know and love in return.

So come home.