Ash Wednesday                                            The Rev'd David Cobb

Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17                                            February 24, 2007 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10                                      Solemn Mass

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

As poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything. 

Flannery O' Conner reminded us that you can't be any poorer than dead.  And this day's liturgy reminds us that we are indeed poor creatures.  Whatever our tax returns will say, whatever job prospects there might be or whatever we hope to inherit, we are poor creatures.   Mere dust- -standing up right for the moment, but frail and vulnerable even in our strength. 

Ah, but at least I have m virtue.  And this could be that I have obeyed the rules, or it might be that I am infinitely sensitive and have a keen consciousness towards injustice, it might be that I am some how above petty rules and issues.  We can make pedestal out of scraps and dirt.

Nothing frightens us as much as our poverty, whether it is a metaphor for death, a sense of failure or the real experience of grinding, need we hold back and can barely admit how close we are to the thing we fear. 

And the prayer book teaches us to admit pride, hypocrisies, and impatience; we recognize in ourselves a failure to love God and our neighbor, a failure to live into the generous, gracious mind of Christ.  From unkind words to destruction of the environment, we are poor in virtue. 

You can't be any poorer than dead.  And for the moment, we stand face to face with our poverty and death.  And it is not a easy place to stand.   

We stand here, in a cold and hard place, but we do not stand alone.   God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin, so that in Christ, we might become the righteousness of God.    And a few chapters further on, Paul says it even more clearly--  You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.  

We are poor creatures indeed, and yet standing next to us, in the cold realization of our mortality and in the face burning shame of confession- standing next to us is Jesus, naked and dying on a cross- somehow even poorer than we are.  What we are barely able to admit, he embraces our guilt, our shame and our death.  God made him to be sin.  And in embracing us, everything he gives up is given to us. 

Here is the hidden treasure that cannot be stolen and will not rust.  Here, we find the one gift that remains and the riches that endure.  If we can bear to come to this place of honesty and terror, there we find the one who replaces what we have lost and gives us more than we can imagine. 

We stand here, Paul says, As having nothing, and yet possessing everything.  Friends, we stand here today as poor creatures, hardly able to face the bare cupboards from which we live.  Dead and dying, there you have it.  And then a word is spoken, an abundance is placed in our hands.  Having nothing, we are able to reach our empty hands towards the one whose self-emptying pours hope into the world, whose death is life and healing, whose broken body feeds and sustains us all. You will walk away from here forgiven, and so ready to live in virtue that is gift and delight not grim determination.  You will walk away from here forgiven and recalled to new life by Christ, and so able to face the fact of mortality. You will walk away from here with enough so that you will have confidence to face your own poverty, and to face the poverty God would heal through your generosity. 

It seems we have nothing, poor creatures that we are, and yet by grace, we posses everything God would give us, enough and even enough to share.  We stand here, as possessing nothing, and yet thieves, rust and moth can not touch what we treasure.  God intends for us an abundance and an eternity.  Perhaps you can’t be poorer than dead, but you can not have more than God will give—and God, by an infinite grace gives us all.