We remember today that we are dust. And to dust we shall return.
We remember.
Lent gives us ample time to look at our story, the story of human existence, and reflect on our journeys, our failings, our human-ness...It is time to be introspective and think about the fact that human nature doesn't really lead us to do things like change the world and advocate for the poor and outcast only...but that we have a great capacity for destruction as well.
In Lutheran circles, we talk about being simultaneously sinner and saint, and if Easter is about celebrating the saint portion, then surely Lent is about remembering the sinner part...
And I think that humanity needs that. We need to remember that we are dust. Stardust...from billions of years of creation and recreation...but dust nonetheless. We need to take a hard look at the state of our world and see that it has a dark ashen cross smudged across it by a God that says, I know there is more than this, and I will not let your self destruction be the final word. We need to see our addiction to disaster less through the eyes of CNN and MSNBC and AlJazeera, and more through the cry of pain that the earth sighs from bearing the load of a humanity that is bent on destroying itself and the world it inhabits.
And we need to look at ourselves and see the same.
But even though we need to do that, this Lent, I'm looking at things a little differently. Yes, today I'm going to go to church and get ashes smeared across my forehead....but I've decided I need to take Lent in a radically different direction.
This Lent, I'm going to shake the dust.
See, Lent lends itself to introspection, and feeling down about the state of affairs, and is the most depressed as a church body we tend to get, between the general mood of the season, the removal of the Alleluias from our lives and our liturgies, the impending death of Jesus. It's drastically different from the hope of Advent, the Joy of Easter, the confusing celebration of Pentecost...it's....well...frankly, kind of depressing.
Which is why I'm shaking the dust this year. It's not that I don't want to be reminded of the state of humanity, or to look in on my own failings and misdeeds....it's just that I've been doing that for a while...in fact, it's getting pretty comfortable. Like the sweatpants I'm pretty fond of wearing.
It's not a secret that depression is about as common as Facebook ads...there's much more being written about the state of our (American) collective struggles with mental health...there's much more talk about it than when I was a child....and much more being done to de-stigmatize the need for people to go to therapists, explore medical options, etc. Buzzfeed even tackles the subject in pretty poignant ways rather often. Yet, in spite of all of that publicity, we still have a publicized rate of 1 in 5 people walking around the streets dealing with something that is hard to talk about, and who knows how many more are undiagnosed.
So for that, I'm shaking the dust this Lent. Instead of spending the next 40 days and beyond sort of wallowing in the ashes of tonight like Job did...instead of wrapping myself in sackcloth and wailing at the state of humanity....instead of letting myself get more wrapped up in depression in the name of "Lent", I'm going to shake the dust off.
See, Matthew's gospel where Jesus tells the disciples to shake the dust off their sandals if they aren't welcome in a town actually seems like pretty good advice. It's better to move on to something that is actually going to be fruitful than it is to just let the dust collect on our foreheads, and in our souls.
So this year, Lent is going to look pretty different....
It's still going to look introspective...it's still going to be taking a look at who I am, who we are, why this world is so imperfect...
But this year, Lent is about shaking the dust. It's about looking inside myself to get to Easter....it's about journeying with a purpose, not just wandering around in the wilderness...because God knows I've done enough of that already. As have many, many people I know and love. Lent this year is still going to be uncomfortable, as it is every year. It's uncomfortable because it shakes people up and makes them think about the state of affairs for 40 days every year....more than 10% of the entire year. But this time, because self gratifyingly wandering around in my own wilderness is getting too comfortable, I'll be shaking the dust off tonight. Shaking the dust and stepping out, uncomfortably, onto the path toward resurrection...I'll be stepping out of the comfort of being sick, and onto the uncomfortable path of new life.
Shake the dust.
***I feel a need to put a disclaimer here....lest people try to pity me, or comfort me, or in other ways be a pastor to me. I have a huge and vast support network and this post is not intended to be a way of coercing condolences or anything like that. It is not intended to be a cry for help or a plea for pitty...if you have depression you know how shitty that is...if you don't, know how shitty that is. Pity never helped anyone.
Instead, it is meant to be an honest look at how the season of Lent might be looked at differently from the eyes of people who wander into the wilderness of their minds and get stuck there too long. It's meant to be part of the process of destigmatizing mental illness in the church and in the world. It's meant to maybe be a springboard for someone to give themselves permission to finally get the help they need.***
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