The
heart of the matter.
What’s
the heart of the matter to you…about today? About life? The psalm gets right to
it in our opening text of Holy Scripture tonight, right to the core of just
what we are and whose we are: “For you
know well how we are formed; you
remember that we are but dust.”And in case those words don’t sink in, we’re
all going to be wearing some dust on our foreheads in just a few minutes.
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| "Pillars of Creation" nebulae (Hubble telescope image) |
That’s
really the “heart of the matter,” isn’t it? Despite all the amazing things we
humans do and are capable of doing—our amazing progress in medicine and
technology, our successes in creating just and free societies, our capability
to create beautiful, lasting works of art and music—we are but dust. The
ancient Hebrews knew long ago from their stories of Adam and Eve being breathed
up from the mud what has taken us years of astrophysics to prove: the atoms of
our bodies are really just reorganized and reconstituted stardust, the same
stuff that the rest of the universe is made out of.
Yet,
miraculously and mysteriously, life has been breathed into us, and for a while
we exist. For a while we are given this chance to learn and grow and love, make
decisions that affect others’ lives—sometimes disastrously—before we all return
to that same elemental material. “For you
know well how we are formed; you
remember that we are but dust.”
Yes,
the heart of the matter of life is that we are the creature, the created, and
the Lord is the Creator. The heart of the matter is that because we are the created,
we are not eternal. And for as long as we’ve been around, we have been prone to
deny this fact or ignore it altogether. Forgetting that we are someone’s prized
creation, we either disregard our beauty and our power—this heritage of our
Divine’s image—or, even worse, we idolize them. We have been given this chance
to fashion from our atoms lives that reflect the goodness of our Creator, and
we squander it at just about every turn, oblivious as to whose we are. This corrupts
us from within, and there’s nothing we ourselves can do about it.
Last
night my six-year-old asked, out of the blue, “Is Ash Wednesday a hump day?” Yes,
my child, I thought…and what a hump to get over. It is the hump day of the
year, for today we are forced to look eye to eye with our mortality and our
brokenness. Ash Wednesday and Lenten disciplines once again present the struggle
with what it means to be made, to be designed for something other than our own
glorification. They cause us to pause and consider that fundamental heart of
the matter, and if we get over that sobering hump, there is hope at the end.
For
there is another matter, of course, and it has a heart, too. It has to do with the
Creator’s unexpected answer to our dusty, dirty condition. It the matter about
God’s boundless mercy, his desire through Jesus, his Son, to live as we do, to
encounter the brokenness we know. It is the heart of a God who is full of
compassion, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The psalmist, along
with the witness of the ancient Hebrews, would have us know that this is the
primary quality of this God who has formed us from dust: steadfast love. Of all
that might be said of God this one thing must be central: God’s heart of
tenderness towards us wins out over any anger and disappointment God feels
about us.
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| "The Crucifixion" Leon Bonnat |
So,
just as we tonight receive reminder that we are undeniably mortal and
corruptible, we also receive reminder that God is undeniably forgiving and
compassionate. The cross of Jesus is the other heart of the matter which we
confront on this hump day of all hump days…that God has not dealt with us according to our sins, and has not
repaid us according to our
iniquities. Instead, Jesus has borne in his body—which is formed of the same
stardust as we are—the full result of our waywardness and brokenness. He
suffers, so that we may thrive. He dies, so that we may live.
That’s
the tension that lies at the center of Christian life, on the one hand, our
failure, our dustiness, and on the other hand, God’s prevailing perfection for
us in Jesus Christ; on the one hand, our inability—down to our very bones—to
respond on our own to God’s grace and goodness, and on the other, God’s will to
“make our bones strong,” as the prophet Isaiah says, to make us like
“springs…whose waters never fail.”
Practices
of faith are intended to support us in this tension throughout the year, but Lent
has always been set aside by the church as a specific time for focusing on the
cross, and how sacrifice in the manner of Christ heals us and empowers us to
love the world. For example, the discipline of giving from our own finances to
charity is not merely a way to deny materialistic impulses for ourselves, but a
way to contribute in a real way to Christ’s healing of the world. Again, if I
were to take on a discipline of increased prayer and worship attendance, this
would not only become a way for me to take time away from other personal
endeavors that lead me away from God, but they would also have the benefit of
developing my communication with God and aligning my life with whatever Christ’s
compassion is doing in the world. And the act of fasting is not simply a way of
reminding ourselves of the control our passions can have over our bodies, but a
way to hand over for the betterment of creation resources that we often horde
for ourselves. The three particular disciplines of faith that Jesus mentions to
his disciples in Matthew’s gospel, when taken to heart the right way, always
help us keep in mind both our need for God’s mercy and the fact that God is
already giving it.
For
many people throughout the centuries, holding these two matters in tension has
led to profound artistic and creative expressions. Using that quality of
creativity that God has bestowed on us, people have sought to articulate in
some original way what God’s steadfast love in Jesus means for them and the
world. Perhaps you’ve seen a painting of the crucifixion that draws your
attention to a particular feature or character. Some have chiseled for hours at
marble or granite or wood into the shape of a human figure with a surface as
smooth as human skin and with facial expressions that look as real as ours. Others
have composed works of poetry or moving songs that re-interpret or even quote the
words of Scripture. Maybe you have a hymn that sums up your own reaction to the
cross.
On
Wednesdays this Lent members of the staff will offer for you something of that
discipline: a series of meditations on some of these artistic creations. Our
speakers will lead us through several meditations and even demonstrations based
on examples of Christian art that strike at the heart of the matter: on the
cross of Christ, our dust is given new life.
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| Michaelangelo's "Pieta" |
That
being said, there is nothing particularly aesthetic or beautiful about the real
cross, the real death of our Lord. Safe to say that last thing anyone was
thinking as our Lord gave up his life is how the lighting looked, or what
particular color palette was being used. It was a gory, desperate scene. Nevertheless,
as the years have unfolded since, the faithful have been drawn to express what
that event means by giving glory to God through stunning art and music. In each
we see or hear both the horror of human loss and tragedy, and also the beauty
of a God’s steadfast love. In each we will be offered a chance to come to terms
with our own human fragility, but also respond to the compassion of a God who
knows well how we are formed. Whether sound waves coming from guitar strings,
light shining through glass, words leaping from a page…they will be examples of
matter—stuff of the universe—arranged to show that on the cross we are saved.
They
will be arranged to display, that is, the heart of the matter: that we matter
to God’s heart.
Thanks
be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W.
Martin, Jr.
Phillip, this is a wonderful blog!!! I will stay tuned...
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