WORSHIP

Selected Sermons

“Imposition”
By Rev. Mary Louise McCullough
Ash Wednesday - February 6 , 2008

There is an ancient Islamic story about Jesus that goes like this:

 Jesus struck the ground with his hand and took up some of it and spread it out, and behold, he had gold in one of his hands and clay in the other. Then he said to his companions, “Which of these is sweeter to your hearts?”  They said, “The gold.” He said, “They are both alike to me.” 1

 When we say we come from the earth, or from dust, when we say, to dust we shall return, we easily forget that God created the earth as gold, as fine clay, as star dust bearing gold. We were created not as lowly creatures – lowliness is a creation of the human heart  – we were created in the image of God,  with consciousness, a will, a yearning that brings us back to God.

 When God created us from the elements which form creation, it was to magnify the divine nature. We were created in love, in the image of our Creator.

To enter into this time of the imposition of ashes is to remember that we are flesh – clay, gold -- and that we have within us the divine spark of creation, the divine spark that is eternity.

It is to also remember how much we depend upon our Creator to live in a way that fully embraces and honors this nature. On our own, we become like ashes that disappear in the smoke of a fire. But in the light of our Creator, we are the embers that glow and warm the world. We are the clay shaped by our Creator, the gold hidden until the time is ripe and we begin to shine.

Ash Wednesday is a time to embrace and be thankful for our utter dependence upon a God so brilliant, so creative that we fall short of understanding and yet we are invited always, to walk beside the One who was not understood or recognized by the world, but whose life gave life to the world. We are here because of that One. Let us welcome the imposition of his life on ours. Let us welcome the frailty that we deny so that we might truly share his life.

Copyright 2008 Mary Louise McCullough

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 1 Dale Allison, The Luminous Dusk