Ash Wednesday

February 14, 2024

Broadway Christian Church

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Psalm 51

The story is told about two boys from different church backgrounds.  One boy said to the other, “What’s that black stuff on your forehead?”

“Ashes.  Got ‘em at church today.”

“Ashes on the forehead?  We don’t do that in our church.”

“Oh, well it’s part of our Ash Wednesday Service.”

“Church on Wednesday?  We don’t do that in our church.”

“Well, it has to do with the beginning of the season of Lent.”

“Season of Lent?  We don’t do that in our church.”

“It has to do with repenting.”

“Repenting?  We don’t do that in our church.”

I hope I can say about repentance, “We do that in our church.”  Lent, after all, is a season of repentance or, in the root meaning of the word: turning.   In 1965, The folk-rock band The Byrds turned a Pete Seeger song based on Ecclesiastes 3 into a #1 hit: “To everything, Turn! Turn! Turn!  There is a season, Turn! Turn! Turn!  And a time for every purpose under heaven.” Lent is a season of 40 days with turning - repentance - at its heart. 

Having said that, you and I know that whereas as “Turn! Turn! Turn!” went to the top of the charts, if the same song was titled “Repent! Repent! Repent!” it would have sunk like a stone without any airplay. Why? Because “repent” is one of the words in our vocabulary of faith that needs to be redeemed.  When many people hear the word repent, what comes to their minds is a red-faced preacher spanking a leather-bound Bible, smoke coming from his nostrils and snarling “Turn or burn!” which turns a good biblical word into a weapon when, on Jesus’ lips, it’s an invitation to new life: “Repent,” says Jesus when he commences his ministry, “and believe in the good news.”  

Repentance – biblically-speaking and Jesus-speaking – is a good word.  The word translated repentance is metanoia, a 180° about face. A turning.  Turning to God and God’s ways or turning back to God and God’s ways. Turning to certain others or a returning to them.  Turning to your best self and your better angels or returning to them. Turn!  Turn!  Turn!  Repent – metanoia – is a beautiful word kin to our word metamorphosis – turning from a caterpillar into a butterfly. Repentance is a good thing. A change for the good. A turn for the better. 

Speaking of a turn for the better, Psalm 51, from which Kristi played our Prelude “Create in me a clean heart” is a psalm of repentance.  In my Bible, there is a notation above the Psalm that reads: A Psalm of David when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. 

Do you remember that encounter between David and Nathan?  It took place not long after David had broken commandments 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.  He broke number 10 by coveting his neighbor Uriah’s wife Bathsheba whom he saw sun-bathing on the rooftop.  He broke number 7 when he committed adultery with her.  Number 9 about false witness went down the tubes with the lies and deceit he wove into an elaborate cover-up to try and elude responsibility for the pregnancy that eventuated from the affair.  He broke number 6 when he arranged to have Bathsheba’s husband killed.  Down went #8 when he stole Bathsheba to be his own wife.  

So what did the Lord do?  “The Lord sent Nathan to David” (2 Samuel 12:1).  Nathan, the palace chaplain, paid a visit to the King. What does the Lord do to the person who shattered the entire second tablet of the Ten Commandments in one fell swoop?  Wring him by the neck?  Publicly humiliate him?  Take his crown off, “crown” him, pull the throne out from under him, and kick his royal heinie back to Bethlehem?  That might be what we’re inclined to do, but that’s not what God did.  What’s it say to you that God’s first impulse toward a wayward human being is not to inflict punishment, but to evoke repentance?

Which reminds me how our nation’s prison system was begun by – guess who? –Christians. The Quakers back in the late-1700s built prisons for the purpose of doing what to guilty offenders?  Punish them for their crimes?  No, the primary purpose was to lead them to repentance — a change of heart and life.  As such, they called them penitentiaries.  God’s first desire for wayward human beings is not that we be adequately punished but that we thoroughly repent. Turn around.  Turn to the good. So it was the Lord sent Nathan to David. 

Which raises a question: Who are the Nathans in your life?  I’m convinced God doesn’t leave us to our own devices but sends interventionists to call us back. Nathans try to get our attention, try to wake us up. Nathans try to save us from ourselves. Do you have any friends – Nathans or Natalies – who love you enough to caringly confront you from time to time? 

Which raises a further question: How are you at receiving constructive criticism? I’m not talking about how you are at receiving destructive criticism.  None of us likes to be critiqued by people whose only desire is to criticize.  I warn the young pastors I work with about “pew snipers.”  I’m asking how you respond when a Nathan confronts you.       

A)  Do you get defensive?  “Leave me alone.  It’s none of your business”       

B)  Do you make excuses?  Shift the blame?  Rationalize.  A wise elder at our church in AZ asked me, “David, do you know what it means to rationalize misbehavior? Just how it sounds: rational lies.  Lies you tell yourself and others to try to explain away your wrong.”   

C)  Do you refuse comment?  “I’m not talking about it.” 

D)  Do you get angry and take it out on somebody else or a wall or the dog?   

E)  Some people seem to be utterly clueless about the seriousness of what they’ve done or the harm their actions caused others. “Huh? What’s the big deal?”     

F)  Do you hear in your personal Nathan’s words God’s Word to you, acknowledge the error of your ways, apologize, make reparation if possible, and repent. Turn. Vow to change.    

David answered F and got an A.  He said simply, “I have sinned” and there began his salvation: 

“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love…
For I know my transgressions,
Against you, you only, have I sinned”

You know what? David might shown courage in standing up to Goliath as a mere boy, but that pales in comparison to the courage he drew upon to say those words as a man:  “I was wrong.”  My bad.  David fought many a battle, overcame many a foe, but he fought no greater battle than the one he had to fight versus his own stubborn pride in order to be able to admit, “I’ve sinned.  I’m sorry.”

I have male Shirey DNA which predispose me, among other things, to poker straight hair, graying from the sideburns up and then losing it from the top down, and an immunity from making mistakes.  It's a wonderful inheritance.  My father and my grandfather were never wrong.  It was always my grandmother, my mother, or us kids.  Not Dad or Grandpa. I inherited that Shirey male immunity from mistakes.  I tell you-- it simplifies life so much when you're the way we Shirey men are -- because when you're never wrong, you never have to admit it.  You never have to apologize or ask for forgiveness or any of that stuff.  In a word, you never have to repent.  You get a bye through the whole season of Lent!  But David, thanks to having a Nathan who loved him enough to call him out, was able to confess, apologize, make things right, start living right.  He repented.  He turned, turned, turned and it made all the difference.      

And the capacity to stop and turn – turn around, turn back – still makes all the difference.  This being Valentine’s Day, I remember the day after Jennie and I were married.  We were on our honeymoon trip – on our way to a little lodge up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and I got lost.  Really lost.  But I wasn't tellin’.  Or admitting to it. 

"You know where you're going?" Jennie asked. 

"Yep." 

"You sure?" she asked. 

"Positive." 

"I get a little nervous when we get off the paved roads"  

"Then read a book or something." 

"Should we maybe stop and ask for directions?" 

"Nope.  I can find my way on my own." 

Then she said, "I think you're lost and you're taking me right along with you.  Admit it.  You need to stop and ask for help."  (Did I tell you Jennie’s maiden name was Nathan?)

I didn’t stop.  There followed a stony silence for several more miles.  Finally, I pulled the car over.  I put it in park.  I took a deep breath.  Then I threw my hands up and said, "All right. I admit it.  I'm lost. I need help … I’m sorry." 

Tonight I can be honest with you.  Just admitting that much took a load off my shoulders.  And when I turned the car around and pulled into the little country store where I swallowed my pride and asked for help and received the directions that put us back out on the right road heading in the right direction, I felt a whole lot better. 

What was it that set me on the right path headed in the right direction and preserved a relationship?  Turning the car around.  The word is repentance. 

We were up in the Shenandoah Valley several years ago and we happened to drive by the same area where forty years ago we had had our honeymoon incident.  I had half a notion to look for that place in the road where I finally stopped, apologized, and turned around.  I wanted to get out and put a monument that reads: 

Lost?  Need help?  Sinned?  Sorry?

Good News!

This is a good place to turn around.

Come to think of it, a marker like that belongs in front of every church on Ash Wednesday.  Can you see it out there on Broadway?  A marker that says: 

Lost?  Need help? Sinned?  Sorry?

Good News!

This is a good place to turn in. 

For everything Turn, Turn, Turn.  There is a season  Turn, Turn, Turn.  The season for turning – repenting – is Lent. 

We do that in our church. 

AMEN.