When I was younger, I would pull out a map when I needed to go somewhere. First, I looked for where I was. Then I would look for where I wanted to be. Then I would map out my route. Then a few years later ... I found mapquest. Then I had to know where I was by address and the address where I wanted to be and mapquest mapped out my journey for me. Well, just a few months ago I got a GPS ... a global positioning system. I still have to know where I am and where I want to be, but the lovely GPS lady tells me where I am and tell me every move to make on my way to where I want to be! Well, traveling from one place to another has gotten a whole lot easier ... BUT ... you still need to know where you start in order to get where you are going.
As we begin our journey through the season of lent, we orient ourselves on Ash Wednesday.
Who are we? We are dust … we are nothing ... but dust!
Perhaps dust has no value in the eyes of the world. In the world, your value is measured by what you do, how much you produce, how beautiful you are, what kind of car you drive or what kind of house you live in, how smart you are … OR how smart your kids are! This is not the kind of value I am talking about …This is value the way the world sees it …
In Matthew 6:6 Jesus says, "whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
Regarding our spiritual life, Jesus tells us it is what you don’t see that is valuable … God sees “in secret” God sees what no one else sees … God sees who you really are … God loves you in spite of that … God loves you because of that … God sees the man or the woman that you were created to be from the dust … and in God’s eyes, even the dust has value … Because the dust has value … you have value!
The problem comes when we buy into the world’s view of value and we put a relative value on people, including ourselves. We fall short when we fail to value people in the way God values people … we fall short when we begin to see people as commodities to be used and abused for our own good. When we fail to value people the way God values people we fail to value God … this is when we tumble into sin … only by spending time with God in the secret can we begin to see what God sees, to value what God values and only by spending time with God in the secret can we come to love God above all other things and to love others as we love ourselves. Only by spending time with God in the secret can we begin to see what sin truly is and how it destroys our lives and the lives of others.
And the good news is that when we seek God’s forgiveness in Christ … we are forgiven. And we begin again. There is something very cyclical about the spiritual life … we live in an almost never-ending cycle of endings and beginnings. Today is Ash Wednesday. It is a beginning … the beginning of Lent … a time of self-reflection and spiritual formation.
Are you ready to take your Lenten journey? Well, pick up a map ... we need to know where are we!
I am dust and to dust I will return.
Dear ones ... remember who you are … you are dust, and to dust you will return ... Amen.
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