Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church
11:00 AM & 7:00 PM Ash Wednesday Services –
02/13/02
by Gregory S. Kaurin
Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development
Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
The
Sermon:
You’ve Got
a Little Somethin’ on Your Face, There
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Maybe you can already tell: I’m a marked man. It’s true.
Pastor Steve and I were talking about this recently—and I hadn’t
realized it, but it’s true and pervasive: there are all these marks around us
and on us. It could just about make a
person overwhelmed and paranoid.
I walk through my house, sit in my car, or my office,
and see all the marks. Other people’s
marks on things that I consider my own, people’s marks on me, claiming me as
their own, my marks on my own stuff.
Artists will sign their paintings and prints, and
while it speaks of some ownership of talent and ability, it also suggests to me
both responsibility and promise. People
will proudly wear on their clothes, or on their cars, the names, slogans, and
trademarks as moving advertisements for companies, sports teams, bands,
colleges, and sometimes even for country, churches, faith and God.
Marks—you’ll find me making my mark almost every day:
my signature, on checks and credit card slips—not just as proof of who I am,
but a promise that in exchange for whatever I received from them, they will
receive fair payment, or just work.
Hanging on our living room wall, you’ll see this
picture of Pauline and me. It’s
surrounded by a couple cross-stitches and off to the side is a “Welcome”
plaque. I think the message is meant to
be both a welcome to people who enter our house from the two of us, but also to
tell others and to remind Pauline and me about something we hold sacred in our
house.
Along those lines, I look at my left hand and find a
wedding band. (And because of a few
phone calls that I’ve received, and a couple people I’ve counseled, and with
Valentine’s Day tomorrow,) I feel compelled, and I ask you to please indulge me
this Ash Wednesday: let me pick up this tangent for just a minute.
This ring is sometimes jokingly called the “ol’ ball
and chain,” and is often thought of as Pauline’s claim on me. Actually, if I remember right, what she said
to me was, “Greg, I give you [GIVE you] this ring as a sign of my love
and faithfulness.” Give. The result is actually the opposite of that
joke—to treat it as a grudging burden, is to horribly ignore the deeper message
of this one person’s mark on me.
In turn she wears a commitment that I gave to her in which I did not actually lay any kind of claim on her. I promised to protect her dignity, her health, her life. I promised to give her a safe place without lies or threats to any of these things. Physically or emotionally.
Anytime and every time one person lifts a hand, or
even a voice in a way that threatens the safety or tears down the dignity of
the other, it is a threat and a tearing of those vows. Vows are not there to protect or hide abuse. They condemn it. It is precisely because marriage is sacred that certain behaviors
cannot be tolerated because they throw garbage on its sacredness.
To be clear that I am not just thinking this Ash
Wednesday about marriage and couples, the same actually goes for the spoken or
unspoken ties between parents & children—Christian to Christian—friend to
friend.
“Remember, O mortal that thou art dust, and to dust
thou shalt return.” Remember, O mortal,
that what you think you do in secret, your Father, who sees in secret knows—and
he knows deeply. He even knows the
things you do to abuse yourself. The
things done in the dark will be brought to light.
I am a marked man, living in a marked house, full of
promises and responsibilities. Even our
poor pets: our cat Tigger is delighted today, because I borrowed this from
him—his collar. (He’s delighted right
now, because he loves running around the house naked.) It has his name, the name of his owners, and
the address of the house to which he belongs.
And it has this wonderful little bell, so that when he gets the urge to
attack our feet in the middle of the night, Pauline and I have some
warning. But I don’t just see this
collar as our claim on Tigger, but our promise to adopt and care for one of the
little ones of creation.
In return, our house is clearly marked as a house
with animals. Our dog, Katy, has
clearly marked the perimeter of the back yard with the path of her daily
patrol. The cats have clearly marked
the scratching post—and a few chairs they feel belong to them. …And the hair, the hair, the hair: I know that, if we bundled all the hair
together, we’d have several new pets every week.
And you, each of us.
Whether or not you chose to put ashes on your forehead today, you have a
little somethin’ on your face, up above your nose and eyes: a mark. It’s God’s mark on you. What does it mean?
You, child of God, are marked by the cross and seled
by the Holy Spirit…Forever. It goes way
beyond just saying that God has laid a claim on you. It is his marriage band, given to you. It is God saying, “I give you this mark, as a sign of my love and
faithfulness, and not just until death do us part, but forever. I will not abandon you. I will be here to protect your dignity, to
love you, to forgive you, to give and protect your eternal life.”
How then, shall you and I wear this mark, that is
always there on our faces, our foreheads?
It’s not like a ring that can be removed when it suddenly becomes
inconvenient to our self-will and lust.
It is a mark that says that Christ always stands between you and
everyone you meet…between you and your neighbors, (including your nearest
neighbors.)
But how shall we wear it? Like a burden? “Take up
my cross,” Jesus said. “Put on my
yoke. But my yoke is easy. My burden light.” Because he already carries it.
It is a promise, it is his commitment to us.
How shall we wear it? With confidence. No, not
with a self-righteous, “I’m better than all these others.” That would demean it. That sounds like a fear that protests too
loudly.
Instead, we wear God’s mark, his promise to us, with
a confidence that assures us, and reminds us to respond, teaches us when to
speak, and when to listen, so we know what the other needs to hear. It is a mark that stands between us and the
world so that we will look at others, so that we will look at creation, and
even so that we will look in the mirror as though it is Jesus standing in
between us and whatever we see.
Then we will see and help the hurting, the lost,
those needing comfort, or laughter, or joy in their lives, or companionship,
those who need promises kept, or dignity protected, …or a word of eternal
hope. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.
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