This evening, I want to ask you a question. It may seem like a silly question, but for a moment, please bear with me. Ask yourself whether you can really answer this question truthfully. Think before you answer. Look deep within your heart and discern what’s there before you respond. And the question is this: do you believe that you are loved by God? Before you laugh at my question, ponder it in your hearts like Mary. And ask yourself, in all truthfulness, whether you believe that you are loved by God.
It’s a fitting question to ask on Ash Wednesday, if not the most obvious one. On this day of fasting and penitence, we’re prepared to acknowledge what we think is wrong with us. We appropriately recall our sinfulness. We aspire to amendment of life, to go deep within ourselves over forty days, and to seek reconciliation with God and neighbor. The prophet Joel’s words call us to repentance. The apostle Paul asks us to be reconciled to God, no matter the cost. The evangelist Matthew challenges us to live authentically, not hypocritically, and to ensure that our pious actions are about a sincere change of heart and not mere public affirmation of piety.
But ensconced between those readings in today’s Mass, is a little pearl of wisdom about God, found in Psalm 103. It asks us, if indirectly, another surprising question, the question that I just posed to you. Do you really believe that you are loved by God?
I can’t speak for you, but I have a hunch. And my hunch is that many people don’t truly believe they are loved by God. Of course, they would never tell you this. And yet, I think that even some of the most faithful churchgoers don’t imagine they are worthy of God’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. And this is why they’re always trying to prove something. They try to earn their way into heaven. They criticize others for being sinners. They entrench themselves in fighting the culture to defend God from it. And many of these same people are precisely the ones who roll their eyes when we speak of God’s love. It sounds wish-washy and flabby, they say. Give us a muscular Christianity, they cry. Let’s talk about God’s wrath. Let’s talk about God’s condemnation. Let’s talk about all those who are destined for hell.
Here’s another hunch of mine: it’s that most people don’t need to be reminded of their sinfulness. They need to be reminded that they are unconditionally loved by God. I would guess that many people are all too aware of their sinfulness. They instinctively know their own proclivities to curse others, hold grudges, refuse to forgive themselves, and stew in envy of others’ gifts. But it stops there. They can’t move on to see that recognition of sinfulness is only the first step towards spiritual maturity. The next, most difficult step is to believe that God will forgive us, indeed that God wants to forgive us. Do you believe this?
Forgiveness comes with a price, and for many, it’s a price too expensive to pay. The price is that we try to live into freedom, rather than clinging to our own judgment, anger, and resentment. The price is that we commit ourselves to amendment of life. But most of us want to stay in Egypt when God is trying to bring us into the Promised Land.
Psalm 103 offers us some of the most beloved words in Scripture. They are repeated countless times throughout its pages, as if the various authors of Scripture knew that these words would be difficult to digest. Most people choke on them or spit them out, without realizing it. God is full of compassion and mercy. God is long-suffering, and of great goodness. God is not perpetually angry with us. God doesn’t deal with us solely on the terms of our sinfulness. The difference between God’s ways and our ways is as vast as the distance between the heavens and the earth, and between the east and the west. And above all, God knows whereof we are made. God remembers that we are but dust.
And thank God that he does remember we are but dust. That’s the sober reminder we hear this evening as ashes are imposed on our foreheads. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But could we take a cue from the psalms and say the same thing in another way? The psalms, after all, frequently make a statement, and then repeat the same statement in different words to emphasize a point. So, could we say the same thing about who we are but in a different way? Could we say it from God’s perspective? How about this? Remember that you are loved, and to Love you shall return.
Yes, that’s really what we need to hear. To say that we are loved brings us back to the beginning of creation, on that sixth day when God was still not satisfied after creating night and day, earth and sky, plants, and animals. God created humankind because God desired to be in relationship with us. God created us, stepped back, and smiled, and said, it is very good. There it is. We are loved, created in that gorgeous image of God.
Of course, it didn’t take long for humans to go astray, as we still do, but not always in the ways we think. To say we are dust is to admit that we are frail, sinful creatures. It’s to say that our hubris will come crashing down like the Tower of Babel. It’s to say that our programs and well-laid plans can always be changed on a dime by God. But to say we are dust is also to say that we are loved. We are shaped and molded in God’s beautiful image.
And to say that we shall return to dust is to acknowledge that we will all die one day. Could this be the most stubborn obstacle to accepting that we are loved by God? Are we willing to embrace the reality of our own impending death, which oddly enough opens into the clearest disclosure of God’s love for us? Yes, our bodies will be reduced to dust. But also because of the hope we have in Christ, one day, that dust will be raised again and transformed into glorified bodies that will never die. We shall return to Love himself, the One who formed us from dust and breathed his Spirit into us.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are loved, and to Love you shall return. Why would we resist saying the latter? I have a hunch about that, too. I suspect that to disparage too much talk of God’s love is an excuse to avoid accepting it because of the cost it requires.
We gain the satisfaction of power when we try to control who God is, when, in fact, we make God in our own image. Yes, we anthropomorphize God in many ways, but in the most dangerous way of all, God takes on our human mindset. God is the one who’s always angry and ready to smite the offender. God is the one who delights in consigning some to hell, because apparently they are not lovable enough to return to Love one day. God is the one who needs us to be offended for his sake when we think someone doesn’t have their theology right. God is the one who needs us to protect him by labeling others as heretics or demonizing all those we don’t think have it right. We usually want to make God much smaller than he is.[1] The temptation to reduce God to human dust is the proclivity of all of us who really can’t believe that God loves us and that we are worthy of God’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.
God is our judge. That’s true. But God is a merciful judge. God’s judgment is a gift that calls us to return to Love. Remember that you are loved, and to Love you shall return.
Today is not a day to become intoxicated with vengeance towards those we think deserve it. It’s not a day to bestow on God the jealousy, wrath, and anger that infect our own hearts. It’s not a day to be proud of our own orthodoxy. Today is the day to remember that God can take care of himself. God knows we are dust and that we shall return to dust one day. But this day of all days, God also desires that we recognize that, created from dust, we are loved, and although we shall return to dust one day, God will raise that dust up again. Because, in the end, we are more than dust. And if we can truly see ourselves through God’s eyes, one day we shall return to Love again.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2023
[1] To quote the late Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey.