A Meditation that will be given by Rev. Christine Ng today based on John 8:1-11: "Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’"
“Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Those are the traditional words of Ash Wednesday. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.
It’s a strange kind of holiday, isn’t it? Ash Wednesday. No pleasant greeting cards. No beautiful decorations or favorite songs. No festive parties or fancy clothes or wonderful food – that was last night if you celebrated Marti Gras or Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday is more like the morning after.
Plain. Stark. Painful perhaps. With images of ashes and the reminder of death. “You are dust, and to dust you will return.”
Dust. Earth. Holy ground. You are.
It is one of the beautiful paradoxes of this day, that as we are reminded of our own death, and brokenness, we are also reminded of our connection, our relationship, to each other, to all God’s creation, to God.
The cross of ashes on our foreheads mark us all – rich and poor; famous, infamous, homeless; whatever our skin color, whatever our past, whatever . . . today we are just another person with a smudge of dust on our head, but connected in this act to all those around us with dirty foreheads. Because we are all human, all broken, and one day, all of us will die. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
The ashes, the dust, connects us also to the earth from which it came. And to all of the earth, and its creatures, we are related. We share with the earth the very elements of life. Out of those elements we were created, it is the very stuff of life, and of death. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We are part of something bigger than ourselves – we are part of all God’s creation – and part of the cycle of life, death, renewal that is all around us. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
But this dust, this earth, it is holy ground. And as it is put on us we are reminded that so are we. Holy Ground. Beloved by God. The sign made with the ashes is the sign of the cross. A reminder of our relationship to God. A reminder of God’s love. A reminder of death, but also that death does not have the last word.
Because for all it’s imagery and reminders of death, this isn’t a holiday, this holy day, isn’t about death – it’s about life. As we are reminded, confronted even, by our own mortality, the fact of our own death, we are called to live to the fullest the life between now and then. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But now – right now, you are wonderfully, gloriously alive. It’s a gift. A blessing. How will you live it?
I love the way Joan Chittister put it: “Lent is a call to weep for what we could have been and are not. Lent is the grace to grieve for what we should have done and did not. Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not. Lent is not about penance. Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us, right now. Lent is a summons to live anew.”
And Ash Wednesday, as the ashes are placed in a cross on our forehead, is when it begins. A moment cut out of time – a moment of grace, when we can know ourselves, know our own brokenness, know the brokenness of others, and know we are all forgiven, blessed, beloved. And a moment when we can recommit to living whatever time we have left as the children of God we were created to be.
Ash Wednesday is a moment when we hit rock bottom – the place where we can go no further down – down the road to despair, down the road of brokenness. Rock bottom can be a hard, painful place to be – but it is also a good place to turn around – to begin taking the paths that lead to healing, reconciliation, grace.
The woman accused of adultery in tonight’s scripture reading was at rock bottom. Almost literally – as she was about to be stoned to death. And Jesus didn’t judge her. Instead, he stooped down – placing himself on her level – or perhaps even lower depending on whether you see her fallen on the ground or standing before him – different translations describe this a little differently. But either way, Jesus wasn’t standing over her in judgment, but bending down to write on the ground, on the earth.
Why did he do that? What did he write? And he did it not once, but twice. The text doesn’t say. But I have my own midrash on this story – I like to think that the first time he wrote of the woman: “Beloved. Blessed.” But the scribes and Pharisees, who should have been able to read it, still didn’t get it, so Jesus said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Then Jesus bent down again to write in the dust of the earth. I imagine he wrote: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” A quote from the Hebrew Bible, the scribes and Pharisees would have known very well. In that moment, the men who would have condemned the woman for her sin, for her brokenness. In that moment, those men were united with her in glimpsing their own mortality, in knowing and confessing publically by their actions, their own sin, their own brokenness.
For the woman in this story, this was a moment of grace, of acceptance, of forgiveness, of healing. A moment when she was given the opportunity to turn around and live life anew. She hit rock bottom, but Jesus lifted her up, set her on a new path.
But this was just as much a moment of grace for the men who would have stoned her. And so, holding in their hands the rocks and stones they would have used to do harm, to kill, they hit rock bottom themselves. And one by one, they turned around, they walked away – and I like to think they took the rocks and stones with them.
I wonder what they felt, as they held those rocks in their hands? Because even rocks, no matter how hard, or smooth, with the passage of time, become dust themselves. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Did the rocks remind them of their own mortality – how close they came touching death that day? And did that reminder make them see that they did not want to live the time they had left, however long or short, as instruments of pain or death?
Did that small piece of earth, broken off from the land, remind them of the glimpse they had of their own brokenness, and their choice to turn around and take a path of life, of reconciliation? Or perhaps, did it remind them of the words I imagine Jesus wrote in the dust of the earth, “Beloved, blessed,” and know that those words applied both to the woman, and to them? As they apply to us all. Did they see in the rocks their own experience of grace, of forgiveness not only for what they had done, but for what they were about to do? An experience of unconditional love. An experience that changed everything.
This is a day about ashes and stones, death, and life. A time when we can feel ourselves hit rock bottom, and know that God is there, God is with us. But rock bottom may be painful or hard, but it’s a good place to turn around, mark that from this point forward, and for as long as we live, we will take a different path – a path illuminated by God’s grace. It begins now. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” And you are held in love of God in the space in between. Amen.
