Last night for our Ash Wednesday service I used a new piece of pottery a young child made for me. The artwork was a beautiful white and gold representing Christ’s majesty and perfection. It’s size and shape made it perfect for holding ashes. This morning when I cleaned the dish, I noticed that the ashes had seeped into the small cracks inside the bottom of the cup. The imperfections now clearly are noticeable, but this neither diminishes it’s beauty or purpose.After hearing of yet another school shooting, I couldn’t start my “to do” list as if it was a normal Thursday. I just spent time staring at the pottery thinking about the soul-disturbing picture of a mother who returned from receiving ashes to hold a child sobbing beyond her own body could support. Was she embracing her own child? Were they consoling each other over a lost son or daughter or friend?
Ashes to ashes…dust to dust…
Ash Wednesday reminds us of our broken humanness, the cracks in what could be a beautiful piece of God’s handiwork. God’s grace holds the fissures together, but they are still there. Sometimes the cracks in the pottery are so large that the pottery can no longer be a vessel for anything. Averaging more than 2 school shootings a day so far this year is a crack too large to ignore. “Thoughts and prayers,” albeit well intentioned, has become as impotent as our holy imagination to recognize that this reality doesn’t have to be.
We have an addiction. Have you ever tried to intervene with an addict? Suggesting that someone has had one too many sounds to them like they aren’t valued, like you are going to take every whiskey bottle on store shelves and pour it down the drain. They become angry. They blame. They tell you mind your own business because they are not a child.
There is a great crack in our jars of clay, and the grace needed to forgive those who ignore our addiction is seeping away like water in a cracked cistern (Jeremiah 2:13).
I am well aware that our salvation is not won by elected officials, but I pray they have the courage to throw away the 30 pieces of silver some have been offered before any more blood is spilled.
If you don’t want to hear this from a United Methodist pastor, then hear me as a constituent. If you can’t hear me as a constituent, then hear me as an American citizen. If you can’t hear me as a citizen, then hear me as a father who last night wept when I placed ashes on my young daughter’s forehead telling her in the tradition of the church that one day she will return to the dust of the earth…as will you.