Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
Last year for Ash Wednesday I proposed the idea that instead of focusing primarily on ourselves and our sinfulness for the whole 40 days of Lent, that perhaps we might instead do what Joel suggests. That we might instead “Call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast.” I suggested a year ago, that once gathered together, Lent could then be a time where each of us could really support one another in finding a balance during this season between self reflection and service to the world… a balance that God hopes for us all. It was a really good idea, if I do say so myself! Then, of course, four days later we had our last in person worship and we’ve been neither assembling nor gathering in-person ever since!
To gather, as Joel had suggested, became a challenge. It was a bumpy ride through that challenge, with glitches and gremlins along the way. But in spite of that, we really HAVE found ways to “gather our solemn assembly” and worship together, cry together, laugh together, serve together, and then bring kindness born in those assemblies, in new and creative ways, out into the larger world.
With livestream and Zoom and text groups and videos and meals and boxes of cookies we’ve been doing just what the prophet Joel suggested. Pulling our congregation together… the whole directory, young and old, lifelong members and newcomers, the solemn and the silly of our assembly. Joel KNEW that gathering was key to binding the wounds of the people in his congregation AND also key to creating a group of people ready to begin to repair the wounds of the world around them. Joel could never have imagined the ways we’ve found to do that this past year, but it’s made a real difference in our lives, in the lives of those who have joined us online from far away, and in the lives of our neighbors.
So assembling we’ve figured out. Glitches and gremlins are mostly… mostly… kept at bay these days. But NOW our challenge is how do we do ASH Wednesday… without the ASH? Isn’t ASH the point? That mark of ash mixed with olive oil, given with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Isn’t that the whole thing? It reminds us of our mortality and calls us to “Return to the Lord our God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” Ash seems key to “Ash Wednesday” doesn’t it? It’s even half of the name, for crying out loud!
But there’s more to oil and ash than just a reminder of our mortality. For over 5000 years, people in the Middle East have been mixing Olive Oil and wood ash for another purpose… to create soap. The same two ingredients found in Ash Wednesday ashes! So in the same spirit that helped us learn to “gather” without gathering to care for one another, THIS year I propose we still have Ash Wednesday… Including the ASH and the Olive Oil! But this year we have it in the form of soap. We will wash our hands, both to continue to keep the pandemic at bay, and then turning at least one of our daily hand washings with soap into a new Lenten discipline. A prayerful act of care for ourselves and our neighbors and a physical practice to connect us more deeply with God.
Joel had gathered his people because they were experiencing a “day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” They were living in a time the like of which he says, “has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.” In this past year, we too have learned how to gather our solemn assemblies in our own time of “thick darkness” using the technology that makes it both possible and safe to connect. Perhaps the soap we use to wash our hands purposely… consciously… prayerfully... each day in Lent… soap that in Jesus’ day was made, from ashes and olive oil, can serve as this year’s reminder of another sometimes forgotten aspect of the season of Lent… to connect more deeply with God, praying… “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
May your Lent’s gatherings in solemn assembly feed your heart, minds, and souls. May those assemblies strengthen you to bring compassion and kindness out into the world around us. May the soap you use each day this Lent, begin by cleansing your hands, but then in these forty days become a practice that moves you toward a clean heart as well. And through the rest of this pandemic and through the season of Lent, may you hold tight to the truth that our God is, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Amen.
Any soap will work just fine should you choose to take on this new Lenten Discipline. If you are curious about the ancient soap, still made in the Middle East the same way, here's a link to the soap I bought.
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