Ashes and Grape Juice Mustaches

This week we began our season of Lent. The cloths (paraments) in the sanctuary turned purple, our eyes turn toward the heavier and harder parts of the cross and we actively, intentionally turn toward God.  We re-turn to our relationship with our faith and our footsteps through crucifixion and then to resurrection. Lent has a more somber tone and congregations have a more serious face about worship, work and witness.  Lent is intense!

And it should be. 

We are getting ready to take on the deepest parts of the Christian story.

Ash Wednesday sets us on the path, and you can’t get much more intense then the examination of our mortality and the reckoning of our own death. And we ash one another with the sign of the cross and speak the words, “Beloved Child of God, remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We are a holy, earthly, smudgy people. And marked with the ash is a very real ritual that reminds us that every day is a gift, every turn in our faith journey is a powerful moment of awe.

And I was in awe every moment of Ash Wednesday. Two services of prayer, people, music, communion, and clay all grounded in the ashes of the burned palms of last year’s Palm Sunday.  A day when we waved them as Jesus came into Jerusalem and shouted Hosanna!  Hosanna!  An exclamation that means “Save us!”   The ashes are messy and with good anointing oils mixed in.  The world is messy and yet there are good things mixed in. 

As I looked upon the marked faces and foreheads of the noon time worshippers I deeply felt and deeply saw the brave in the face of messy and I could feel the shift of the season begin to fill the sanctuary.

The palm trees had returned to the sanctuary, and they were waving us on towards Jerusalem. We were re- turning. I could feel it and it was a smudgy blessing.

The moments before the second service at 7PM, I held my breath to see if anyone would join us. Mark, my husband, was at the door and Sandy, our lead deacon for the evening, was offering beautiful music but only the palm trees filled the space with us.

And then a few and then a few more entered the time of ash and oil, communion and clay.

A beautiful not quite one year old joined in the sacred night with her parents and it took my breath away to witness her being marked with the reminder of mortality. Watching her parents bring her forth to be blessed with the cross of ash.  Her laughter and smile, given right to me was a reminder that in a smudgy and messy world, we are a resurrection people, and we rise. We live!  Fragility and resilience all in the face of the beloved child and my heart held the hope our faith story offers us.

And then because our faith story gives us the meal of communion, we shared the grain and grape together. And 5-year-old Daniel helped to serve the elements. Ash upon his head, plate of broken bread in his hands, he was solemn and serious as he shared the holy meal and we were all fed.  At the end of serving, much to his surprise and astonishment, I offered him the juice from the chalice, rather than the small serving cup he was used to. 

His eyes glistened with shock and awe and I had to convince him he was worthy, that he was worth it.  I had to encourage him to take the chalice in his small hands and to take a drink from the cup of the covenant.  He turned to face me at the front of the sanctuary and lifted the vessel and drank. And then drank some more.  He kept drinking until he had taken in all the cup had to offer. He tipped it with vigor to his lips and the rest of us looked on, witnessing the holiness. He emptied the chalice! He returned it to me and gave me a smile and said, “ Thank you, Pastor Beth.”

Then it was my turn for shock and awe.  He had the biggest grape juice smile mustache I had ever seen and somehow, it matched his cross of forehead ashes perfectly.  It was breathtaking.  The joy mixed with the intensity of the night, cup of blessing poured over the smudge of mortality.  I saw it so clearly all on his face.

In this season of turning, I turned him towards the tenderly gathered community, so all of us could see his face, his smile outlined in holy juice.  The congregation joined me in the joy.

We all saw it.  Smudged and sweet.  

Holy life.

“Thank you.” said Daniel again after worship had ended as he came back up to the communion table where the ashes were.

Could I have some more? My cross rubbed off.  Could I have it again?

So Karin, a new church member who has heard a call to study to serve God’s people, blessed and marked him with the smudgy blessing, one more time.

He put his hand to the cross on his forehead, still unaware of his grape smudge smile.

“Thank you, I just never want to forget it, Pastor Beth.”

He turned and joined his family and returned to the world.

Worthy and worth it all.

Lent is intense, isn’t it friends?

Let’s experience it together.