Ash Wednesday - February 17, 2010

"Lord Have Mercy; Thanks Be To God"

The Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams

Our two most basic prayers as Christians are “Lord, have mercy” and “Thanks be to God.” All of us can and should say those two prayers every day. They are short, easily memorized, and they cover the basic landscape! “Lord, have mercy.” “Thanks be to God.”

When we have fallen short, when “we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done,” we can do more than curse, or bewail our bad luck, or worse yet, shrug as if it does not make any difference. We can ask God’s forgiveness. We can take responsibility for our actions, know that they make a difference to God and to others, realize that we cannot simply absolve ourselves from guilt, and ask God’s forgiveness. Like every other gift we depend on to live fully and humanly – oxygen, nourishment, sunshine, sleep, friendship, education, vocation, faith, we cannot give ourselves this basic human need, this regular diet of forgiveness. We can only ask for it: “Lord, have mercy.”

But God can and does give it to us. God reaches out to us with arms of compassion and eyes of love and offers us forgiveness. Before we even know that we need it, God invites us home. “Return to me with all your heart,” says the Lord. “Return to the Lord, your God,” echoes his prophet, Joel, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” God does not keep track of our wrongs or define us by them. “As far as the east is from the west,” Psalm 103 assures us, “so far has he removed our sins from us. As a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him.” And we fear him, not simply because of what God might do to us, but because, knowing God’s great love for us, we want to return that love and honor and please God with our decisions and actions.

We want to, but often we do not. We are human and we stumble and fall, in ways large and small. Ash Wednesday reminds us of that reality. Its liturgy affords us a chance to experience our need through the imposition of the ashes, a symbol of the lifelessness we seem to choose. In the Litany of Penitence, the service articulates a communal way to recognize our constant need for forgiveness. Ash Wednesday offers us a chance to pray together our fundamental prayer: “Lord, have mercy.”

But that prayer can never be separated from its basic counterpart: “Thanks be to God.” By asking God’s mercy, we lift our eyes away from preoccupation with ourselves and focus on the God who seeks us, who invites us in, who offers us forgiveness before we even ask. We do not ask without confidence; we do not seek without hope. Rather, encouraged by God’s assurance and emboldened by God’s promise, we open ourselves to the Divine transforming love and compassion. Knowing our need we pray, “Lord, have mercy.” Trusting in God’s love, we also pray in accepting gratitude, “Thanks be to God.”

On this first day of our Lenten journey, a journey that will take us with Jesus into the desert and on to the cross waiting in Jerusalem, we go forward with humility and with trust. Not alone do we travel, but with God and with each other. Not armed and fortified with all our usual protections, but stripped and ready to move where the journey may take us. The only provisions we take with us are our two basic prayers, “Lord, have mercy,” and “Thanks be to God.”