Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2: 12-18; Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 5:20–6:20; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

“return to me…with your whole heart…”

There are many shades to returning.

Dorothy realizes she is home from Technicolor Oz back to sepia coloured Kansas. Her journey away from home has changed her. Dorothy encountered new and strange companions, fought evil, found strengths within herself she did not know she had and experienced worlds so different from hers. What was returning like for Dorothy?

What about the woman caught in adultery? She experienced a roller coaster of an emotional ride going from shame and the fear of being stoned to death to acceptance by this stranger who protected her. Jesus picked her up and dusted her off and sent her home; but home to what? Her husband? An empty house? Was there anyone there to welcome her? What was returning like for this woman?

After the Trojan wars, Odysseus spent ten years trying to get back home to his wife, Penelope and son, Telemachus. What did he encounter? A son he may not have recognized because he had become a man in his absence? A wife who each day sewed a shroud to keep suitors a bay while at night unraveling it in hope of her husband’s return. How had the family changed over the years and what was Odysseus’ return like for each of them?

There are the two sons, one of them returns expecting to be treated as a hired hand not a son. What was returning like for this son as he rehearsed his spiel all the way home? His older brother, though he physically never left home was emotionally distant. He seemingly never does choose to return home.

We leave home for many reasons; some necessary, some reasons are rooted in anger and defiance. Some of us leave home because we are looking for something, though often not sure of what that is. We think we need something that will satisfy a yearning within us but it never does. We realize we are still unhappy and empty. But like that younger son we all leave at some point.

Why have each of us left the presence of God?

We’ve changed in our absence. Things will not be quite the same. They weren’t for Dorothy or Odysseus, the woman or those brothers.

But returning home is a choice.

How will you and I respond to God’s invitation to return home?