How many miles have you traveled in the last twenty-four hours? The truth is we’ve all traveled far more than we think. We’ve each traveled around 13,000 miles just due to the spin of the earth on its axis. And on top of that we’ve all traveled another 800,000 miles on our yearly revolution around the sun. We could go on calculating how far our solar system has traveled through our galaxy and how far our galaxy (the Milky Way) has traveled through the universe. If you feel tired, now you know why!
When we stop and think about it, much of life is just like that. We move through our days and our familiar routines oblivious at the deepest level to where we are and where we’re ultimately going.
This awesome universe in which we live, move, and have our being is always in motion. Nothing in the universe is permanent. We hold these fragile lives—these earthen vessels as the Bible reminds us—only for a brief span. “We are dust and to dust we shall return.” That ancient church saying is both accurate and shocking. We take no comfort in knowing that we are dust. We like to think we are more than the mere dust from which all planets and stars have also been formed and from which we each have come.
We are all stardust, and that realization grants us the necessary humility, attention, and belonging we need. But it’s also critical that we get our bearings and remember not only where we’ve been but also that we chart a wise and helpful course as we decide where we are going. But most of us rarely think about this vital part of our lives. Just like we are spinning through space at astronomical speeds with no awareness that such is happening, so we go through much of life with little thought of the content, direction, and purpose of our days on this earth. And one day we wake up and realize that 60/70/80/90 years have gone by. I am reminded of Tevye’s song “Sunrise, Sunset” when he thinks about his daughters who just yesterday were playing with dolls and today are falling in love and preparing to leave home. (The older I become the more that song tugs at my heart.) We all think that some day we’ll get around to what ultimately matters. But the days pass into weeks and the weeks into months and the months into years and the years into decades, and before we know it our time on this earth is gone.
Lent can be a time when we decide what to do with the days that are ours—a time when we can stop, take inventory, dream, change (which is what the word “repent” really means), and live “my” life (as Jesus invites Matthew at the tax table to do in that marvelous movie “The Cotton Patch Gospel”). We can choose to live an abundant, fulfilling, sacred, loving, joyful life so that when we do return to dust, our presence will have mattered on this earth.
Through the discipline of Lent we can “turn it around.” We can commit ourselves to discovering afresh the way of Jesus Christ. We can stop the rat race and our monotonous routine and ask what it truly means to be loved by God, to be a child of God, and to be called by Jesus to follow him in ways that are unique to us and which correspond to who we are at our deepest level. No other person who has ever lived on this planet has been exactly like you. No other person alive today is exactly like you are. And no person who will live after you are gone will be exactly like you. We are each a “one of a kind.” Wouldn’t it be a shame not to discover who you really are as you partner with your Maker in the singular journey that belongs to you and you alone?
Many churches have an Ash Wednesday service. People are invited to come forward and receive the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Traditionally the ashes used to make that sign come from the palm branches that were used on Palm Sunday the previous year. The ashes from those palms reminds us that the people who waved them two thousand years ago expected one kind of Messiah. But God sent another kind and most people missed it. They could not see the truth in the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the teachings about loving one’s enemies and necessity of peace, the revelation that the primary characteristic of God is compassion, and loving God with all their hearts, minds, souls, and strength and their neighbors as themselves. They couldn’t look at the wildflowers and the birds of the air and learn their place in God Kingdom and in God’s heart. They were too busy with their agendas, their schedules, their prejudices, and their own ways to notice the way that leads to authentic and abundant life.
Life is good but far too short to be squandered in any shallow or inattentive way. Lent grants us the time to stop and see the wildflowers—to stop and hear God’s voice—to stop and “turn it around.” So, as long as we are speeding through this universe and through our lives, why not aim high? Why not aim, with all our will and power, for God? For greater than the truth that we are from dust and to dust we shall return is the truth that we are from God and to God we shall return. And what kind account of our days on this earth shall we bring at that homecoming? With that question I’m not talking about any “judgment” from God we may face in the future. I’m talking about what judgment we will make of ourselves when we see unfiltered the life we have chosen to live. Lent allows us the opportunity to chart a good course right now while we still have breath.
(In this article I mentioned the movie “The Cotton Patch Gospel.” This is a musical written by Harry Chapin based on Clarence Jordan’s translations of the Gospels of Matthew and John. I have used this movie with many groups of all ages. If you are not familiar with Jordan please do yourself the favor of discovering his life, writings, sermons, and legacy. He was one of the greatest saints of the twentieth century and was a determined follower of Jesus. But I will warn you. If you take his example and teachings seriously you will never be the same as you were before you discovered him. You will “turn it around.”)
