Homily for Ash Wednesday (John 8:1-11)

Homily for Ash Wednesday (John 8:1-11)
Originally given 22 February 2023 at St. Alban’s Church, Coventry

I recently read about a common Christian confusion between optimism and hope. Optimism is saying everything will be okay despite all your struggles, that your struggles will make you stronger. Hope is recognising that regardless of your struggles or triumphs, you will one day return to dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It’s not a very cheerful concept, recognising our mortality, but it’s important that we do so. We are not immortal. We are not God. We are but dust.

In a few moments, when you come up to receive the ashes on your forehead I will say to you, ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’ On this day, we remember our fleeting presence on this earth, and we are reminded how we should use that time – ‘turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

Some things are easier said than done. All of us struggle at times to turn away from sin. And even if we try to avoid personal sin, we are surrounded by corporate, systemic sin in the form of unjust structures enabling sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, and all other forms of prejudice. It can feel overwhelming when we consider we are part of an entire system that is broken. 

But although it can feel overwhelming to look at the whole picture, we can still make a difference by looking at one piece at a time. One small act of justice. One embrace with a grieving friend. One piece of rubbish picked up off the street. One kind word to the person checking our groceries. In the Gospel, one by one, each individual person reflected on their own sins and walked away. They were individuals, but with their single action, the woman was saved from being stoned.

Everyday we are given the opportunity to take a single action that causes a ripple of difference. The other day Reverend Zoe reminded me of the starfish story. For those not familiar with the story, it’s about a young girl walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. Then a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!” So the little girl bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied, ‘I made a difference for that one.’

Everyday we are surrounded by starfish waiting for us to make a difference for them in our small actions. Everyday we have the chance to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ in our actions. Because there will come a day when we will no longer be able to act, when we will once again turn to dust. We are but mere mortals. But our actions of mercy, justice, and Christian love are immortal and will change the world. 

So look with hope to the future in which we are all again dust, but the legacy of the Gospel lives on.

On Genesis 8-11

After the flood, the waters began to recede and Noah, his family and the animals that had been living in the ark went back out into the Earth to repopulate it. Noah then offered a burnt offering to please God. Burnt offerings seem a bit crude to me as a Christian. Animal sacrifice is something people did in the Old Testament to atone for their sins. With the new covenant and the death of Christ, Christians no longer sacrifice animals since Christ was the sacrifice for all our sins. Thus, this is a point in the Old Testament that I find to be archaic from a Christian standpoint.

In chapter 9, a lot of things are established. God says all the beasts will fear man, we cannot eat each other, whoever kills a man should be killed by man and He created a rainbow as a promise that He’ll never destroy the Earth by flood again. So, in this chapter God gave human permission to kill animals for food. Unfortunately, modern people rarely hunt to eat, but instead hunt for pleasure or “sport”. After reading this verse, I don’t think God would fully approve of the modern version of hunting as He established it as a means of survival. He also forbids cannibalism and establishes what has developed into the death penalty, stating that if a person kills someone, that person should be killed. I find this to be challenging to understand, seeing as he was comparably soft on Cain, who killed his brother, Abel. Additionally, it is hard to understand alongside the teachings of Christ…but I’ll talk about that more when we get to the New Testament. For now, I’ll just add this to the list of things that seem to be archaic. Ending on a much happier note, it’s nice to know when we see a rainbow it’s because of God’s promise to us.

The chapter ends with the story of Noah’s drunkeness and Noah cursing his grandson, Canaan, the son of his youngest son, Ham. Noah may have overreacted a bit, but of course he is a drunkard, so it’s hard to expect logical thought from him. However, the reason he punishes Ham is because of the disrespect Ham showed by telling the other two sons about Noah’s nakedness. Ham should have respectfully covered his father just as the other two sons did, instead of leaving his father and gossiping to his brothers. This establishes the importance of respecting our elders. The next chapter discusses the descendants of Noah.

Then there was the Tower of Babel. Of all the things that could have been accomplished with a common language, humans decided to build a tower in an attempt to reach heaven, which God destroyed, and in doing so created many languages. I find it to be arrogant of humans that they thought they could go up to heaven with some bricks and a bit of slime. God didn’t destroy the tower because He feared they would succeed, instead I believe he destroyed it as punishment for the arrogance of humans.

Finally, there is another geneology from Shem, one son of Noah, to Abram. Abram and his wife Sarai, who was barren, went with Abram’s father, Terah, and Abram’s nephew, Lot, to a place called Haran. This bit can be a bit confusing because Haran is the name of Lot’s father and is also the name of a place.

These are my thoughts on Genesis 8-11.