From dust to life

Sirach 27:4-7 ‘Do not praise a man before you hear him reason.’

1 Corinthians 15:54-58 ‘He gives us the victory through Jesus Christ’

Luke 6.39-45 ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’

 

‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’. (Luke 6.45)

 

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We are on the threshold of the season of Lent.

 

Lent is a good time when we can be very intentional about having a spiritual shakedown and self-audit.

 

Lent is a pathway, a roadmap, if you like, of hope and restoration and grace and life.

 

That pathway starts in the dust and ashes of Ash Wednesday and leads us to the victory of Easter, the triumph of Jesus Christ over death and sin.

 

Of course, the resurrection of Jesus Christ resonates throughout the year and every Sunday is an echo of Easter Day.

 

 Our second reading catches this:

 

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

    O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15.54b, 55)

 

We are created from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2.7) not destined to remain in it.

 

God’s spirit of life was breathed into Adam (Genesis 2.7), and so it is into us so that we proclaim life, life in all its abundance.

 

That is why the prophet Hosea, echoed by St Paul, tweaked death on the nose and asks where is your victory, where, ultimately, is your sting, O death?’

 

This is the vision that envelopes and sustains the Christian life.

 

When we fall into deathly ways, the life of Jesus raises us up, for death, is swallowed up in victory.

 

Our destiny is not eternal oblivion, but our mortal bodies put on immortality.

 

And that promise is open now; it’s not on hold until we breathe our last.

 

It’s the ‘life in all its abundance’ that Jesus promises (John 10.10).

 

What’s happened, that those outside the Church and, frankly, some inside it, don’t see the life and hope, but just the gloom and doom?

 

There are clearly ways the Church falls short: the failures around safeguarding; the fractures over Holy Orders; the fissures over sexuality.

 

Lent is a time not to ignore difficult questions but to transcend them, by going deeper into the heart of faith, the heart of light, the heart of hope.

 

We’re called to move from dust to life!

 

And our gospel reading begins to map out what this looks like in our interior life, and how the interior life is reflected in the exterior.

 

In other words, your life, bearing, demeanour and actions all reflect your spiritual health.

 

This is about vision and insight.

 

‘Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?’ (Luke 6.39)

 

Of course, we should never suggest that physical blindness leads to, or is, spiritual blindness: people who have 20:20 eyesight according to Specsavers can be totally blind spiritually.

 

If we are all fumbling around in darkness, spiritually speaking, unable to see where we’re going, the pitfalls of life will catch us.

 

We need guidance and wisdom from those around us who are not spiritually visually impaired, as in the episode in St Mark’s gospel when, ‘some people brought to Jesus a blind man and begged him to touch him’. (Mark 8.22)

 

Who are the spiritually sighted who bring the blind to Jesus?

 

They are the saints, the godly preachers and pastors, the wise fellow Christians whose wisdom and teaching, whose lives of holiness reflect the life of Christ: they are worthy guides.

 

Blind guides, erroneous teachers, have the most condemnation reserved for them in the Gospels: they are the spiritually blind, who don’t lead us to Christ but declare anything but Christ to be the source of light and salvation.

 

May faithful witnesses bring us all to Jesus; for only he can restore our vision.

 

At the same time, for those who have vision, who have had their eyes opened through baptism there are further strong words to consider.

 

Jesus’ famous image, about seeing the speck in someone else’s eye and failing to see the log in my own, is for those who can see, it’s not for the blind.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. (Luke 6.41,42)

 

It hardly needs explaining but just needs commending.

 

It develops the text we heard last week: ‘judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned…’ (Luke 6.37)

 

So, if you can see the fault of someone else, and perhaps you can, then first look in the mirror.

 

I have a bloodshot eye at the moment.

 

That’s not from actually removing a log from my eye.

 

But I know that there are logs I need to remove from the eye of my heart so that I may see more clearly, not simply someone else’s sins, but see the vision of Christ - crucified, risen, ascended and glorified - all the more clearly.

 

Lent is the time to re-focus our vision of Christ, through lamenting and confessing our sins, through tears that wash out specks and logs.

 

All this then has bearing on our lives and the fruit we produce.

 

As our first reading said, ‘the fruit of a tree discloses the cultivation of a tree; so the expression of a thought discloses the cultivation of a person’s mind.’ (Sirach 27.6)

 

When we move from dust to life, the dustiness of grievance, disappointment, negativity and resentment is blown away, not into our eyes but out of our lives.

 

That space is then filled, by God’s grace, with hope, expectation, abundance and delight in the other person simply for their sake and not what we can score off them or manipulate them to do.

 

That is what the Christian cultivates in mind, body and heart so that the interior life is reflected in the exterior: your life, bearing, demeanour and actions reflects your spiritual health.

 

And as Jesus concludes: ‘The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks’. (Luke 6.45)

 

May abundant hope, joy, life and light be in our hearts and on our lips. Amen.