Ash Wednesday

If you thought, “Wow, I bet when I attend the Ash Wednesday service this afternoon, I’m going to hear Reverend Matt talk about Robert Altman’s film ‘Popeye’, you’d be correct!”

And I am sorry that I’m so predictable, but I guess, I am what I am and that’s all that I am!

Did you catch that?

Popeye the Sailor’s catchphrase?

I am what I am?

So, anyway…

It was 1980 and my grandparents were living in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

They agreed to take my brother and I to the movies so my parents could go see a Broadway play, A Chorus Line, I think.

And the movie we chose was “Popeye.”

Awful, awful movie.

Just torture for a 7-year-old to watch.

I remember afterwards we went to go check out the Jennifer Convertible store and it’s pretty telling when I say, honestly, that looking through a furniture showroom that specialized in couches with folding beds inside was more inspiring than the movie is not an exaggeration.

But, there was a song in that movie.

Not a very good song, either, but still a song that stuck with me and it starts like this,

You don't have to be no fish to tell when you're flounderin'

What am I? Some kind of barnacles on the dinghy of life?

I ain't no doctors but I knows when I'm losin' me patiensk

What am I? Some kind of judge, or a lawyers?

Aw, maybe not; but I knows what laws suits me

So what am I? I ain't no physciscisk, but I knows what matters

What am I? I'm Popeye, the sailor

We are all who we are.

I am what I am.

You are what you is.

We are all what we all are.

And so that’s the entrance into today’s sermon, we are who we are.

And who we are, is ok.

You see, God made us to be who we are.

Most importantly, God made us human to be human and do human things.

God created us to share in God’s creation and to love it and embrace it.

I can almost picture God as we grow and age and become more aware of our surroundings.

See God at the entrance of that park we enjoyed playing at as a child, the one where we did barrel rolls down that one great big hill.

See God beside you as you sit there squatting on a rock, throwing stones in the water.

God’s glee shines upon you as you skip stones on the shoreline with your family nearby.

Watch God lift you up as you fall in love for the first time and hold onto you as that love transitions into something else.

God is with us in all those things for God shares all those things with us.

We are to experience personal things, joys and heartaches, and there stands God, our rock, our stone, our heartbeat as we experience so much of what God has to offer over the course of a lifetime.

But we don’t always appreciate what is on offer.

We don’t always witness the sunrise piercing the through, the beauty of the dusk promising a new day.

Sometimes we are angry and distracted and unkind.

Sometimes, we say, we are not just feeling ourselves today but all of who we are is not just beauty and roses, we are bad moods and bad actions as well.

And not just the you we.

But me we as well.

I’ve said many times that I am not perfect and I promise that is true.

And I go back to that song.

And I gots a lot of muskle and I only gots one eye

And I never hurts nobodys and I'll never tell a lie

Tops to me bottoms and me bottoms to me top

And that's the way it is 'till the day that I drop

What am I?

I yam what I yam!

We are who we are.

And over the course of time, who we are can weigh on us differently.

Over the course of the year, for most of us, we will do many good things.

We will feed people.

We will clothe them.

We will share God’s love with so many.

And yet, we will walk past the hungry without a thought.

We will keep two coats when we only need one.

God may seem a distant thought when work things and school things and other things are on our mind.

And, being good Christians, we realize we might be acting poorly and we seek forgiveness maybe even for fear of being judged, we are penitent for our sins.

Yet God is merciful.

Our worst fears regarding judgement need not be realized for God’s judgement is based on mercy.

Still, I can sometimes judge myself.

I can sometimes be hard on myself.

And that can weigh me down.

Where I sin, I sometimes look for perfection and my search will only end up in sadness or frustration.

Yet, deep down, I am not called to be perfect.

I am not called to be sinless.

I am called to be who I am.

We are called to be who we are.

And perhaps you can see that in today’s gospel reading.

Perhaps you can read in today’s message, though couched in negative terminology, that Christ is calling us to be who God calls us to be.

Jesus is saying do not be like the hypocrites.

Do not give alms to be seen by the rest of the congregation that you are giving alms.

Just give your alms.

Be who you are.

You do not have to make a show of your worshiping God.

Just worship God.

Be who you are called to be.

Yet, sometimes we are like the hypocrites.

Sometimes we act with great pride and puffed out chests.

And I know when I do such things, I end up feeling a bit silly and sometimes even embarrassed.

And I carry that with me.

And it becomes a burden.

We don’t need that burden.

We don’t need to laden with guilt and shame.

But we do need to confront those times when we come up short, when we act not as God wishes us to be but how others might perceive us.

Be it pride envy, buffoonery or anger, we need to atone for our actions when we stray.

And every week, we do that.

Every week we ask for forgiveness and receive absolution from God.

Now is not the time to not just turn a page, act differently or better or improve some deficiency, no.

Now is the time however to reflect on how we can change our very selves so that we can orient better toward the direction God would have us point our lives.

This season of Lent begins with a cry of asking for forgiveness, for admitting to our wrongdoings, and if we do it right, it ends with change.

It ends with us being changed, utterly changed for we spent forty days reflecting on who we are and who God calls us to be.

Where there is now anger, shall be calm.

Where there is now the hoarding of wealth, generosity.

Where there is selfishness, sharing.

And so, on and on it continues so that after forty days, we have all been reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church.

Our Lenten season begins on this day.

In the symbolic act of having ashes imposed upon our foreheads, we enter into Lent a hopeful people looking forward to becoming the people we are called to be.

We are called to serve.

We are called to share.

We are called to give our lives to Christ and serve God as the Spirit moves us.

We are called to recalibrate ourselves always pointing toward God and it is in this time of Lent where we can focus on such things.

To be ourselves.

And to be the self God has already created us to be.

In the words of that famous sailor, “And I yam what I yam what I yam and I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam 'cause I yam what I yam!”

Amen.