Welcome
We gather together tonight to mark the beginning of the forty days of reflection in Lent.
Ashes remind us that we are marked with the sign of the cross as we enter Lent, preparing to face the depth and the shadows of life as Jesus faced them—with our courage, faith, risking, embracing, and finally letting go.
Yet we walk in the shadows with the sacred spark that reminds us God has made all of us in their divine image.
Ashes before us, the sacred spark within us, we are encouraged to hold one another and ourselves—our body and spirit, grief and joy, fear and reverence, courage, enduring, and rising.
Especially in tonight’s Ash Wednesday service, we invite you to wonder and imagine a dark night—
A night like a pitch-black pearl, a night where nothing can be seen,
A night where the flames have died down like ashes, hushed and still,
And yet, a night unafraid, for it knows the mystery of God’s love that envelops nature and the universe.
A night of peace,
The Dark Night of the Soul that St. John of the Cross envisioned in prayer…
Tonight’s Call to Worship will introduce a contemplation on the night from Silent Cry, reflecting on John of the Cross’s vision.
Call to Worship
Night held a special place and value in the life of St. John of the Cross. He loved to spend much time under the starry sky in order to experience “the silent music, the euphonic solitude. One of his community brothers reports the following:
“In the peace of the night, John spent several hours alone in prayer. When he arose from prayer, he fetched his companion and, reclining the view of a brook on a green meadow, spoke with him about the beauty of the sky, the moon and the stars. Sometimes he spoke of the gentle harmony of the heavenly spheres and their movements. He would ascend then into the very heaven of the blessed. His companion would warn him of the dangers of the evening dew, to which John was to have replied, ‘Let us go, I understand, Reverend Sir, that you wish to go to sleep.” Later he would gladly encourage his bothers to leave for “prayer excursions” under the open sky or in the solitude of quietness in the cloister gardens."
The quote ends, here. Now, I invite you into our own prayer excursion—as if we are the pilgrims (and we truly are), together and alone beneath the open sky, in the solitude of quietness in the gardens, in the ceremony of ashes marking us all in equality and in cherished unity.
Song: Kumbya
Introduction to the Scripture
We also acknowledge that the dark night of the soul not only holds the capacity and inner strength to encounter the radical amazement of nature—the glittering glory of God in the open sky and the twilights—but that it can also reflect the very situations we endure.
The dark night of the soul can be lived as drought, as the acute pain of agony and grief, as the feeling of God’s abandonment, as the ache of missing God, as the suffering of our neighbours, as the anger toward injustice in the world, as the oppression, as the weight of inconsolability…
From the stunning black beauty to the fathomless dark abyss,
In both the metaphor and the reality of darkness,
In the dark night of the soul…
God journeys with us.
Now, Min-Goo will present to you the verses from the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Scripture.
Scripture: Malachi 3:1-7
(Selected verses from the Inclusive Bible, with some words rephrased by Ha Na)
Well, pay attention!
I am sending my Messenger to prepare the way for me; the One you seek will suddenly come to the Temple, the Messenger of the Covenant whom you long for will come, says God.
But who can endure the day of that Coming?
Who can stand firm when that One appears?
That day will be like a refiner’s fire, a launderer’s soap.
The One will preside as refiner and purifier, purifying the Children of Levi, refining them like gold and silver – then they will once again make offerings to God in righteousness.
I will appear before you in court, to testify against those who cheat the hired labourers of their wages, and oppress the widow and the orphan, who rob foreigners of their rights and have no respect for the sacred spark in everyone and every being, says God.
If you return to me, I will return to you, says God.
You ask, “How can we return?”
Reflection: Refiner’s Fire
Scripture: Malachi 3:1-7
Ash Wednesday Reflection: Refiner’s Fire
Malachi describes a society that has lost its way and a religious community that has lost its vision. The nation is plagued with pathetic political and religious leaders, careless spiritual practices, immoral policies, and injustice. The people of the country began to question why some prosper while others suffer—especially why some evildoers thrive while the righteous endure hardship.
Yet, even while critiquing the nation, the prophet assures the people of God’s love. God affirms the covenant relationship and promises compassion for those who truly and authentically serve God—those who care for the most vulnerable in society, practicing compassion and generosity. Evildoers (those condemned for having “caused many to stumble”) will be brought down, an event described in striking, strong language - in fire, stubble, and ashes.
Ashes - the same ashes with which we mark ourselves—carry a powerful meaning. They explicitly ritualize the “end time,” in which, according to Malachi, God will reduce evildoers to stubble, without a root or a branch left to them. The image of ash is a forceful metaphor:
It is the aftermath of the fiery destruction of injustice.
But here, together, let us open our aching hearts and reflect.
What if, in the dark night of the world, it is not the fiery destruction of injustice, but what we see is the fiery destruction of the oppressed? Auschwitz, Shoah, Nakba, Ukraine… The “Hidden, muted God” in the gas chambers, buried under the rubble. Human beings caught in the abyss.
Marking our foreheads with ashes holds deep significance. Ashes mean that we share in God’s suffering, we suffer with God the godlessness of the world.
It is not about individual sins that God judges—
But the sins of society—
The practices that harm and damage our neighbours,
The systems of mass oppression that benefit the few. The systems of domination that enrich those at the top. Thus, in Malachi, the covenant God makes with us is two-sided:
It offers God’s shalom to the people of Israel,
While requiring from them reverence for God’s law of love.
In Malachi, the refiner’s fire and the launderer’s soap symbolize the process of purification. A refiner’s fire melts down a metal—such as gold or silver—for the purpose of purification. Once the metal is in its melted state, the dross rises to the top and is removed before the metal cools… What is our dross? What is our society’s dross?
Ash Wednesday is the ritualized “end time” to remember:
God judges the sinful reality of failing to fulfill God’s law of love—
A love that allows all beings and all our neighbors to live truly and authentically,
With dignity and human rights.
The refiner’s fire could mean working to end poverty.
The refiner’s fire could mean liberating slaves from oppression.
The refiner's fire could meaning anything denouncing injustice and proclaiming liberation—
Just as Martin Luther King Jr. prayed:
The refiner’s fire could mean “a genuine revolution of values,”
Living in a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighbourly concern
Beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation—
Living for an all-embracing, unconditional love of all humankind.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate
Or bow before the altar of retaliation.
The oceans of history are made turbulent
By the ever-rising tides of hate and violence.
As Arnold Toynbee says:
“Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good
Against the damning choice of death and evil.”
Ritual of the Ashes
We are not here to justify ourselves,
But to refine ourselves. (Mark lights the palm cross on fire.)
There is no us and them.
To look into the abyss…
A heart breaking open…
The agony—
A question arising in the face of the dark night of the world,
Meeting the dark night of the soul—
A soul that knows the brilliant, radical amazement
Of the first stars in the night sky…
Blessing the Oil - Mark
Still quietly rejoicing,
Quietly whispering,
Quietly contemplating—
Still claiming our place as God’s marked people,
Marked because of God’s redemptive love.
This is our cherished unity.
May our worship be our resource as we begin Lent—
For living the faith justly
And in grace with one another.
Anointing with Ashes
Remember that you are stardust and unto stardust you shall return.
You are here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world.
Prayer
Refiner God, Cosmic Creator,
You have created us out of the dust of the earth and added stardust to every breath we take.
In the ashes and the sacred spark, we are spirit-bodies—suffering, struggling, rising up for justice and hope, still choosing and celebrating life.
May these ashes be a sign of our cherished unity, a marker of our deep thirst for God’s compassion and justice, just as Jesus walked on the dust of the road and the desert.
Song: What does the Lord Require Of You
Benediction
Avoid us and them—
Search our hearts—
Just as God searches us in the eyes of love,
So do we—
Not to justify ourselves, but to refine ourselves,
To illumine the sacred spark in all of us,
Even in the times of our dark night—
Of the soul, and of the world…
To prepare the way
For God’s new work
In our lives and in the world.
Comments
Post a Comment