Turning Palms Into Ash

Hello again! As many of you know, we are entering again into the season of Lent, one of the two season in the church year where I post a daily photo devotional. I have over the years posted random photos with reflections, posted photos taken each and every day, posted photos related to the lectionary readings for the season. This year I will be attempting to post at least six days a week. I do need one day of Sabbath in there! There will be a photo taken sometime during the season each day, though I cannot promise that it will have been taken that day. And, the reflections will connect with the season and/or the lectionary text for the following Sunday. If you would like to join me, I'd love to hear your reflections and see your photos as well!

And so... we are off.

Turning Palms Into Ash
Last year, for some reason, I kept a few palms from our Palm Sunday service at Sojourner. I had remembered that the ashes for Ash Wednesday are often made from the palms used the previous year. And so... I kept three branches, just in case I was still at my church in a year. No, I was not being paranoid or pessimistic about my calling. It is simply that I had been hired as an interim pastor for six months... that extended into over a year.

I never did burn those branches. Did you know that it is a long tedious process! That it can take a bucket full of branches to make one small container of ash? That palms do not burn easily, but need to be nursed and stirred and perhaps soaked with a little alcohol? That once you burn them down, you still need to grind them and sift them and mix them with oil in order to make them usable for the service?

Now, I did have all the supplies, but a friend at a large nearby church had some extra ashes and graciously offered to share them. I don't think it is liturgically incorrect to share ashes, do you?

The point, really, is not the borrowing of the ashes, but the process itself. Palms are difficult to burn. Much like our sins. Much like the sins of our culture and society. Much like our idolatry and false hopes. Much like our misconceptions about who God is supposed to be... Palms, representing a people ready to follow a king, but not all the way to the cross. Those palms, are difficult to burn.

During this Lenten season, may we have the patient to burn those palm branches, to lay them on the altar and offer them... our sins, our misconceptions, our lack of faith... to stir them in reflection and repentance. Knowing that palms, once burned, become the ash that symbolize the promise of God's refining fire in our lives.