From the Pulpit: 'You are dust. You are forgiven. You are set free.'

A few years ago, I downloaded a new app on my phone as a kind of experiment. The app is called “We Croak” and the tagline is “Find Happiness by contemplating your mortality.” 

Each day, you get five notifications as an invitation to stop and think about death. The notification will come at random times each day and when you open it up, you reveal a quote about death. The idea is, that in regularly contemplating mortality, it helps us to let go of the things that don’t matter and honor the things that do. 

After I downloaded the app within just a couple hours, I started receiving notifications. The same words appeared on my screen every time, five times a day, “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.”

At first the notifications were jarring. My phone buzzed and I expected a text or an email. Instead I got this morbid message. 

A couple days into living with WeCroak, I started to pay attention to what parts of my day these reminders were interrupting, and how the reminders might inform whatever activity I was in the middle of. The app was doing its job. Forcing me to contemplate death.

The Bible was written long before smart phones. Lent and Ash Wednesday were established well before the WeCroak app came on the scene. But they do serve a similar purpose. Today we are reminded, all are from dust, and all turn to dust again. 

In a world where we clamor so much to live lives that are richer, happier, and more efficient…we need these reminders. Remember that you ARE dust and to dust you will return. 

Even when we feel so alive we are already dead in many ways. We fall short, we fail tests, we fail friends, we miss meetings, we eat too much or not enough, we gossip, we’re stingy, we’re prejudiced, we’re arrogant, we’re afraid. We’re dead.

The sooner we can come to terms with our own shortcomings, the sooner we can feel the freedom to risk our life, to pour it out, to die again for the sake of others.

When we can be reminded we can do nothing but accept our shortcomings and vulnerabilities, we can let go – as the app creators say – of things that don’t matter, and honor what remains: a God who forgives by dying, and a life of faith that can be lived by giving it all up.

Don’t forget, friends, you’re going to die. Remember that you ARE dust. Remember that you ARE forgiven and set free to live and to die in Jesus’ name.