“Help me”
Sermon by Pr. Kelly Faulstich on Ash Wednesday + March 5, 2025.
It was about a year ago when I walked into her room at Belmont Village down in Lincoln Park. Her children had gotten a hold of us at church, letting us know things had taken a turn. Dementia had transformed May’s mind in the handful of years leading up to that day and the beloved child of God lying there looked very different than most of us might remember her. In that bed was a woman with sunken cheeks and disheveled hair, wearing a simple nightgown.
On Sunday mornings pre-Covid, May was always dressed to the nines for church, usually in her signature color – a vibrant blue - with a fun matching scarf, complementing her kind eyes and perhaps a nod to the flag of the Swedes who went before her and to the place of her birth. She worked as a German teacher earlier in life and then as a psychotherapist and nurse out at Hines in Maywood, helping veterans navigate through and recover from PTSD and other serious mental health challenges. May had seen and heard plenty in her work and in her life. Her friends would recount her colorful language a few months later at her memorial service as well as her openness about her recovery from alcoholism.
May’s children had stepped away and so had the staff when I entered the room, and she tussled about as she repeated two words, in whisper and in scream, back and forth, back and forth, softly and loudly, “Help me,” she said. “Help me, help me, help me.” Her mind was caught in a loop. The staff and then her son returned, assuring me and one another that May was as comfortable as they could facilitate and sharing that she had returned to these two words frequently in past couple of days. Help me.
Author Anne Lamott lists this petition among the three essential prayers: Help, Thanks, and Wow. In an interview with NPR when the book with this title was released, she explained, “Well, I've heard people say that God is the gift of desperation, and there's a lot to be said for having really reached a bottom where you've run out of anymore good ideas, or plans for everybody else's behavior; or how to save and fix and rescue; or just get out of a huge mess, possibly of your own creation. And when you're done, you may take a long, quavering breath and say, 'Help.' People say 'help' without actually believing anything hears that. But it is the great prayer, and it is the hardest prayer, because you have to admit defeat — you have to surrender, which is the hardest thing any of us do, ever."
“Help me, help me, help me,” we cry out on Ash Wednesday as we come before God in community to name and claim our mortality, our fragility, our brokenness, our dependency, our need.
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we’ll hear in a few minutes as ashen crosses are imposed on our brows.
The words spoken to each one of us repeated and echoing, remember you are dust. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember. Remember. Remember.
Remember and pray, we hear in the gospel.
Remember and give alms.
Remember and fast.
Remember and blow the trumpet, Joel cries,
Remember and return to the Lord.
There’s an awful lot of direction in this liturgy and in the readings prescribed for this day.
Calls to action, calls to live and do and be in certain ways.
And while this all is good and salutary indeed,
these commands come with some caution in tone and context to contain.
Two things can be true at the same time, we paradox people proclaim on Ash Wednesday.
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;
as unknown, and yet are well known;
as dying, and see—we are alive;
as punished, and yet not killed;
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;
as poor, yet making many rich;
as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
The author of Second Corinthians reminds us today/tonight.
Even as we enter into Lent with ash alongside some reflection of corporal or personal piety,
turning or returning to the Lord our God,
We also recall the steadfast love and mercy that endures forever.
Whether we whisper or cry out: help me, help me, save me, see me,
With the same breath we recognize God in Jesus on the cross, in the cross,
divine loving-kindness for all creation ever since and even before all foundations.
Dust creatures crying out for help,
God gathers us in community to pray
and to fast
and to give,
together,
to one another,
never alone.
When I returned to Belmont Village a few days after first hearing her cries, May’s children and the hospice nurse, a young veteran himself, along with a dear coworker and her wife had gathered for their farewells.
May’s cries for help had gone quiet and her breath had slowed down. Prayers were spoken and May was anointed, a cross of oil on her forehead that day accompanied by proclamation that she was and is so loved by God and by both the community that stood around her bed and the communion of saints.
After she died, the nurse and May’s friend (also a nurse) remained in the room as the rest of us stepped out into the hall. They adjusted her body and changed her out of that nightgown into something else. They welcomed us back by her bedside and we returned to the foot of her bed. Tears fell and this world’s farewells were expressed as May, in a bright blue cardigan and matching scarf, was entrusted to God who is faithful,
to God who is merciful,
to God whose steadfast love endures forever.
Amen.