This is a God who looks upon us and sees that we aren’t yet what we could be, we are not at full blossom, and so this God shows up not with an axe but with a shovel and a wheelbarrow full of mulch, patience, and hope.
We have Abram in a world in which things die and bleed and nourish one another. A world in which one being is sacrificed for the life of another all the time and everywhere. That world, not one cleaned up of its wildness and its gore, is where God is met. This Earth, not the heavens, is what God gives to all of us as a sacred gift.
For Jesus, the mountaintop is not a place for coveting all the kingdoms of earth, but a place for revealing both the beauty and brokenness of the world, and the many possible ways he and we can help and serve God and each other. Jesus sees all around him – a garden of blessing.
These ashes will not burn you, far from it. A surprising possibility is that the gritty, dark touch of these ashes may feel like a needed relief.
Don’t live by Pharaoh’s rules. Live as the gifted bearers of God’s image that you are. Such was the deep wisdom of the Torah. Such is the life Moses and Elijah and Jesus kept calling people back to in different places, different times, is it not?