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Ash
Wednesday 2008 |
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Ash
Wednesday 2008 |
Someone said recently
that Ash Wednesday reminds them how unready they are for Lent.
This year I think we have an excuse.
Lent is earlier than some of us can remember it ever being.
I don’t know about you, but we still have Three Kings lingering around. But even when Lent comes at a more reasonable time, it still
may find us unready for what it asks.
I was told a funny
true story the other day by one who has been a part of the Christian community
for quite awhile – but not in a liturgical church where Ash Wednesday services
are held. Because of her work
schedule, she arrived at her first Ash Wednesday service after the ashes had
been given out. As she quietly sat
down the person nearest to her turned towards her, nodding a warm welcome.
And there on his forehead was a smudge of black unlike anything she had
ever seen.
She is a nurse and
was surprised that she couldn’t recognize what sort of ailment would cause
such a protruding scar. She felt
badly for the person – especially that whatever was ailing him had to appear
so front and center – not even a hat could hide it.
As she sat concerned for this person, several people in the rows ahead of
her turned in such a way that she could see they too had this strange dark
blotch right in the middle of their foreheads.
This was her
introduction to Ash Wednesday. Either
the congregation had some strange disease – or something else was going on!
It is for this ‘something else’ that we have gathered this
evening. And why we are often
unready for Lent may partly be because we have become accustomed to hiding under
our hats the hidden mark this holy day makes visible to all of us.
This receiving of
ashes is not like the practice of fasting that the Gospel suggests we do
secretly for only our Father in heaven to see so no one rewards the effort.
Ashes are not distributed in take home containers so we can privately
douse ourselves behind closed doors when no one is looking.
Today’s is a corporate act.
But communal as Ash
Wednesday is, it is also intimate. As
a community we choose today to not hide from each other or ourselves.
What is intimate about this is that we name what is most personal about
us – that we are caught by a strange dis-ease about ourselves – and naming
it, we find we are in this together. And
so Ash Wednesday invites us to face it together and to face it – literally –
head-on.
And that too may be
more of the reason why we wish Lent wouldn’t come so soon. It invites us to face ourselves – privately, but in the
midst of community as ones who know we are caught in something none can get out
of without each other – and surely not without God.
Perhaps we would be
more ready for Lent if it was only a one-day ritual – you know, come and go
within an hour and get it over with. But
for years upon years now Lent has lasted 40-days.
Wisdom has discovered that we need time – time to come to terms with
facing head-on what we would rather cover up.
But we want to cover this strangeness Ash Wednesday brings to view, only,
when we fail to see how precious this strangeness is – and how blessed we are
to be in a community that seeks to learn anew each year how precious it is!
The ashes marked on
our foreheads are not put there to make us feel bad. They are not to shame us or knock us down a notch or two.
The ashes are placed here to call us home.
They call us to remember we are created – drawn into being not by our
own effort but by the love of God.
That, friends in
Christ, is the truth of who we are – we have been created – and created by
one who loves us. Ash Wednesday
tells us “remember you are dust – earth – created with uniqueness and
limits – breathed into for a purpose by another.”
And into that other we shall return.
We are not our own. The
ashes affirm our creatureliness – not to stifle our freedom or limit our
possibilities, but to set us free to live within the lines lovingly drawn for us
by God.
At Ash Wednesday the
community returns together to the reality of who we are in our private lives,
but also as community. We haven’t
created ourselves – nor have we created the church. Both are God’s doing for God’s purposes, and we do well
to listen for and wait upon what God has in mind.
It is a holy gift to
be marked with ashes on this day because the ashes remind us that we are set
free from all kinds of things that we don’t need to be doing so we can become
who it is God calls us forth to be. We
yearn, deep down, for such holy freedom – individually and corporately.
Our yearning
sometimes shows itself as burnout. Other
times experiences of irritation or even depression catch us with us. We react because we have gotten outside the boundaries love
would have set for us. Burnout
isn’t necessarily a sign of being too busy.
There are some very busy people who are very God honoring in their
busy-ness. Burnout comes from being
too busy outside of God’s intentions and delight for us.
If we can accept that
we are creature – created – breathed into by another who loves us, we will
want to pay attention to what that breath has in mind.
We will want to press the ears of our hearts towards whatever will help
us hear the holy callings that call our name – and let go of that which
doesn’t.
But if we think this
is just about me taking care of me or you taking care of you and we should all
just fly off to Hawaii for a month or two, we miss the glorious point.
This day is corporate – communal – because our Creator is relational.
As Hildegard of Bingen said so long ago, “Everything is created in
consideration of everything else.”
My being who I am is
intended to do you good and vise-a-versa. All
the world is that way. If we are
not doing someone else good somehow, we may not have pressed the ears of our
hearts attentively enough to whatever it is that helps us hear our callings.
“Everything is created in consideration of everything else.”
Ash Wednesday calls us back to this inter-relatedness God has built into
creation.
Ash Wednesday is
about supporting each other to let God have at us so what is out of sync with
this divine inter-relatedness can be put back into sync. What a gift this day gives us.
The ashes don’t say we are dirty, but that we are created and our life
comes from God and returns to God. Ashes
are a sign both of the earth and of cleansing.
To rub with ashes was
an ancient way of cleaning. The
ashes are a baptismal remembrance. We
are washed clean in baptismal waters so that we can enjoy the gift of being
created by one who calls us beloved.
Perhaps another
reason we are perpetually unready for Lent is that we are so slow to believe how
beloved we are. If we were to trust
this just a little we would come running to Lent for Lent challenges our
wrong-headedness about ourselves and about God. Sin
is that wrong-headedness that builds walls against God’s goodness and our
beloved-ness. Lent calls us to
admit we erect such walls and that we need every bit of these forty days to
gather the courage to let them be dismantled.
To be Christian is to
see in Jesus one who knew he was beloved and did not raise walls to resist such
love. Because Jesus didn’t resist
being loved he exuded with it. His
humanness didn’t make him bad. It
gave him opportunity. God needs
hands and feet to do God’s loving, says Theresa of Avila.
God needs voices to speak and arms to bear another’s burden.
Because we, like Jesus, are human, we also have this potential to be
voices and hands and feet for God. And
Jesus shows us how.
As we confess tonight
the walls we build against what God intends, may we know God hears our
confession as a lover hears the heart of the beloved! Welcome to this annual forty day retreat inviting God’s
love and goodness to have at us. In
these days we hope to discover anew how, as God’s creation, we are gifted to be gifts for others. And I mean we! We
are in this together for God created everything in consideration of everything
else. Welcome to Lent!
Amen
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to
the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Cburch, Chico,
CA