With or without the opportunity to have ashes put on our foreheads, we are invited to join in something important.
Ash Wednesday again
Ash Wednesday | Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
Each year on this day, people from all over the world come to church to receive ashes placed upon their foreheads, usually in the form of a cross. And they receive them with the words:
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
For those of us raised with this tradition, it is one that is abundantly familiar. We have a tangible connection to places and moments in which we have received this like a blessing.
It isn’t a sacrament. But for many of us, our connection to it borders on the sacramental. In it we know the tangible grace of God.
Ashen Crosses
Each year we receive these ashes on our foreheads, dark and smudged, with a reminder to keep a holy Lent. A reminder that we are entering a season that expects something out of us. This isn’t any old holiday. This is a holy day with homework.
And not the usual kind of go out into the world and share the grace of God with other people; benediction homework. That kind can at least be accomplished by letting someone into line ahead of you or tipping well at a restaurant.
On Ash Wednesday, we’re reminded to make amends and get ready to make amends with people who we have every reason to despise.
Ash Wednesday is heavy enough without the pandemic and a national election and all the political fallout of the moment swirling around us.
Outward and Visible
We also receive these ashes in this visible and central place: our foreheads. It is the place we internalize our memory and matches our memories of blessing and chrism; of baptism and anointing. It stirs our hearts and returns our memories.
But it does so with a mark, an outward and visible sign of an inward grace long before received. A mark that is visible to all, or at least to the people in the room with us.
We receive this visible sign after that invitation to a holy lent. Which we receive after hearing Jesus tell us not to celebrate our piety publicly. Which leads to the annual debate of what to do with these conspicuous ashes. A debate that is entertained every year: to wipe or not to wipe off the ashes.
Of course, it is all more complicated than that.
Beyond Piety
Our reading from Matthew is from the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. That great teaching that begins with the Beatitudes and encourages us to see beyond the binary fight or flight response to evil, but to reveal the evil that seeks to undo us.
And here, Jesus speaks of the leaders, who make a big show of piety to be noticed and rewarded for showing off. A critique that has less to do with the public character of their piety and more to do with the surrounding behavior.
The lectionary jumps over a familiar part:
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“Pray then in this way:
(Matthew 6:7-15)
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
or if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Jesus is talking about being good.
As opposed to looking good.
The question of wiping ashes doesn’t deal with what Jesus is really saying. He isn’t simply concerned with the outward signs of piety. It’s not like he’s mad that people can see pious expressions. He’s focused on who we are being with one another.
So the presence of these ashes is only as important as how they turn our hearts toward love.
Changing expectations
Last year, as in years past, we celebrated Ash Wednesday with two different services in the chapel and with ashes-to-go on campus. Over one hundred people were invited to keep a holy Lent through the imposition of ashes and the good word.
We were kicking off Lent Madness and riding the high of returning our attention to these humble tenants of Lent: of prayer, reading scripture, and preparing ourselves for repentance.
The pandemic changed everything. And it continues to mess with our expectations.
We are shifting that expression of public piety to virtual piety. Of course, with the same pitfalls. Gathering on Zoom, we can check each other’s foreheads for ashes—again, losing sight of what it means to be good rather than look good.
This is a new/old invitation.
We are invited each year to keep a holy Lent. This is the centerpiece of our worship. The ashes are not the point of the day; they’re the physical reminder of what we are gathering to hear and remember. They are the physical aid, the prop, that connects the student to the teaching.
See these ashes? This is us. We start from this and return to this.
For most of the church’s celebration of Ash Wednesday, the distribution of ashes was as a sprinkle on the head, not a cross smudged on the forehead. The sprinkling is supposed to call to mind the dirt sprinkled on the casket at the end of the burial rite.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Invited
Tonight, wherever you are, you will shortly be invited to keep a holy Lent. You will hear what people of faith all over the world are invited to do during this season: to pray, fast, and read scripture. In other words, practice the fundamentals of the faith. As a baseball fan, I think of Lent as our spring training.
We practice the fundamentals to put our minds into the place of giving and receiving the grace of God.
If you have ashes, I invite you to bring them close.
Or if you have a house plant, bring it near you.
Perhaps if you are near a window and can flip a porch light on so you can see and know what is beneath that snow.
Know that I want to smudge some ashes on your forehead. Or sprinkle them on top. I want to remind each of you that you are dust. One at a time.
I want to do that for you because this is one of my absolute favorite days of the year. I love the ashes, too.
But in spite of the name, this day isn’t about the ashes. They are merely the sign. The reminder of our mortality. The symbol of our connection to God, to the earth, to creation itself.
And we have plenty around us that reminds us of our mortality. What we need is to be reminded of what that mortality invites us: the turning of our hearts toward mercy.
So let us remember that today.
And hear again what we are called to do over the next forty days.