Ash Wednesday

As I think about all the places and years I have kept Ash Wednesday and why it matters so much, I began to wonder about the particular rite through which we go today.

What is it about Ash Wednesday? Our speaker yesterday at clergy day works at Saint Paul’s Chapel, NYC. It survived the collapse of the WTC towers and now is a cross between a museum, shrine and worshipping congregation. He sighed when we talked about Ash Wednesday. Evidently there is a drastic increase of population in the liturgy at the time of the imposition of ashes: the congregation swells from 40 to over 250. He knows of a Roman priest who is sent to Grand Central Station to spend ten hours smearing ashes on people’s foreheads. Why do people want this reminder on this solemn day, this Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement of the Christian faith, of coming close to and accepting the brokenness that all of us as human beings share? Why do they want to united by those ashes?

What is it about having one’s forehead marked by ashes that invariably dribble down one’s nose? Thinking about that question makes me think about a conversation I had recently in which someone said that at their church, they are going to have a packet of handiwipes available for anyone who wants to wipe the ashes from their foreheads before they go back into the world. I remembered raging debates with a good friend in my grad school days. He always wiped off his ashes before leaving church; I always left them on. He said it was vain; I said they were a sacramental reminder of our mortality. We always ended these conversations at a draw, where neither is right; neither is wrong.

Still, we were onto one of the mysteries of today. Why do something that seems to contradict the gospel we hear for Ash Wednesday? What does it mean to hear that we practise our piety and then turn around and place such a visible sign of our frailty on our forehead?

Perhaps that is the whole point. Perhaps by placing those ashes on our forehead we are being asked to confront honestly what our faith is all about. Confronting what our motives really are. Confronting where our priorities in life are.

+

In the gospel lesson for today Jesus talks with the disciples about the practise of piety. He urges the disciples not to practise their piety so that they will be praised by others, but to practise their piety in such a way that others will be helped and God’s name will be glorified. Throughout the lesson Jesus is concerned with the motives for the piety they practise.

First Jesus speaks to them about almsgiving. All Christians are to give so that others might have, but this giving is not to be done for the esteem of others. Don’t sound a trumpet in the synagogue (as apparently used to happen particularly when someone gave a large donation). Don’t do it for show but do it because that is part of living out one’s Christian faith, building up the kindom.

Jesus urges the same thing with prayer. Don’t pray in public places so others can see you. Pray not so others can see how prayerful we are, but so that God’s will might be done. Pray because we are called to pray. Pray because it sustains one another.

The same is for fasting. Don’t make it a public occasion but do it quietly. Anoint your head and wash your face because that is what you will do if you were preparing for a great feast. And you are — you are preparing for repentance which leads to joy in a new way of life, the great banquet feast in heaven to which we are all invited.
+

Deeper than these simple instructions is the root issue of what it means to be a Christian. And that comes down to dying to oneself and being born to new life in Christ. That difficult word, renunciation, is not limited to Ash Wednesday or Lent; rather renunciation is a life-long, day-in and day-out effort. Renunciation is the giving up of oneself, of one’s desires, and one’s need for public affirmation, so that one can be made whole and new in Christ.

And so the ashes that are placed on our forehead which seem to clash with the gospel message of secrecy become a sign of what our Lenten and life-time journeys are about — the renouncing of those ways of life and attitudes, values and perspectives that go against our baptismal vows. Our Lenten journey, then, becomes a time when we are invited to reconsider how our daily life squares with our baptismal vows and work at putting them into right relationship. However we do it — whether through fasting, prayer, mourning those broken relationships and parts of our life, retreat, active participation in the rites of the church — we are called to consider the priorities and our motives that underlie our life of faith. We are called to let go of those idols, relationships, habits or whatever else gets in the way of our living out our baptismal vows.

‘Remember, my brothers and sisters, that you are dust and to dust you shall return.’ Remember that the dust we are is what will be made new at the resurrection. We are headed toward that moment when we will know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection through Jesus Christ. And it is that perfection, through the resurrection, toward which we are headed as we go deeper into the Ash Wednesday liturgy and Lent itself.