Revisiting Ash Wednesday 2020

The words of my Ash Wednesday sermon have been coming back to mind in these days of the COVID-19 Pandemic.  So I thought I'd offer them here for continued/renewed reflection.

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“The Wisdom of Ash Wednesday”

Rev. Jason Alspaugh

Ash Wednesday

Christ Episcopal Church

February 26, 2020

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’”  ~James 4:13-15

There is an inherent wisdom in our Ash Wednesday observances; especially in the moment when ashes are imposed, and the minister says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  It’s a gentle, liturgical, poetic way of saying, “You’re going to die.”  No one really ever wants to hear that, but there is wisdom in acknowledging our mortality, in admitting our finitude.  There have been such wonderful advances in medicine that have given us the impression that we can put off our dying and death almost indefinitely; and so many of us do not spend much time reflecting on such things.  

Often it’s not until we’re at a funeral or driving along in a funeral procession that we take time to think about our limited existence.  Often it’s as Emily Dickson wrote, “Because I could not stop for Death / he kindly stopped for me.”  At times, someone dies suddenly, tragically and people pause to remember how fragile and precious life is, saying things like, “Tomorrow is not promised” and “You’ve got to live every day like it’s your last.”  But most of the time, if we’re generally healthy, it seems there is enough going on to distract us from thinking about our mortality.  It’s up to the minister then to remind you to do so from time to time; and today is one of those times.

A few sermons ago I mentioned the fact that I pass by a survival supply store almost every day.  And there on the base of the store’s sign is a message crudely painted in black that says, “Stay Alive.”  It’s a message that taps into one of our most basic instincts—survival.  And it’s a reminder that our survival, staying alive, is not a given.  We are vulnerable.  Ironically, there is now a For Sale sign posted on that survival supply store.  Even the survival supply store can’t survive forever.

If we forget this, if we forget our mortality, we are bound for folly.  Those in positions of power and privilege often deny their limits, some even going so far as to declare themselves divine.  In the Bible, one of those figures is Pharaoh.  Walter Brueggemann says that “in Egyptian lore [Pharaoh] is taken to be invested with absolute authority…his regime is all-embracing.  Nothing is possible or even imaginable beyond his reach…his absolute authority and control extend to perpetuity…And then, says the [biblical] narrative, Pharaoh died (2:23)!...The ideology asserted [that Pharaoh was] “absolute to perpetuity.”  But then he died.”[1]  Death is the ultimate reminder that we are, in fact, not God.

Ash Wednesday helps us to maintain this perspective.  And spiritual practices like fasting can further remind us of our dependence on God.  Fasting reminds us that our life needs to be nurtured.  We need food and drink and sleep and more to live.  And this awareness should foster in us compassion for others.  A perpetual problem with the folly of people like Pharaoh (while they live) is that it often leads to human suffering.  They lack compassion, and those not deemed so divine are denied their own worth and dignity, and many of the things they need to live and thrive. 

Prophets like Isaiah and Micah and Amos called on the privileged, the powerful, and the pious to remember their place before God, and to remember that our life is indeed precious to God.  God did not need their burnt offerings, the prophets declared, but people did need food.  And so the prophet Isaiah, acting as spokesperson for God, would ask:

Is such the fast that I choose,
   a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
   and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
   a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?[2]

Again, our piety, our faith should draw us closer to our neighbors in need.  The awareness of our own mortality should make us more compassionate.  To know that someday you will not wake up with your dog or cat staring in your face; to know that someday you will not embrace your beloved; to know that someday all the wealth and “things” you have gained will be as nothing to you—to know such things, should lead us to value all of life.

But knowing that “the grass withers and the flower fades,” is not all there is to Ash Wednesday.  We make the sign of the cross as ashes are imposed, reminding ourselves that we live in the hope of resurrection.  It is not a hope that erases the experience of dying and death.  Instead, it is a hope that allows us to endure it.

In prayer, Brueggemann has said to God:

We are able to ponder our ashness with
   some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
   anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
   you Easter parade of newness.
   Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
     Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
     Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
   Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
     mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

As we enter these forty days of Lent, may we “ponder our ashness with some confidence,” and may we grow in the wisdom that leads to life here and hereafter.  Amen.

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[1] Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence, 9-10.

[2] Isaiah 58:5-7

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

“Peace with God”

Romans 5:1-11

Rev. Jason Alspaugh

First United Methodist Church

First Baptist Church of Dayton

Sunday, March 15, 2020

If you were to read Paul’s writings about Jesus and his death and resurrection, without reading any of the Gospels, you might miss the fact that the road to the reconciliation, the path to “peace with God,” that Paul speaks of was rather messy.  Read any of the Gospels and you’ll see that there was fear and doubt, people running away, people looking for a way out, as the threat of crucifixion grew.  And after it happened, even after Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples are left to wonder at the significance of it all.  The death of Jesus on a cross was a particular challenge to wrap one’s head around.

Rowan Williams notes that “in the world in which Christianity began, a place of worship was the last place you would expect to see a cross […] The cross was a sign of suffering, humiliation, disgrace.  It was a sign of an all-powerful empire that held life very cheap indeed […] So a group of people who proclaimed the sign of their allegiance was a cross had a lot of explaining to do.”[1]

If we’re honest, we are still trying to get a grip, to make sense of it all.  In his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone said, “No human language can fully describe what salvation through the cross means.  Salvation through the cross is a mystery and can only be apprehended though faith, repentance, and humility.”[2]  And because of the limits of our language to describe this mystery, I think it’s a good Lenten practice to meditate on the various meanings of the cross we have inherited in Scripture and tradition.

Ever since that day on Calvary, people have been trying to understand what happened.  Consequently, the cross has accumulated a lot of theological baggage.  To borrow the words of John Donne, people still “reckon what it did and meant.”  However familiar we may be with the image of the cross—e.g., the sterling silver cross on your necklace, the wood cross that appears every Lent, the brass cross on the altar, the backlit cross on the baptistery—it’s likely that we each have a somewhat different understanding about it.  That might make some of us uneasy, but if you were to look closely enough you’d see that it’s always been this way.

Look through the letters of the New Testament and you’ll find numerous explanations for Jesus’ death on the cross.  Rob Bell once did this and found that in Hebrews 9 it says that Jesus “has appeared once and for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself”; and in Colossians 1, Paul writes that through the cross God was reconciling “to himself all things, whether on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross”; and in 2 Timothy 1 and in 1 John 5, we read that Jesus has “destroyed death,” and that “this is the victory that has overcome the world”; and in Ephesians 1, Paul writes that “We have redemption through his blood.”  So Bell asks, “Is the cross about the end of the sacrificial system, or a broken relationship that’s been reconciled […] or a battle that’s been won, or the redeeming of something that was lost?  Which is it?  Which perspective is the right one?  Which metaphor is correct?  Which explanation is true?”[3]  Some of us might be asking the same questions.

Going beyond the Scriptures we’d find that the dominant message of the cross for about the first thousand years of Christianity went something like this (in the words of James McClendon): “Satan, by successfully tempting human beings, had acquired a claim to them; they were his prisoners awaiting redemption.  Christ is offered to the devil as a payment of that ransom; the exchange was duly made at the cross; but in the resurrection God reclaimed [Jesus], so that both [God’s] risen Son and redeemed sinners are [once again] God’s.”[4]  Is this the right message?  Is this what the cross was all about?

Well there were others for whom this message was unconvincing.  One such person was Anselm of Canterbury, whose alternative message still dominates to this day.  It goes something like this (in the words of Marcus Borg): “God’s retributive justice requires that the penalty for our sins must be paid from the human side.  But we are all sinners and thus cannot adequately make the payment.  Only a perfect human can.  But a human can’t be perfect unless also divine.  So God became human in Jesus in order to pay the price for our sins.”[5]  Is this the right message?  Is this what the cross was all about?

A Parisian monk in Anselm’s time, named Abelard, said “No.”  “No” to Anselm’s message, and “No” to the messages before him.  Arguing “against both the ‘ransom’ and ‘satisfaction’ views of atonement,” Abelard wrote:

How cruel and unjust it appears, that anyone should demand the blood of the innocent as any kind of ransom, or be in any way delighted with the death of the innocent, let alone that God should find the death of His Son so acceptable, that through it He should be reconciled to the world! (Commentary on Romans, quoted by McClendon, 209)

(According to McClendon) “Abelard’s own view [was] that it was love […] that was the sole cause of redemption.  Christ’s perseverance in love to us (“even unto death”) evokes a like love in [us]…” so it goes.

We could go on exploring the messages of the cross put forth by countless others, men and women, but what I’ve mentioned so far should be enough for us to begin to see that the cross has presented a challenge to Christians in every age.

In Paul’s time, the cross, the proclamation of “Christ crucified” was “a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” who would not, could not believe it.  It’s been said that “…there was no ‘expectation’ of Christ in Scripture that could have enabled even the keenest Hebrew reader […] to foretell Jesus’ ministry, his suffering, his death and resurrection…” (Doctrine, 216).  No one had considered that the Messiah-King and Suffering Servant figures in the prophecy of Isaiah might be the same person.  No one had considered that the Christ would “[grow] up […] like a root out of dry ground; [or have] no form or majesty that we should look at him”; no one had considered that he would be “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering […] oppressed […] afflicted”; no one had considered that the Christ would be “taken away” by “a perversion of justice” and buried “with the wicked” (Is.53:1-9).  And certainly they did not think that such things could happen to one who was in any way divine.

The cross was an impediment, incredible and absurd for Paul’s generation; and it has been so for many in every age.  And so, in every age Christians have made use of the language at hand to convey the importance of “Christ crucified” in the most intelligible, the most convincing way they knew how.  The first Christians, Bell says, “looked at the world around them, identifying examples, pictures, experiences, and metaphors that their listeners and readers would have been familiar with, and…said: What happened on the cross is like...a relationship being reconciled, something lost being redeemed, a battle being won, a final sacrifice being offered…” (Love Wins, 128).  In other words, they told stories.  And, when it comes to the cross, the most effective narratives (for me) have been the Gospels.

McClendon has said that the Gospels “directly address the chief hindrance to participation faced by Jew and pagan alike—namely, the cross […] the Gospels make sense of the cross exactly by setting it within their own larger story” (Doctrine, 228).  So if you ever find yourself hindered or even embarrassed by the cross, by the message of “Christ crucified”; if you’re ever confused or unconvinced by all of the messages of the cross, with all of their attendant metaphors and theological jargon; I would suggest you read at least one of the Gospels.  During Holy Week the Revised Common Lectionary prescribes large passages of scripture from the Gospels, and I’ve come to find that such readings help ground my understanding of Jesus’ death; because they account for what happened before and after.

Reading the Gospel of Mark, for example, you’d see that Jesus’ passion for God’s kingdom put him at odds with religious authorities, who then looked for a way to kill him (Mk. 11:18).  You’d find that every time Jesus tells of his impending death, “those predictions are never about his dying for our sins, but always about the fact that the authorities will kill him” (Mk. 8:31-33; 9:30-32; 10:32-34 / Borg).  You’d see that the cross was not God’s idea, it was Rome’s.  You’d see that there were three crosses on Calvary, not one, because Jesus was crucified alongside two criminals; which reminds us that it was “a form of Roman execution used for…those who defied Roman authority.”[6]  And you’d be astounded and overjoyed to find that the story of Jesus ends with neither his crucifixion nor his burial, for the women are told: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here” (Mk. 16:6).  So in fact, the story does not end!

McClendon says, “The enemies did not prevail as they intended”—they wanted to stamp the words “The End” on this picture and run the credits.  But instead the story was “To Be Continued…”—“The disciples, doubting, returned to follow him.”

With the Gospel narrative in mind, then, we can turn back to Paul, who himself represents a continuation of the story.  And when Paul says that we are “justified by faith,” by trusting Jesus, we remember how difficult it was for his disciples to trust him in the face of violence.  

When Paul says that we have “peace with God,” that we have been forgiven and reconciled to God, we remember that Jesus was bold to do so in his life, while he was hanging on the cross, and after his resurrection. 

And when Paul says that “Christ died for us,” we remember that Jesus didn’t just die—he was killed, he was executed—and it was agony.

When Paul says that through Jesus’ death “God proves his love for us” we remember that God did not order Jesus’ execution, Pilate did; and we remember that it was not God’s need or desire for blood that led to Jesus’ death, but that his commitment to God’s ways put him in harm’s way.  As Williams has said, “This is a world in which if you try to give your heart to God you may find your blood shed; it’s that kind of world.”[7] 

And when Paul says that “at the right time Christ died for the ungodly,” we remember that Jesus never waited for someone to be “perfect,” but in love he came to seek and to save the lost, crossing barriers, confronting prejudice, and challenging tradition along the way.  And we remember that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and that there will never be a time when we do not need the grace of God’s love and forgiveness.

And when Paul says that “we have now received reconciliation,” we remember that the peace we have with God is God’s own gift to us, not something we have earned; and it is to be shared with the world.

The way we continue the Gospel story, Paul would say, is the “ministry of reconciliation.”  “So if anyone is in Christ,” he says,

there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.[8]

Even as we trust in Jesus, God trusts us to carry on the ministry of helping people to draw closer to God and one another.  This is the work of seeking God’s kingdom, of doing all we can to build beloved community.  The forgiving, compassionate, self-giving work of Jesus is entrusted to us.  The peace you have been given is not for you alone; it is meant for the world. 

I do not expect that we will ever exhaust the meaning-fullness of the cross of Christ, that we will discover all of the “right” words to explain it, that we will one day come away from the cross with every question settled.  But I do hope that you will come away in awe at the depth of God’s grace and love; and then “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”  So be it.  Amen.

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[1] Rowan Williams, The Sign and the Sacrifice, 3-4.

[2] James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, 158.

[3] Rob Bell, Love Wins, 127.

[4] McClendon, Doctrine, 201.

[5] Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian, 98.

[6] Speaking Christian, 99.

[7] The Sign and the Sacrifice, 31.

[8] 2 Cor. 5:17-19