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