An Ash Wednesday Reflection
An Ash Wednesday Reflection
Can you imagine the equivalents of a dazzle bejeweled tree, a huge ruby heart, or a candy casting bunny for Ash Wednesday? Can you imagine the retail industry capturing Ash Wednesday as a market-driving holiday like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter? Imagine the malls. Immediately following Valentine’s Day, the glittering red hearts are replaced with black plus-signed smudges. The pink cupids come down and up go the dour, bearded John the Baptists. Down with the red tinsel and up the swaths of sackcloth. Swap the chocolate-filled cartons with shelves of insignificant jars holding dry dust and acrid ash. Hallmark puts out cards in greys and browns with poetic statements of piety and parched-ness. Starbucks markets their Humus Lattes and the fashion stores pull out their Grunge, and Goth clothing.
It couldn’t happen. Commerciality abhors realistic self-perception. Matthew 6:1-21 opposes a bling type of self-promoting piety. In its stead we are encouraged to consider the roots of our behavior. Our shadowy Dorian Gray portraits are revealed to us as we realize our sinful motivations.
Ash Wednesday moves us from the adoration of the topmost petals of flowers and the head-high gazing of billboards, score boards, and skyscrapers to consider the bottommost earth, the lowly root systems of life. We are drawn down to the basic elements of life, the shared soils that nourish our bodies, minds and spirits. Today we contemplate our humanity, our humility, and our mortality.
Of all the religious holidays that help us center ourselves in the truths of our faith, Ash Wednesday contradicts our culture’s commercial deformities more than any other. Our malls promise wrinkle-free youth, the ash reminds us that our aging is natural and should be cherished. Our malls’ Brooks Brothers, Ann Taylors, and Hollisters, promise costumed prominence, the ash reminds us that our hearts’ intentions are more important than how people see us. Our billboards promise that we can distinguish ourselves from others, and the ash reminds us that we all share in the same soil.
So this season we are called to re-center ourselves in God’s hope-filled reality. We are invited to prepare ourselves this Lent, that we might enjoy a mountain-top Easter. We are invited to decompose our daily lives that we might be reconstructed anew as resurrect-ible children of God. Take on a forty day fast. Take your sights off the glitter. Move your eyes down from the colors of neon signs, and HD screens to your brown, microbial, life-absorbing roots. Move your heads from dreams of vibrancy to the appreciations of daily living: heartbeats, breathing, clear water, earthy breads, toes, skin and friendship. Fast from planning and live a prayerful present. Fast from worry and live breathing slow breaths of trust. Fast from pursuing eternity and appreciate the tastes of today.
Don’t be sad. Lent is not a season of self-nullification. It is not anti-life. It is not anti-joy. Quite the opposite, Lent's Ash Wednesday desires that we enjoy our connection to the earth, enjoy the scents of olive oils, herbs, teas, and salts. We enjoy remembering that we share our lives in and with the dirt. Ash Wednesday is the annual call to appreciate a fragile, finite, and utterly incredible humanity. Ash Wednesday is the annual call to safe humility before a providential God. Ash Wednesday opens us to the retreat of Lent, the stretching yoga of Lent, the deep massage of Lent, the small loving oasis of Lent. Relax friends for we are made of the same dust and some day we will return together to the comforting embrace of God’s beloved earth. Amen.
Matthew 6:1-21
6“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7“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. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. 14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
16“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
19“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.