Tag Archives: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday: “Ash”? (March 5, 2025)

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Readings

Well, here we are again at Ash Wednesday with its “Remember that you are dust.” As I wondered how we might enter Lent this year that dust image got my attention, an image Scripture uses in a variety of ways.

The words that accompany the ashes echo that text from Genesis’ Garden of Eden story: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But ‘dust’ is not always the best translation of Hebrew עָפָר, so the Common English Bible reads “until you return to the fertile land, since from it you were taken; you are soil, to the soil you will return.” Not good news, but it recognizes an ongoing relatedness: adam (humankind) from the adamah (the fertile land). That relatedness is good news—and easy to forget. So I’m grateful for the various initiatives our parish is taking.

Dust. From this evening’s psalm: “For he himself knows whereof we are made; / he remembers that we are but dust.” Hashtag ‘dust’ positions us for God’s mercy. And the prophet Isaiah recognizes that not even death can get in the way: “Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. / O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! / For your dew is a radiant dew, / and the earth will give birth to those long dead.”

So there’s an implicit promise in “Remember that you are dust…” The year I was in the middle of a hospital chaplaincy program I made the promise explicit: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, and from the dust you shall be raised.” And every year I remember that.

The raised part isn’t automatic, of course, which is why imposing the ashes in the shape of the cross is as important as the ashes themselves. The cross: Jesus’ path, Jesus’ way, our way with Jesus through death into life.

Our faithfulness to Jesus’ way is usually—shall we say—ambiguous, which is why Paul regards being reconciled to God as an ongoing project, why the BCP’s invitation to a holy Lent emphasizes repentance. ‘Repentance’: a $50 word for changing course, for changing.

Back in 1957 they made a short movie featuring the cellist Pablo Casals. The director asked him why at age 80 he continued to practice for hours each day. Casals answered: “Because I think I am making progress.”

That’s a lovely model for repentance. We often assume that repentance is about what goes on in the head or heart. But recall our Isaiah reading: “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” Repentance needs to move to Casal’s fingers, to our hands and feet, to have any lasting value. And in any case, as Jesus points out, the heart pretty much just tags along after the treasure.

“Because I think I am making progress.” OK. “Making progress on loving God and neighbor:” where does that fall among my priorities?

There’s probably an unavoidable element of altruism here. Rowan Williams talks about decentering, abandoning—as often as I need to—that oh-so-attractive idea that I’m the natural center of the universe. But altruism isn’t the point.

Recall these lines from the Song of Songs that didn’t (alas!) make it into tonight’s readings:

10 My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
11 for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
12 The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land. (Cant. 2:10-12)

The noise and worries of the day-to-day can easily drown out that voice. Lent is our time to remember that for quite selfish reasons that’s the voice we want to hear, that hearing it more clearly, more often, might be worth some change.

Parenthetically, here’s one reason I want to hear that voice. Whether it’s Jesus’ “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33) or the BCP’s “self-examination and repentance,” our responses often leave us overly serious and wound very tight. Jesus, in the midst of the Roman occupation and the multiple Jewish factions each claiming the Lord’s stamp of approval, responds with joy and generosity. There’s a lot I could learn from that voice.

Earlier I said that Scripture uses the dust image in a variety of ways. Here’s another, with which I’ll close. At one point the Lord said to Abram: “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted” (Gen. 13:16). And in Scripture’s last book John gets a glimpse of the fulfillment of that promise: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Rev. 7:9-10). May we be numbered with that dust.

“This have I done for my true love”: Observing Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day

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Tomorrow will be my dancing day[1]

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance;

Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance
Thus was I knit to man’s nature
To call my true love to my dance.

In a manger laid, and wrapped I was
So very poor, this was my chance
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass
To call my true love to my dance.

Then afterwards baptized I was;
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father’s voice heard I from above,
To call my true love to my dance.

These coinciding dates: an opportunity to explore one of Scripture’s recurrent metaphors, to observe Ash Wednesday attending more to the carrot than the stick. The following set of readings—one of many possible sets—together with the sermon: this year’s response to the opportunity.

Hosea 2:14-20

14 Therefore, I will now allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 From there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

16 On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.” 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. 18 I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.

Song of Songs 2:8-13

8 The voice of my beloved!
Look, he comes, *
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

9 My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag. *
Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.

10 My beloved speaks and says to me: *
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;

11 for now the winter is past, *
the rain is over and gone.

12 The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come, *
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance. *
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.

Revelation 19:1-9a

1 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power to our God,
2 for his judgments are true and just;
he has judged the great whore
who corrupted the earth with her fornication,
and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

3 Once more they said,
“Hallelujah!
The smoke goes up from her forever and ever.”

4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying,
“Amen. Hallelujah!”

5 And from the throne came a voice saying,
“Praise our God,
all you his servants,
and all who fear him,
small and great.”

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready;
8 to her it has been granted to be clothed
with fine linen, bright and pure”–
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

John. 3:25-30

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. 28 You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Sermon 2024

This year Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day, which may put us in the right frame of mind to enter into this year’s Lent.

How so? To help us begin to get our heads around a relationship with the absolutely unique God, Scripture uses metaphors from a variety of relationships: parent and child, lord and servant, and lovers. The texts we just heard: a small sample of the texts using the metaphor of lovers.

How might these help us to enter into Lent? Perhaps in a variety of ways.

First—we’ll get the hard stuff out of the way, eat the vegetables first—this metaphor of lovers brings sin into focus. Lovers can hurt each other in ways hard to match in other human relationships, and much of the book of the prophet Hosea explores the pain God suffers from our sin. Among the people of God sin is betrayal, the breaking of promises, whether made at Sinai or at Baptism. This is where the language of adultery comes in. James, Jesus’ brother, thunders “Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’?” (4:4-5) So if we’re having trouble sensing compunction, sorrow for our sins, the lovers metaphor can help us.

Adultery, by the way, can signal THE END (all caps) of a relationship. Our Bible could have been a much shorter book. The Northern Kingdom’s adultery (recall Hosea) led to its destruction by the Assyrians in the 8th Century (B.C.); the Southern Kingdom’s adultery (recall Jeremiah, Ezekiel) led to its destruction by the Babylonians less than two centuries later. End of story? The depth of God’s love is nowhere seen more clearly than in God not letting even that unfaithfulness be the end of the story. God will start again—as we heard in Hosea: “Therefore, I will now allure her, / and bring her into the wilderness, / and speak tenderly to her.”

Facing our sin it’s easy to conclude that the story’s effectively over—which is precisely when we need Hosea. If there’s our sin, there’s our Lover’s stubbornness. Or, closer to home—since we’re at St. Peter’s [the parish where this sermon is shared]—three times that night Peter was asked about Jesus. “I do not know what you are talking about.” Again, this time with an oath, “I do not know the man.” And a third time, this time cursing and with an oath: “I do not know the man!” But even that, no match for Jesus’ stubbornness. So that’s the second thing this lovers metaphor can help us with, encountering our Lover’s stubbornness. There’s a whiff of it in that best-known but oddly translated psalm: “Surely your goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.” Paul highlights another dimension to this stubbornness: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Turns out we’re not a cheap date.

There are many things we might notice from our reading from Revelation. Perhaps what the reading uniquely contributes is a sense of the communal stakes. There’s the great whore, that symbol of political, military, and economic empire in which everything can be monetized, in which wealth can be continually extracted from the periphery to serve the insatiable appetites at the center. The great whore…and the bride, “clothed with fine linen, bright and pure.” The contrast is something like Mark’s contrast of the two banquets: Herod’s, at which John the Baptist is beheaded, and Jesus’, at which the five loaves and two fishes feed thousands. Which banquet—Mark asks—are we at? Which are we trying to get tickets to? So in Revelation: the great whore, the bride: with whom do we want to be found? Not a question we answer just once, hence one of our confessions: “We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” Lent’s an opportunity to pay attention to that.

Finally, most importantly, the picture of mutual delight in the Song of Songs. There is, of course, a still unresolved argument about the actual subject matter of its poems. The readings I’ve found most convincing have the poet talking about horizontal and vertical love from the start. Recall the beginning of Genesis. The man moves at virtual lightspeed from “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” to “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree.” Is that the trajectory on which we’re stuck? And the man to God: “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Is that the trajectory on which we’re stuck? Song of Songs thinks not. John’s visions provide a sort of “Amen;” we’ll get the final “Amen” when our dress rehearsals for the Lamb’s marriage—pointing to the Table—are replaced by the real thing.

The mutual delight pictured in the Song of Songs: that’s the endgame. Lent: that’s for cleaning the glasses to give our imaginations a better shot at keeping it in view. C. S. Lewis nails it: “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”[2]

So: joyous Valentine’s Day. Joyous Ash Wednesday.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Shall_Be_My_Dancing_Day (accessed 2/9/2024).

[2] From Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. In context: “Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were placed here to live. But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends.  Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

Ash Wednesday 2022

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A couple weeks back in one of our Zoom gatherings at St. Dunstan’s as soon as the conversation turned to Lent someone responded in the chat area “I’m not ready for Lent!” We can, I think, all sympathize. Between Ukraine, COVID 19, inflation and our domestic polarization, it feels like the last thing we need is to switch from green to purple.

So it’s worth remembering that the One who invites us into this Lent is the One who said “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

And closely aligned with these words, the words from our psalm:

3 He forgives all your sins *
and heals all your infirmities;
4 He redeems your life from the grave *
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
8 The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, *
slow to anger and of great kindness.

So what, we might ask, is the problem? It’s like, I think, that story of the fellow hiking in the mountains. His foot slips, he goes over the edge, and just manages to grab hold of a root—and looking down is not a good idea. He calls for help and is answered by a celestial voice: “Don’t be afraid. I’ll help you. Let go of the root.” The guy thinks a long moment and then responds “Is anyone else up there?”

That’s the work of Lent. What’s the root or the roots that I’m hanging onto that keep me from receiving more fully God’s mercy and loving-kindness? It might have something to do with the last verses in the Gospel, where I’m storing up treasure, whether—as the text explores past what we read—my use of my resources is mirroring God’s generosity. Whether my eye is stingy or generous is a pretty good clue re what I trust for my security. What are my preferred roots? The work of Lent.

But back to Jesus. The difference between our situation and that of the dangling hiker is that Jesus comes alongside us: “You don’t have to do this alone. We can do it together.” For what is the story that we hear throughout the Church year if not the story of Jesus letting go of all the roots on offer, and inviting us to come along?