Ash Wednesday 2021

 

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

No doubt many, like myself, have noticed a disconnect between the Gospel for Ash Wednesday and the practice of tracing a sign of the cross on the forehead with ashes. The pertinent portion of the gospel from Matthew chapter 6 reads:

"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. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so 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.”

 

As one’s seminary life ends, we take exams called The GOEs, or The General Ordination Exams. One section when I took them was a series of about “Ten Coffee Hour Questions.” You were given overnight to draft answers to these questions, type them and turn them in the next day where you would be assigned an essay question in another area of theological education, say, Theology, New Testament, Christian Ethics, etc.

 

One of the Coffee hour questions in 1983 was, “Why, if we read Matthew 6 on Ash Wednesday, do we mark a person’s forehead with ashes?” Why, indeed! Needless to say, one has to employ a pretzel of theological logic to attempt an explanation that might satisfy anyone asking this question looking for a concise and meaningful justification for what had suddenly become standard practice with the issue of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer while sipping on a Styrofoam cup of Church Joe.

 

Since most clergy marked the sign of the cross with the ashes, the standard answer was to link it to the cross traced on the forehead with oil at baptism, which for many was also a new practice with the 1979 prayerbook. Looking deeper into the Ash Wednesday liturgy, however, one notices that the words spoken with the imposition of ashes come from Genesis 3:19, the punishment and expulsion from the Garden of the first man and woman. These words are addressed to Adam, from the Hebrew, athama, which means earth, or soil:

“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.”

 

One immediately notices several things. The text is indented in the RSV and NRSV translations, meaning this is Hebrew poetry. Second, it specifically makes note of our mortality – one day, one way or another, we will all return to the ground. For it is from the ground, in Genesis 2, that God takes a handful of dust and moisture and fashions the first man. This is also a reminder of the first time two of God’s people disobeyed a command. And of course, when we receive the ashes on Ash Wednesday, we hear some version of, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

 

Which in a cosmic sense is now an accepted truth of astro-physics – not only are we, but all of the created world and universe are made of the cosmic stardust of creation, whether or not one chooses to call it The Big Bang. It turns out Joni Mitchell was correct when she sang, “We are stardust/We are golden/We are billion-year-old carbon/And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” We come from dust and we return to dust.

 

In the Burial Office, at The Committal we read, “…earth is cast upon the coffin while the Celebrant says, (in part) ‘…we commit his/her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…’” The earliest accounts of what came to be known as Lent began with those who were penitent and those seeking to be baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter having ashes sprinkled on them – on the tops of their heads. Not until the tenth century in England did it become the custom to sprinkle the ashes the tops of the heads of all who were present, and later than that to do so on a day that became known as Ash Wednesday. As the 1979 prayerbook says, “Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.” It was in this period of sprinkling ashes on the head that the Gospel from Matthew chapter 6 was chosen for Ash Wednesday. Tracing the cross on the forehead was a more recent development, growing in part out of Vatican II.

 

In this time of The Coronavirus, we all are confronted with our inherent mortality as the invisible virus may attach to any one of us to be its host we know not when or where. More than ever, we are aware that we are dust and to dust we shall return, the most fundamental of Biblical truths. Therefore, it seems appropriate to return to the more ancient custom of sprinkling the ashes on the top of the head as one day earth may be sprinkled upon our casket or urn. As much as most of us miss human touch, it is both pastoral and appropriate during this time of a Pandemic that it is just not recommended or allowed at this time.

 

I once was distributing the ashes at an early morning service. A mother and her four-year-old daughter were among those at the communion rail. I marked the mother on her forehead. As I approached the young girl, she drew back and shook her head. She seemed to understand better than any one of us there what this all meant and was having none of it that year. I smiled at her and assured her that it was OK not to receive the ashes.

 

Whether or not one chooses to or not to receive the ashes, Ash Wednesday is that day on which we ponder where we come from and where we are going. It is also a time we are given to decide to do a full reset, a return to the garden if you will - to amend our ways one more time and try to become more consistent to live the way God in Christ Jesus calls us to follow him.

 

Ash Wednesday is also a day to be reminded that our God is the “Lord whose property is always to have mercy…” [BCP 337] That our God is “Merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” [Psalm 103:8] And that our God “…pardons and absolves all those who truly repent…that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so at the last we may come to his eternal joy…” [BCP 269]. That our God chooses to be with us in times like this.

 

I wish I had said some of this in that brief essay in 1983. I am grateful that this Ash Wednesday I have been granted the opportunity to stand in this historic 1805 church of ours and join with all of you, wherever you are right now, and hope that “our father who sees in secret” will indeed forgive and reward us all just for taking the time to be here today. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. All of us are dust, and to dust we shall return. Amen. It is truth. It is so.