Ash Wednesday

Belmont UMC—March 9, 2011
Naomi Annandale, preaching

As your bulletin indicates, I am a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. I moved here from upstate New York in 2008, but I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where my stepfather was a firefighter at Engine 17, in one of Cleveland’s most troubled, impoverished neighborhoods. I’ve been thinking about that experience as I’ve been spending time thinking about ashes the past couple of weeks.

Troubled, impoverished neighborhoods tend to have a lot of fires. Frequently my stepfather would get called out to one right before his 24-hour shift ended, and would come home smelling of smoke, ash on his face, too tired to shower before going to sleep. I think he was proud of the ashes he wore home, as he deserved to be. Those ashes were a sign of people willing to walk right into a place of death, just on the slim chance that life might be brought forth. At the same time, however, those ashes were a sign of something much sadder. They were a sign of lives that were lived on the edge of society, of people conveniently forgotten or ignored. They were a sign of poor wiring in homes owned by landlords who didn’t care; of unsafe attempts to keep warm in homes where the utilities had been turned off; of kids left alone while parents struggled to earn a living; of teenagers bored, bitter, and hopeless. Those ashes were a sign of death, but not just the death wrought by fire. The ashes my stepfather wore home, even more, were a sign of all the ways that this world deals out death to those it values the least.

Having grown up with this experience, all around me, it was interesting to me to see, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the way that firefighters in general in the media and in our culture began to be portrayed as sort of larger than life folk heroes. While rescuing people from a burning building is certainly heroic, it seemed that suddenly the American Firefighter had ceased to be human. Firefighters didn’t just do noble actions, they had noble motivations, all the time. On the outside and on the inside, they seemed to be so much more than the rest of us. And yet, the firefighters I knew, including my stepfather, actually were very human. Like the rest of us. The constant work wore them down. The agony of deathly disappointment weighed on their souls. They did not always bother to try to understand. My stepfather was mostly contemptuous of people who would “burn down their own neighborhood,” as he put it. And the news from that neighborhood was grim, indeed. Piles of ash. Smoking ruins. Death, and desolation. I never went there – I wasn’t allowed -- and I think that in my mind that neighborhood was more like a foreign country than a part of my own community, its people were as alien to me as any in the world could possibly be.

But today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a time when we are all called to walk right into, not around, the death that reigns in this world. And inside ourselves. Because Lent, you see, is our time to be confronted with what it means to be human. To be fallible, humble, mortal. To be dust, because whether we live on a smoking garbage heap in Brazil, a smoldering neighborhood in Cleveland, or a beautiful home in Nashville, inside, none of us escapes our own humanity. Inside, we all live in the ruins of who we wish we were, the people we want the world to see in us. The best. The brightest. Maybe even something just a little bit more than human. That’s what tonight’s ritual is all about. As we come forward to the altar and are touched by another human being we vividly display our highest aspirations – to be one with God, one with each other. As the ashes are placed on our foreheads, we are reminded that, high aspirations notwithstanding, this human life tends to fall short. Remember -- ashes are the residue of death. They are the remains of something no longer alive. A body, cremated. A house, burned to the ground. In this case, they are the remains of last year’s palms, waved so gloriously as Jesus rode in triumph – we thought – into Jerusalem. Remember how that turned out? Quickly, Holy Week confronted us with that human tendency to fall short. Our youth burned the palms. They’ve already had the opportunity to revisit the pretensions to loyalty and faithfulness that are the stuff of Palm Sunday. Now, it’s our turn. And so we take on this ashen tatoo to signify that we will walk with Jesus on his journey toward death, a journey that goes straight into the suffering and brokenness of humanity.

I hope we take it on with some trepidation, maybe even fear and trembling, because tonight’s gospel text is a little ironic. Did we just hear Jesus reminding us to BEWARE of practicing our piety for others to see. Beware. Watch out. Outward pretensions to piety – like, maybe, ashes on your forehead -- are dangerous. There’s a  little disconnect there, right? Let’s think about this. The people Matthew calls hypocrites – literally, play actors -- seek recognition for their charity to the poor, seek attention in their prayer, seek admiration for their fasting. I could relate to this. You see, in addition to being a graduate student, I am also a mother, and while I believe motherhood is a job you continue to learn every day for the rest of your life, there are a couple of things I do know, and one of them is this: Human beings like attention. Little human beings need attention, and if they feel like they aren’t getting enough of it, they will let you know. I thought about my own little human beings, and the times when I did not give them enough attention, and the various, ultimately unproductive ways they let me know as I read about these pious play actors.
Jesus spells it out for us -- those people who give so that they can make sure to let you know how much they’ve given – well, they’ve received their reward, in whatever satisfaction they’ve gotten in telling. Those people who pray so that they can be seen and honored, instead of opening themselves humbly, to let God work in them – well, they’ve received their reward, too, in all that attention. Those people who suffer through florid displays of religious devotion so that they can look for your admiration. Yup. Them, too. Already rewarded. Of course, Matthew doesn’t forbid giving to the poor, praying, and fasting, but he doesn’t command them, either. Instead, he assumes them and gives guidance on how to do them properly. The focus is not on required acts of “piety,” but on the “so-that” – the examples of pious play-acting. Of what’s happening on the outside that is so out of whack with what God seeks in us, on the inside. Beware of this pretension, Jesus says, this desire to be larger than life, more than human, the best and the brightest – for it lives in each of us.  Beware. Why? Well, what is pretension but separation – Separation from God. Separation from one another. A conviction that those people – as I was calling the hypocrites – are ultimately alien to the rest of us. No, do the work of the kingdom – but don’t do it in order to be seen. Do it, in order to be one. One with God. One with each other. One with the world. One, on the inside.

For as broken as we are, we have all been called the beloved. God’s beloved. The hypocrites – well, sadly, they wanted to be somebodies because of what they could do. But the journey we embark upon tonight ultimately reminds us that we are somebodies – the beloved – just because we are human. Like the firefighters I grew up with, as well as the people they served. Worthy of a walk into death. And today, we are invited to begin that walk, as well. Jesus invites us to walk with him, in love, straight into the ruins. Into death. And so we wear the ashen cross as a sign. It is a sign of our humility. It is a sign of our humanity. It is a sign of communion. Most of all, it is a sign of love. Because it is only love that can conquer death. And if we are willing to take that walk, we do it, not on the slim chance that life might be brought forth from the ruins. Instead, we walk into the ashen landscape of human life in trust that it will. It will. Amen.