Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Ash Wednesday
What kind of crazy are you? This is the question we should be asking on our first date, so states Alain de Botton in his article, Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person. Apparently, this is either people’s most deep seated fear, or their dreadful reality; this was the most read article of 2016 in the New York Times.[1]
Please note that Botton uses the term “crazy” without prejudice or disrespect, and not intending offense to those with mental illness. He writes, “…we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well.”[2] How are you crazy? If you don’t know, just ask your family. Botton wants us to be aware that “every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us—and we will…do the same to them.”[3] Again, just ask your family.
I’ve had my share of frustration, anger, annoyance, maddening encounters and disappointments. And that was just in the last hour! Actually, that was Monday. Monday was a very full day! My crazy usually impacts someone else. When I become uprooted and thrown into a pit of emotional chaos, I in turn become someone who frustrates, angers, annoys, maddens and disappoints people. My focus becomes me, myself and I. In fact, my focus can become me, myself, and I all by myself, not prompted by anyone else. This is attested to by the number of shoes in my closet and the amount of dark chocolate that I can eat in one sitting.
While in themselves these things don’t sound so bad, they are manifestations of my shortcomings, and serve to distract me from loving myself, others and God in healthy ways. They are only a couple of the many ways that my relationships become distorted. I know I am not alone. There are moments when we don’t love our neighbor, or talk about our neighbor–not in the best Christian light. Not to mention the times we want the very thing our neighbor has, ignore those neighbors who need our help or our voice.
There is a churchy word for all of this. A theological dictionary expresses it this way, and I quote, “…people suck at being human the way God intends humans to be because of a condition known as sin,”[4]
We help others and practice generosity, but eventually we find it hard to forgive someone, or are haunted by self-doubt, or any those things that come with being a crazy human. We may be sorry and have regret. But if we view these things as anything other than sin, and respond in a way that does not include repentance, turning again to God, then we are in danger of thinking we have the power to save ourselves, that we can, on our own, make things right without God’s grace, without God’s mercy and forgiveness. We can talk ourselves into believing that we can always act without self-interest and self-benefit.
We need Ash Wednesday, this day that we confess to God, to one another, and before the whole company of heaven that we cannot extricate ourselves from that which separates us from God and from one another. We need this ashen reminder that we cannot save ourselves. The cross made of ashes is a confession that we cannot accomplish what only God can. Our ashes are also a confession of hope, hope that things can be different.
Tonight, the cross of ashes will be placed on our foreheads, on top of the cross placed that marked us as God’s in our baptism. It is a reminder of whose we are. God claims us, and the promise of new life underlies even death. Love and life brought out of death and ashes are tangible signs of God’s reversals. Tonight, because we admit our mortality and our sinfulness, we return to our God of promise and hope.
This is why Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the year.[5] Tonight is the night we confess, “God, I want to love you with my whole heart. I want to love you with all my heart, but part of my heart gets tangled up with other things. Sometimes part of my heart feels like a closed fist aimed at those who think differently than I do. Part of my heart is frozen with fear of I don’t know what–being unlovable, looking foolish, not having what I need, of being alone, of dying. Part of my heart wonders if I will ever be good enough.” Tonight is the night that we confess, “God, I am crazy like this.” Tonight is the night God responds, “I know! But I am crazy in love with you. Let’s start again, together.”
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.[6]
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] This article, from May 28, 2016, can be accessed on-line at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html?_r=0. Krista Tippett’s interview with the author, Alain de Botton, The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships, February 9, 2017, is available as a podcast, http://onbeing.org/programs/alain-de-botton-the-true-hard-work-of-love-and-relationships/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Jacobson, Rolf, ed. {Crazy Talk}: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008. p. 161.
[5] While it may seem strange that Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days, being honest about my sin is a relief. To say out loud that I need God, that I cannot save myself, is a statement of hope because if salvation is up to me, I am doomed. Ash Wednesday is a tangible reminder of God’s promises given to us in baptism and lived out in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I love Ash Wednesday!
[6] Joel 2:12-13