Taking on the Cross: Homily for Ash Wednesday

It is on this day that we prepare to enter the season of Lent, and that we are encouraged to take stock of any sins we have committed, any repentance we need to make. It is also a time when many of us who attempt to observe a holy Lent are often prone to “give something up” for Lent: swearing, or drinking soda pop, or chocolate, or electronics. Some of us fast from all food or simply meat on Ash Wednesday and on Friday. The taking on of such a special discipline is meant to help us focus our priorities during the 40 days of Lent, from being reminded of our mortality on Ash Wednesday through the somberness of Holy Week, to emerge in the glorious resurrection light of Easter. 

But what if we looked at this from another angle? What if we thought of this as a chance for true repentance—a literal turning from away from one thing in hope of something better? Rather than giving up, what if we set an intention for ourselves to give in, with an emphasis on the word “give?” What if we used this Lent as a chance to give in, to look in, to lean in--- to try to surrender fears, attitudes, and failures of heart that separate us from the love of God we are called to embody, to take into our very heart and soul and mind. When we surrender these things, there is then a space hollowed out in our hearts that can be filled with Christ. 

Many people comment on the irony of wearing ashes publicly after we have heard a gospel reading that warns against making a show of religious observance. But Jesus is not talking about the wearing of ashes in our gospel. Perhaps the key lies in the fact that we ourselves get so caught up in the idea of the exercising of public piety, that we often lose sight of how Jesus defines that piety—not as ashes marked on our foreheads, but on the three vehicles he highlights: giving alms, praying, and fasting, which were the three most common outward practices of an observant Jew in those days.

When we give alms, we are called to give to others without rules or expectations or demands.

When we pray, we are called to listen even more than we speak, and to place ourselves somewhere where we can hear the voice of our Beloved Savior speaking to us. 

When we fast, we are called to clear away distractions to focus on what really matters. 

Rather than make a game out of our own will-power, we’re actually called to give ourselves over to the will of God in our lives turned outwardly rather than inwardly. 

The difference lies in intent. Our reading from Joel urges us to strip away all the masks that separate us from focusing on God when it urges us to “rend our hearts, and not our clothing” as a sign of our repentance over where we have fallen short and sinned in the previous year. In other words, Jesus calls us to lay down the illusion that we can hide from God, or ourselves and to take the risk to be open and humble before God—and even, harder, to trust in God’s promises. Jesus calls us to strip away barriers, but also the false fronts we put on as a shallow defense against self- knowledge and change. 

The word translated as “hypocrites” here often in the original Greek had a meaning closer to “play-actors.” In Greek theatre at that time, of course, actors wore exaggerated masks so that even those in the furthest seats could see the expressions. Of course, this meant that the actors’ true selves were hidden from view. On the one hand, then, to act as a play-actor is to make a mockery through exaggeration, to overact or mug before the audience. It is said that an actor lives for the applause. Jesus’s remarks here also lead us to ask ourselves about the motivation behind our actions. Are we doing religious things so that we can be thought of as good, or doing good things for their own sake? 

If we are honest with ourselves, most of us know an awful lot about wearing masks. And the reality about those masks is that they may fool the people around us, but they certainly don’t fool God. God knows exactly who we are: our hurts, our self-delusion, our false pride and secret fears. And yet God loves us anyway. Loves us—and encourages us to drop the masks and allow ourselves to really be seen. To be seen—and freed to do the work of discipleship that grounds us in love of God and love of each other. 

The marking of our foreheads with ashes comes with a reminder that we are made from the dust, and to the dust we shall return. All of us. But the ashes are also mixed with oil, to remind us that we have each been chosen by God as beloved, anointed to spend these 40 days rededicating ourselves to Christ’s service. 

And to these two precious elements, we add a third: the shape of the cross. The two lines that are drawn upon our foreheads with this dust are in the shape of a cross—reminding us of a love that never gives up on us, ever, that calls us to new life even as we remember our bodily mortality. It is on that cross that we are drawn straight into the open embrace of Jesus, with his arms outstretched upon that cross, showing us that Love Always Wins. 

 So, putting our masks aside, let us humbly take on the loving emblem of the cross—and let our hearts be shaped by the Love that calls us to repentance without ever abandoning us. 

Amen.

Preached at the 12:00 Eucharist at the Fountains of West County, and at the 7:00 pm Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:
Joel 2:1-2,12-17
Psalm 103 or 103:8-14
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6,16-21