Ken Sehested
Mardi Gras processional. “Jubilee Stomp.” —Tuba Skinny
Ash Wednesday invocation. “When Love Meets Dust” —Alana Levandoski
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A couple years ago I had an email exchange with my friend, Phillip. He ended with:
And today we wear the ashes. I’m always humbled. Especially when I as pastor “impose the ashes” on people I love. (Impose? Really? Oh God)
And I replied:
Oh, great insight re. the word “imposition,” whose root meaning is “inflict, deceive.” It’s an unfortunate word to be associated with Ash Wednesday’s ritual.
Except . . . maybe . . . if the imposition is actually “the world’s” demand that we recognize the authority of and justification for crucifixion—and to be intentionally marked with ash is a sign of resistance to that imposition. It is a holy act of defiance: “I, too, am a follower of this Way! Take me if you dare, if you must; do your worst. I will not renounce. Your threat of imposition will not deter me.”
And then, in my imagination, we repeat these lines from Daniel 3, addressed to the Babylonian ruler, who threatened the non-compliant with being tossed into a fiery furnace:
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter [of bowing down to worship your golden statue]. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.’”
It is the great nevertheless of faith. The defiant come-what-may. The provocative we-shall-not-be-moved. . . except when our moving is out of Pharaoh’s bondage; moving out of Herod’s reach and Caesar’s interdiction; out of step with every royal assumption; and moving on in disobedience to every hierarchy of race and class, gender and caste; ever refusing to back down in the face of these pretenders claiming divine right or historical necessity.
All of these refutations accompany the great affirmation which is Ash Wednesday’s mark of rebellion against every despot who seeks to annul Heaven’s intention for Earth’s reclamation. Such is the terror of God sounding in the tyrannical ears of all who believe death has the last word.
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Biblical anthropology
Some in the community of faith are repulsed by the Ash Wednesday smudging. It’s not hard to imagine why, as if what God demands of us is self-abasement (if not self-mutilation—do a web search for images associated with the word penitence and a great many show people literally lacerating their own bodies).
No doubt a good bit of this theological mischief is due to notions like original sin or The Fall or its escalation in the Protestant Reformation to total depravity. You would think the sola scriptura folk would reject such language since none of these words appear as such in the Bible.
The history behind original sin theologizing is a labyrinthine jumble of complex conjugations piled this way and that, abstractions galore, tortured logic and hair splitting around every corner, littered with obscure, exotic rhetoric amid a cascade of mutual condemnations between its defenders. Shakespeare himself might apply his famous line of “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” to this hot mess of specious tomfoolery.
Nevertheless, it is true that Scripture doesn’t shy away from documenting the scale of brutality humans are capable of. Sometimes in grisly detail—read the story of the unnamed concubine in Judges 19 or the petitions in Psalm 139. And in the Newer Testament, one of Jesus’ closest confidants betrays him, and another, allegedly upon whom the church is built, flagrantly denied even knowing Jesus three times before breakfast.
We are a shaky lot. Rare the exemplar, common the culprit. Our collective, bloodstained trail of infamy goes all the way back to the first family in creation, when Cain slew his brother Abel. Scripture’s opinion on humanity’s character is tangled.
For sure, on the one hand, it is recorded that “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” and “for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (Genesis 6:5 & 8:21). On the other hand, “God created humankind in [God’s] own image” (Genesis 1:27).
On the one hand, it says “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). On the other, “I praise you [O God], because I am awesomely and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).
On the one hand, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it” (Jeremiah 17:9)? On the other, “You have made [humans] a little lower than angels, and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5).
On the one hand, “None are righteous; no, not one” (Romans 3:10, echoing Psalm 14:3). On the other, “The Lord your God rejoices over you . . . exults over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17) and “The dwelling place of God is among humankind (Revelation 21:3).
Therefore, how, and in what way, are we to welcome our ashen mark as the inauguration of Lent’s observance?
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Consider these instructions for the onset of Lent’s journey
The work of Lent involves both how we allow ourselves to be shaped by, and how we participate with, the power of the Spirit in a world that has lost its way. The Lenten season is traditionally understood as our own metaphorical venture into the wilderness of our own hearts, where we wrestle with demons, and are waited on by angels.
The journey into and through our own heart circles back into the wilderness of history’s wayward affairs as agents of healing worldly wounds and wastrel dispositions. The foretaste of Love makes us lovers, and such belovedness thereby incrementally interrupts the spirals of disdain and violence that flow from inherited trauma, affliction, and misery.
The trek through Lenten practice is not comfy and may test our limits. It is not for our affliction but to clarity our affection. Our annunciation is that of Mary’s, whose exclamation of praise doubles as a denunciation and indictment of the present world’s disorder.
Jan Richardson writes a blessing based on Jesus being baptized, hearing God call him “Beloved,” and then the Holy Spirit immediately driving him into the wilderness for forty days. In her blessing, she reminds us that during this journey, it is crucial to remember our identity as God’s Beloved:
“If you would enter into the wilderness,
do not begin without a blessing.
Do not leave without hearing who you are:
Beloved, named by the One
who has traveled this path before you.”
Add to this a primordial memory: The first doctrine of Scripture is God’s absolute delight with Creation. That original blessing has certainly been obscured the first couple’s expulsion from the Garden and history’s subsequent wreckage; but the blessing has never been retracted. We are imago dei, made in the image of God.
So, find an honored place in your soul, where you pass by frequently, to display this admonition. Put a flashing neon light as its background. Enclose this reminder as in a mezuzah on your doorpost, touching it in your goings out and your comings in. Wear it around your neck as an amulet, pressed against your skin, leaching its reminder directly into your bloodstream: fear not, fear not!
Then lace your heart with its heavy-duty boots as you venture into this wild terrain of your own soul, unvexed at the prospect of danger and fear, hunger and thirst, scorching sun and the night’s dark threat. All the while, expect that you are being tracked by the Hound of Heaven who will guide you at the edge of every precipice, who will find you, and remind you, who and Whose you are.
Live in the bare nakedness of your incompleteness, reclothed by this assurance: The Loveliest One’s own heart palpitates with delight at the very sound of your name.
So let this Word be heard among you, the Word that was present from the beginning, who now awaits to be born anew in every human heart, whose promise of deliverance stretches across the cosmos, who journeys with you in the midst of tribulation, light’s eclipse, and hope’s frailty, even to and through death’s dominion, whose demise is sure, world without end. Amen. Amen.
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Benediction. “Jesus I trust in You, / I love You, have mercy. / Deep from Your wounded heart, Pour out Your grace and mercy.” —Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles “My Mercy: A Lenten meditation”
Recessional. “God Almighty here I am / Am I where I ought to be / I’ve begun to soon descend / Like the sun into the sea / And I thank my lucky stars / From here to eternity / For the artist that you are / And the man you made of me.” —Kris Kristofferson, “Feeling Mortal”
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