Ash Wednesday B2018
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21, Isaiah 58
I’ve been meditating regularly.
Back in Advent, and even just a few weeks ago, I thought I was doing well. I like doing things well. Each evening, I would sit on the pillows in my meditation room and spend 10 minutes following the directions of a guided meditation from the app Insight Timer. More recently, I was sitting in a chair each morning for 10 minutes engaged in a morning meditation from the same app. Then, one day a couple weeks ago, a friend asked: what’s your goal in meditation? I realized I didn’t know the answer to the question. After listening to me hem and haw, my friend challenged me to do silent meditation instead of guided meditation. “Well, I don’t do that,” I said. “Maybe that’s why you should” was the reply. You see, I can follow directions, focus on the voice of a wise person, even observe my thoughts now. But sitting in silence observing my thoughts, focusing on my breath without a gentle person reminding me to do so, having only myself for company?
Turns out, my friend was right. The first evening I tried to sit for 8 minutes in silence, I could only do 6. And when I got up, I couldn’t think straight. I was punchy and uncomfortable and in a weird place. Instead of calming me and preparing me for a peaceful night’s sleep, my meditation had revealed all these distorted beliefs going through my brain. Instead of distracting me from my feelings, my meditation had brought to the surface feelings I had, until then, successfully stuffed. Silent meditation was like looking in a magnified mirror under a harsh light. I couldn’t avoid seeing every small scratch and open pore, every cognitive distortion and unpleasant feeling.
Ash Wednesday is the liturgical version of silent meditation.
Ash Wednesday is the night we open up our raw, vulnerable hearts and acknowledge that, someday, we will die. The night we lay bare the brokenness of the world. The night we take responsibility for the broken systems and personal failures we usually ignore. Ash Wednesday is the night we stand in harsh light, our sin and brokenness and mortality magnified. There’s a lot there. For each of us individually and for all of us corporately. Both the prophet Isaiah who declares a fast of justice and peace and Jesus who insists on a piety of deep integrity expose the shallow nature of our spirituality. We are hilarious. We walk around this planet with such bravado, such arrogance, all the while conveniently distracting ourselves from knowledge of the most basic aspect of our existence. Because we are born, we die. Especially for those of us accustomed to power and success, this is quite a blow. No matter what we do, we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
And whether we diligently seek a faithful and ethical life or diligently avoid thinking about our many sins, whether we dig deep and try constantly to reform and repent or completely ignore our complicity in the unjust systems of our world that produce suffering, the reality of our finite lives is that we will never do it perfectly. We are dust, and to dust we shall return.
We hear these words: We are dust, and to dust we shall return, and we may hear ugly words, unwelcome words, harsh words. But really, they are words that lead to life. They remind us: our inability to be perfect frees us from the tyranny of perfection. We’re never going to do life with God perfectly, so perfection is not the goal. Similarly, our inability to live forever in this body frees us from striving to avoid death at all costs. We’re going to die, so avoiding death is not the goal.
What is the goal then, we might ask? A wise meditation leader told me: sitting is the goal, just showing up to sit, showing up to see ourselves under a harsh light in a magnified mirror. Not shaming ourselves nor condemning ourselves, not shaming or condemning anyone else, not blaming ourselves, not blaming others. Just showing up to sit and to see, without artifice, without façade.
When we finally see ourselves and our world without artifice and without façade, perhaps we expect to see ugliness, pain, shame. That might be there indeed. But if we look carefully, the truth of who we are is not just ugly, painful, or shameful. The cross of ash we will soon receive on our foreheads reminds us not only of our sin, our brokenness, and our mortality but also our belovedness. In the very same place on our foreheads, many of us in this room received a cross of oil or water on the day of our baptism. On the day of our baptism, we heard declared: Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. We have been sealed and marked and chosen by God because we are loved by God. Whatever else we see when we sit under harsh light in a magnified mirror, we see a beloved child of God staring back at us.
Ash Wednesday is the liturgical version of silent meditation. Sitting and seeing and showing up this night means hearing God’s call to justice and peace and a piety of deep integrity. Sitting and seeing and showing up tonight means examining our whole lives under a harsh light in a magnified mirror. But the surprise of sitting and seeing and showing up tonight is that we who are dust are dearly loved not because we try hard to repent, not because we seek perfection, but because we are beloved children of God. Thanks be to God! Amen.