The other day either during or after Annual Meeting, there was a conversation about last year’s Mardi Gras celebration. Kay mentioned it as well in her Warden’s corner. The thrust of the conversation and Kay’s reflections was about how this was the last time that the church gathered together physically, socially before the pandemic hit.
You can imagine, there is much talk in the church how “to do” Ash Wednesday this year and how Lent is going to be really hard this year. Last year, the pandemic was new, this year, it’s old. Part of the looking back at history is to try to figure out how we deal with Ash Wednesday in these weird times. In terms of how did we do Ash Wednesday before, can history help in any way with the situation we are in?
There is a small gift from the pandemic. I have learned more history around Ash Wednesday than I ever knew before. Many people know that Lent was and is a season of preparing catechumenates for baptism. It was also a time for notorious sinners to make atonement to be let back into the flock. In case anyone wants to know the Gospel that we just read of the 6th chapter of Matthew regarding not to be like hypocrites and marking your face was actually set as the Gospel for this Wednesday, before people started marking crosses on their foreheads with ash. Early on, the priest would sprinkle ashes on the head. The crossing with ashes happened first at monasteries, and when it started it was on the tonsure (the shaven part of the head), and then later on the face, simulating or imitating the cross of baptism.
There is so much talk about how we have already given up so much this year, that it seems like it is just asking too much to have Lent at all.
And I agree, on some level. At least in terms of what people think of when they think of Lent. For those who don’t stay up on this and think Mardi Gras is just for people in New Orleans and Brazil, Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday and the name gets its roots from when people would clean out their larders of all the good stuff before Lent. This was all in anticipation so that your larder was empty when you would give them up for Lent. In a related way, and in a very honest way, I’m so tired of talking about the pandemic and how it has changed everything, that it feels like at this point giving it any more airtime gives away even more of myself that what I have already given.
BUT for years, the church has been trying to get people to re-frame Lent from giving up into something to taking on something. But giving up and taking on something all kind of seems like too much work this year too.
Instead, let’s talk about what Lent actually is about. At its core, down to its essence, Lent is a journey, which parallels the Gospel stories of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Lent is a metaphorical journey during which we move to be closer to God. The move is done both by pealing things away or giving up stuff, and taking stuff on, all of the activities get at the root of the journey. Now I will still be honest that both of these right now seem like a lot more energy than most of us can muster.
However, along this annual journey, we begin every year on Ash Wednesday acknowledging that each of us has a life in which we carry sins. How about what we DO this Lent involves doing less? Put down the sins we carry. How are we going to do this?
First thing is we need to be clear about what we mean when we talk about sin. Generally we as humans are not honest with others, with ourselves and with our God, primarily because we convince ourselves that what we did or said is of no consequence. It’s not so much that we were “bad” or did something “bad,” but in Jewish thought we have missed the mark, the target. We hear this in the confession of sin, “we have followed too much the desire of our own hearts.” Louis Newman, a Jewish religious studies scholar, describes Sin as “pretending that something is true when in fact it is not. Idolatry is pretending that something is divine and worthy of our devotion when in fact it is not.” And then “repentance is all about choosing truth over deception.” Or fixing the lie we tell ourselves. It is turning into life with no more pretending. I’m not asking us to tell God our sorry we are. I’m asking us to change.
And so, although it seems to be a lot of energy, when we spend the energy to right the wrongs, to give up a life of pretending, then we are no longer hostage to our mistakes, and we are freer. We can’t undo a wrong, but we can reform ourselves. We can’t undo mistakes, but we can atone for our mistakes, and then let them go. Repentance, and the forgiveness that follows, is a form of healing.
And maybe that too seems like too much to do. But I think the change is worth the effort. It is energy to change to then use less energy to try to pretend things are okay when they are not.
We have a life-giving God who wants us to have life and have it abundantly, not carrying around our burdens.
“Where is their God?” the text from the book of Joel asks.
Our God is in the freedom, the life that comes from setting down our burdens.