Ashes Touch Our Face

Welcome!

Welcome to Uncle Ishmael’s inaugural issue! Let our conversation and wonderment begin! This week we hold the upcoming Lenten journey in our hearts and minds as we turn toward Ash Wednesday on March 2.

An Invitation to Lenten Practice

A sacred opportunity arises each year to observe a holy Lent. Our traditions provide ample advice on practices and sacrifices that may spur us to spiritual awakenings during this season. Many of these practices are interior and personal.

“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” (Book of Common Prayer, 264)

These spiritual disciplines offered by the Book of Common Prayer are certainly worthy of consideration. Who can argue against prayer and Bible reading? But, of course, the spiritual life includes both the path of inward exploration and outward action. This Lent I invite you – in the spirit of this newsletter – to consider an outward-facing spiritual practice.

I invite you to sit with your neighbor's difference. I invite you in the name of the Church to the observance of a holy Lent, by remaining with difference. Not tolerance or celebration, just abiding with those feelings, thoughts, opinions, politics that differ from you. Attend to difference arising around you. Greet it and smile. Take a breath and welcome your neighbor's diversity. We are finding our way to compassion. We are preparing to put away rancor.

Ash Wednesday

Dust and ashes touch our face,‌‌
mark our failure and our falling.
‌‌Holy Spirit, come,‌‌
walk with us tomorrow,‌‌
take us as disciples,‌‌
washed and wakened by your calling.‌‌
(Brian Wren, Dust and Ashes Touch Our Face, ‌‌
© 1989 Hope Publishing Company)

We shuffled forward in the church's center aisle to face our fate toward the front – ashes. In front of me was Jim, a spry elderly man. He was dying of cancer, and the whole church knew it. The community had attempted to absorb the bad news earlier in the year. This would be his last imposition. The minister, my wife, looked him in the eyes, marked an ashen cross on his forehead, and pronounced compassionately,

"Dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

Good theology, harsh reality. How did Jim receive those words? What is Ash Wednesday to the dying?

Next in line back in the center aisle was my antsy son. He looked solemn and uncertain; his presence at this somber service was not his choice. My wife, the minister, looked at this precious child, who came from her own body, and proclaimed,

"Dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

Solid theology, devastating reality. How might a young one understand such? What is Ash Wednesday to the young and healthy?

Back in the center aisle, I was next. The minister, my wife, wiped a tear from her cheek – marking the forehead of her youngest had blessedly cracked open the professionalism – looked at her husband, the one who knew her across two decades, and uttered,

"Dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

Sound theology, startling reality. How might I absorb the news? What is Ash Wednesday to the self-sufficient?

I went back to my pew sensing how enormously odd it is to wear a cross of ashes on your forehead. It feels like a direct repudiation of the self-help industry, but deeper still. A disavowal of my anxious striving for better. A rejection of my productivity. With that blackened cross on my flesh, I walk around with my BEING on full display, and it's my DOING that I'm so eager to show off.

"You are humus, human, and to humus you shall return."

Psalm 51 - Have mercy upon me, O God

It is profoundly unpopular to talk about sin in some Christian communities today. Perhaps because some particular Christian traditions find themselves stuck on a simplistic and harmful message of sin and redemption that turns us all into the worst of possible humans. If that's the only option, then perhaps such talk needs to disappear.

Psalm 51 seeks a better way that takes seriously the real personal tragedies and pain we face as well as the misguided and evil events in national and international news. Keeping up with current events or just living our own complicated lives demonstrates that perhaps the psalmist is correct in claiming that our sin is ever before us (verse 3). What we need is a better explanation of sin, one that does not mire us in the mud of self-criticism such that we are paralyzed without recourse, one that does not make shame the emotional center of our religious lives.

Lent provides us with an excellent context for redefining sin for our contemporary situation. The author of Psalm 51 uses three words for sin and three words for forgiveness.

Blot out my transgressions (rebellions)‌‌
wash me thoroughly from my iniquity (errors)‌‌
cleanse me from my sin (mistakes).

Three distinct words for sin—transgressions, iniquity, and sin—join together near the beginning of the psalm to paint a picture of the human predicament. The three Hebrew words have some nuanced connotations, just as their English equivalences also bring to mind different images. To rebel, to err, to miss a mark—these are the verbal roots of these Hebrew nouns. None of the words are so profoundly different from each other that we need to split hairs here. However, the lack of specific sins does speak once again to the flexibility and adaptability of the psalm for multiple contexts. Maybe the psalmist realizes that my transgressions will not be the same as yours; your iniquity may take a different form than mine; my sin looks unlike yours.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have‌‌ made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and‌‌ make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily‌‌ lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,‌‌ may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission‌‌ and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives‌‌ and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever‌‌ and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, 264)

Fortunately, the unwillingness of the psalmist to particularize sin allows us all to find our way into this lament. We are the ones who know our sin, or must know our sin, intimately. It is tempting to specify sin, label it, and place it in nice categories in order to protect ourselves from it. Then, we can think of sin as someone else’s problems or as especially horrible actions. We can speak plainly about other people’s sins in some detail, about the troubles of our society because of certain people or problems. This type of engagement with sin is profoundly unbiblical.

Psalm 51 reminds us that communities of faith do not always need to be reminded of particular sins in order to confess and request God’s forgiveness. We do not need a laundry list of bad deeds proclaimed from the pulpit regularly in order to know our sin. But we do need to pay regular attention to our sin, to see it in its different forms, to see it disguised by a vast array of names and labels.

Psalm 51 also contains three distinct words for forgiveness, each with slight nuance as well, demonstrating that the psalmist is not seeking personal, cathartic release from these actions, but a divine response. Sin is not in need of our intellectual acknowledgment. God is the actor: God will blot out, thoroughly wash, and cleanse. In our contemporary world, we are often encouraged to adopt a “self-help” ideology that places great emphasis on an individual’s ability to improve her situation through positive thought and other means. There is some merit to such activities. Of course, we grow and develop physically as well as spiritually throughout our lifespan. We should make efforts to understand ourselves and our life experiences to become more holistically who we are called to be. However, when it comes to sin, we need God’s redemptive work. The psalmist does not imagine that we can deal with our sin; so, the prayer is that God will wash it away. God will create in us a clean heart.

Praise to you, O God, for your forgiveness and grace,‌‌
According to your steadfast love.‌‌
Praise to you, O Christ, for a clean heart and a renewed spirit,‌‌
According to your steadfast love.‌‌
Praise to you, O Spirit, for the goodness of your love,
According to your steadfast love.

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

‌‌1. I would appreciate your help in spreading the word about this newsletter. So, if you know someone who might like to read a weekly collection of writings about the Bible, the liturgical year, and religious diversity, then please share Uncle Ishmael with them. I'm grateful.

2. Have you heard of the Glitter Ash Project?

3. You can read a web version of this newsletter at www.uncleishmael.com