Sermon:  The Rev. Leah D. Schade

Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA

Ash Wednesday, 2008

“Burning Away the Impurities”

It’s always interesting to look at our traditional church practices from a child’s point of view.  Last year, my then three-year-old daughter, Rachel, asked me after the Ash Wednesday service, “Mommy, why did you put dirt on my head?”  I explained to her how the dirt was actually ashes, and that we make the sign of the cross on our foreheads just like we do at baptism.  But that today is different because it’s the beginning of Lent, a time to be serious and think about doing things to be better people for Jesus.  She accepted that answer.  But her question got me to be curious on a deeper level about this ancient religious practice.

Why do we put ashes on our foreheads?

It’s not something that Jesus commanded his followers to do.  But in my reading I learned that it’s a practice that goes all the way back through the ancient Christian church with origins actually in “Roman paganism, which in turn took it from Vedic India. Ashes were called the seed of the fire god Agni, with power to absolve all sins.  Even if a person does 'a thousand things that one ought not to do, by bathing in ashes he will cause all of that to be burnt to ashes as fire burns a forest with its energy' . . . At Rome’s New Year Feast of Atonement in March, people wore sackcloth and bathed in ashes to atone for their sins.  Then, as now, New Year’s Eve was a carnival of eating, drinking and sinning, on the theory that all sins would be wiped out the following day.  As the dying god of March, Mars took his worshippers’ sins with him into death.  Therefore the carnival fell on dies martis, the Day of Mars.  In English this was Tuesday, because Mars was identified with the Saxon god Tiw.  In French the carnival day was Mardi Gras, 'Fat Tuesday', the day of merrymaking before Ash Wednesday.” (Walker, pp. 66-67).

And, of course, we hear about ashes several times in the Hebrew bible.  "Ashes signify destruction in passages from Ezekiel and Malachi and are contrasted with glory with Isaiah.  Sitting on them or putting them on one's head were rituals of mourning and repentance in 2 Samuel, Isaiah and Jeremiah." ( Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 75). 

This year, I think Rachel experienced an even better understanding of ashes. This past Sunday she went with the rest of the Sunday School children downstairs to help with the burning of the palms to make the ashes that we're using today.  They stood outside and watched last year's green fronds, now brown and dry, going up in smoke and flame until all that was left after the fire was the mound of ashes sitting at the bottom of the bowl.  It made quite an impression on her.  And it's been something I've been thinking about myself recently - this movement from green palms to black ash.

Remember the story from Palm Sunday?  How Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the crowds laid palm branches before him, like rolling out the red carpet.  And they waved them in the air as if royalty or a great war hero was going by, shouting "Hosanna in the highest."  Those palms represented all that was misguided about how the people saw Jesus - their desire for glory, their susceptibility to fame and popularity, their obsession with worldly power and their willingness to be swayed by the crowd when the shouts of hosanna deteriorate into cries for crucifixion.  These were all the things that needed to be burned away, if you will, in order to see clearly what Jesus' mission was really about.  It takes a freshly green palm just a few days to wither and turn brittle.  It takes only minutes to render it to ash once the spark ignites.  It took only a few days for the shouts of hosanna to fade. It took only minutes for the fiery cries of crucifixion to burn through the crowd.

One of the things I appreciate about the season of Lent is its intention to get us to burn away those things in our life that crowd out and blur our vision of Jesus.  During these next five weeks, what might you place into the holy fire so that you may have your vision seared and then cleared in order to see Jesus?

It's one of the reasons the practice of fasting is done in Lent.  When you refrain from certain foods, or from eating altogether for a period of time, your body learns to burn.  It learns to burn its stores of energy more efficiently.  It does not store the excess in fat which slows us down, and hides our true shape, but converts it directly into energy for working, playing, serving.

And there are other kinds of fasting as well.  You can fast from any practice which you know distracts you from healthy living, or contributes to the harm of your body and mind, the community or the planet.  Last year our family decided to begin a fast from cable television.  We burned away that excess fat of commercials and advertising, violence and sexual images.  We found time and money suddenly available to go to a family fun park, or attend a sports event, since that's what my husband misses the most.  

This year my fast is from buying bottled water, as you may recall from my sermon a few weeks ago.  It is one small act of burning away the excess plastic I throw into the landfills. 

Some people fast from eating meat - throwing into the holy fire their craving for animal flesh, symbolically preserving life for a period of time.  I know Pastor Smoose, in addition to his regular Holy Week fast, usually refrains from eating sweets and snacks, burning away that desire for sugary, salty foods that cloud our brains and add pounds to our bodies.

These ashes represent something inside us that wants to clean out, to get clearer, and to make a new beginning of some kind.  The writer Gunilla Morris asks, "What if one tried for one week to fast from clutter?  Then something deeper might surface - the need to embrace order, for instance, to share the excess one has with others, to listen to deeper needs in oneself.  This may lead to noticing excesses of many kinds.  We might discover that we need to fast from noise, for instance - the radio, television, or unnecessary talk.  We might then discover the need to fast from rushing and that our souls long to find a sustainable rhythm instead," (Nelson, 9).

Because, you see, I think what the ashes really represent is the burning away of our own egos.  When you accept the two dashes of fire dust on your forehead, you are taking one step towards sensing your own "vulnerability, recognizing how very small we actually are in this vast universe, and how infinitely dependent and precious" we are (Nelson, 10).  We are throwing our very selves into God's holy fire, so that our ego may be reduced to ashes, and we may be cleared of our aggressive tendencies, our hubris, our mindless consumption at the expense of others.

It is like a little death, a foreshadowing of Good Friday to come.  These ashes are the remnants of the holy fire that sets us free from ourselves.  Through the searing and the clearing, "we can begin to allow God to determine our worth and let God's love be our ultimate justification . . . letting our whole being be [seared] and cleared and then infused with God’s love." (Nelson, 11).  Amen.  

Sources:  

Harper's Bible Dictionary, Paul J. Achtemeier, General Editor,  HarperSanFrancisco, 1985.

Nelson, Gunilla, "Many Ways:  Fasting Towards Self-Simplification", Weavings, September/October 2004.

Walker, Barbara G., The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperSanFrancisco, 1983.