Ash Wednesday - Hold On

From dust you came… and to dust you shall return.

Over the years, Ash Wednesday has been one of the services that I have found most meaningful. It is unique, in that we receive this physical mark. When we receive communion, we ingest it. When we are baptized, it soaks in or evaporates… with this Ashen cross though.. it sticks. It can be a mess to get off. If we’re not careful we can get it on our hands and on our clothes. And we come… willingly… to receive it.

This year, of course, we do not have the ashes on our foreheads. And I grieve that. For me, at least, receive the ashes has always been such an incredibly holy moment. We had hoped to create times where they might be distributed but any hope of that was thwarted by the winter storms that has wrought havoc among our communities with stories of pipes frozen and pipes burst… neighbors without electricity, heat sometimes in short supply… rolling blackouts.

And perhaps, in these days, we have wondered what shall we do if the electricity stops? What shall we do for warmth? Or what might we do for water when everything is frozen and we can’t get out? Not only do we need it to drink… but to clean ourselves… to brush our teeth… to flush toilets…. How do we handle the discomfort? Or what of our health? What if we get covid? Or what if we simply get older… what might we wake up to tomorrow? What new pain or ache might we experience that we hadn’t known before? How do we handle losing confidence in the things we have come to rely on?

Normally the job of the pastor on Ash Wednesday is to remind the congregation of our mortality as we sit in the pews with an ashen cross on our foreheads. But this year… such a reminder from the pulpit really is not needed.

No. This year what I believe is needed is time to consider how we deal with times we live in. How to deal living in times where we are thrown out of our zones of comfort. When we are challenged… when we are angry... when we are afraid… when we are tearful.

And for that wisdom… I turn not to some learn-ed scholars from ages past… but to the learn-ed lives of slaves from our own country… people who faced discomfort far greater than many of us have ever known. They who faced a Lenten journey not for 40 days or for a covid year… but for Lenten Lifetimes for generations.

The idea that Christianity gained a foothold among the African-american slave circles was itself amazing. As men and women arrived on slave ships, identities and dignities stripped… their new masters taught them about Christianity.

But they didn’t teach about the freedom of Christ… at least not in this life… but instead they taught of what it meant for a slave to obey his master. A use of scripture to see the master’s position solidified for fear of not only a whip but of divine retribution against the slave should they disobey.

Curiously, miraculously even, despite the attempted twisting of the gospel message, those men and women trapped in slavery heard the stories of scripture and found the message of God to be far more than a word of instruction for them to remain as slaves… but instead heard of a God who lived and died for the sake of the slave. These black and brown men and women experienced the stories of the Bible as messages that spoke with deep resilience in the face of unimaginable brokenness.

These resilient messages of God’s inbreaking light against the darkness of the world formed the foundation of hope for those trapped in slavery.

And in those messages of resilience… in that hope and yearning for a freedom made possible only through God, the African-American Spiritual hymns were born and their legacy remains with us.

Go Down, Moses. Take My Hand, Precious Lord. Been in the Storm So Long. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. And so many more.

These songs were lifted up in the field and around campfire. Voices raise in soulful tone as their prayerful lyrics ascended to the very heavens.

Frederick Douglass, a former slave wrote, "I did not, when a slave, fully understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was, myself, within the circle, so that I could then neither hear nor see as those without might see and hear. They breathed the prayer and complaint of souls overflowing with the bitterest anguish. They depressed my spirits and filled my heart with ineffable sadness...The remark in the olden time was not unfrequently made, that slaves were the most contented and happy laborers in the world, and their dancing and singing were referred to in proof of this alleged fact; but it was a great mistake to suppose them happy because they sometimes made those joyful noises. The songs of the slaves represented their sorrows, rather than their joys. Like tears, they were a relief to aching hearts."

Like tears, they were a relief to aching hearts…. What a powerful word.

Unlike the hypocrites that we hear about in our Gospel text who stood on the street corner to pray in hopes of gaining the respect of others and perhaps standing in society, we hear the tones of the Spiritual Hymns echoing from a place of deep vulnerability and yearning for God.

Christ’s message in our Gospel today is not to telling people to be quiet about their faith… but to consider what motivates their actions within faith. Are we motivated by a sense to establish our own position in society?

The hypocrite on the street corner makes effort to point to his or her own greatness. It is designed to create greater influence for themselves in the circles that they are either a part of or that they hope to be a part of. That is what Jesus is preaching against here… the misuse of religion for the sake of one’s own glory.

But this secret place that Jesus talks about… of closing the door and praying to God in secret. I believe this is not a secret place that we go to but rather a secret place that we come from in prayer. It is where we find our deepest aches and pains that we close off to the rest of the world. Christ calls us to pray from a place of vulnerability and honesty to that which eats at our hearts.

Because the message of the cross is indeed not to lift up ourselves in society above others… but to enter into the aches of the heart and bring relief… to enter into the pains of the soul… and soothe.

That as we find ourselves challenged, displaced from comfort, confronted with frustrations, disappointments, and discouragements… the cross brings a resilience to our lives that we might endure that which seemed unbearable.

One of the old spirituals was a song called, “Hold On.” It began in the fields, sung from the very depths of pain and ache by the enslaved as sweat was wiped from brow and whip was cracked over back. And it was transformed during the Civil Rights Era into a new rendition that you might know.. “Keep your Eyes on the Prize.”

This Ash Wednesday, in this wintery weather and time of Covid… as we find ourselves displaced and discomforted from what we are accustom to, I invite us to hear this hymn of old… that we may we sit at the feet of those who have come before us. May we take glimpse of the secret place that Christ speaks of that we might pray from. And may we find a word of resilience and hope from those who experienced lifetimes of Lent.

Peace be with you.