Ash Wednesday in a Post-Religious World

Transcription

1 Ash Wednesday 2/18/15 - Grace St. Paul s Ash Wednesday in a Post-Religious World He who dies with the most toys still dies. Amen. This past Sunday evening, I, along with other clergy from local churches, and a host of us from Grace St. Paul s, crammed into the tiny Campus Christian Center to take part in one of the most ancient rituals of the church. Ben Garren, our U of A chaplain, was being ordained a priest. As I moved forward to place my hands on Ben s head, it was impossible to not think about my own ordination. I was also lucky enough to be standing next to Katie McCallister, who had been ordained less than a year ago. As I put one hand on Ben s head, I put my other on Katie s shoulder, as the tears streamed down my cheeks. It is impossible for me to not be overwhelmed at such moments, feeling deeply the apostolic connection to Ben, to Katie, and to the thousands of priests who have come before us for the last 1800 years. When I walked back outside however, I was quickly slapped back into reality. The glow of the ancient tradition in which I had just left, instantaneously evaporated in the heavy, academic air. Dressed in clericals and carrying a chasuble, alb, and stole, students began looking at me like I had been dropped from outer space. In case I had forgotten, I was swiftly reminded that you and I live in a post-religious age. The stuff that we do in here is not just secretive and elusive to most of the world, it is also archaic and meaningless. Never is that more true than on this night. Ritual and tradition have all but disappeared in our society, and the little that does exist are secular versions of religious festival days. Everyone, for example, dyes eggs in 40 days, but no one seems to 1

2 remember that we do this because eggs symbolize new life and resurrection. In the same way, the image of Santa Claus has become so secularized that nary a soul has any idea that he is rooted in the tradition of St. Nicholas, the fourth century Bishop of Myra. And of course, the temporal world has so taken over Halloween, that they have actually convinced some Christians that it is not a religious holiday. There is a lot of stuff that makes this evening s ancient tradition of Ash Wednesday uncomfortable for us. But look at the bright side. At least we don t need to worry that the post-religious culture will run off with this holy day. Mardi-Gras and Carnival yes, but Ash Wednesday and Lent? No worries. There s no one here but us. A couple of years ago, I introduced you to a friend of mine who symbolized this post-religious age and the aversion it has to Ash Wednesday and the season we enter tonight. At that time, I used a pseudonym for her, but today, for reasons that will soon become obvious, I am going to use her real name. My friend Chris is one of the great characters I have ever experienced. When I first met her, she did not have a politically correct bone in her body. She said and did whatever she felt like, whenever she wanted. In fact, she just may be the most sarcastic person I have ever met. Growing up in the blue-collar streets of Baltimore, I thought I had been exposed to the most colorful language on the planet. But it took a feisty, female resident of Mormonville, aka St. George, Utah, to use language so potent that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Chris and I were coworkers at a printing company. She was our art layout specialist, a stripper, as she loved to call herself. I was the sales manager. Perhaps the 2

3 most challenging part of my job was designing a way that our customers would never be exposed to my colorful co-worker. It would take a few months, but eventually I realized why Chris chose to come off so corrosively. It was a self-protection mechanism. Much like the Jews of the Hebrew Bible, Chris felt overwhelmed by the predominant culture surrounding her. Our Jewish ancestors combated this by creating the book of Leviticus, a set of rules that would differentiate them entirely from the massive cultures surrounding them. Chris accomplished the same thing by outwardly displaying a personality and a vocabulary that would totally separate her from the overwhelmingly LDS community. What I also learned soon enough is that it was not just the predominant religion from whom Chris wished to separate. It was all religion. While most of our culture just avoids religion, Chris was militant about it. This was never more apparent than the day I came into work and Chris said to me, Steve, would you go look at yourself in the mirror, for bleep sake. You look like you just took part in some bleeping heathenistic religious ritual. And I looked back at her and said, Chris, I did just take part in some heathenistic religious ritual. It s Ash Wednesday. You re yanking my chain, right?, she said. You didn t really get that in a church, did you? For bleep s sake, is it any bleeping wonder I ve never darkened the bleeping door of a church? Chris incredulous reaction to the smear of ashes on my forehead may have been a bit more caustic than some, but I think it fairly represents how nearly all of the secular world and much of the religious see what we do here this evening. What kind of barbaric symbol is this? Are you all nuts? 3

4 My vain attempt to describe to Chris the symbolism behind what we do tonight was met with a vacant stare. Why, she said, would I want to be reminded that I m going to die? What kind of a sick bleeping church would do this to people? It would only be a few months later however, that my dear friend Chris would encounter something she had not before. Her mom suddenly became ill and was getting progressively worse. Chris was not handling it well. She suffered though long bouts of depression, raging and then sobbing. When her mom died, Chris lost contact with reality. With no spiritual moorings and having avoided any discussion of death her entire life, Chris had no idea what to do or how to react. Not only could she no longer tell a joke, she literally became non-functional. She could not work, she could not sleep, she could not move. I was not sure she would survive. By the time I went to seminary, Chris had returned to work, but she was only a shell of the former person she was. I will be the first to admit that there have been times and places in the last 1700 years of church history when what we do here tonight was unnecessary. No one needs ashes strewn on their heads during plagues or epidemics. But in today s world, where we completely isolate ourselves from the natural cycle of life and death, Ash Wednesday is one of the most important correctives we have to offer a world that makes believe death doesn t exist. One of the most difficult jobs I have is trying to assist someone in making a decision about whether to remove a loved one from life support. Fortunately, most of the people I help these days with that decision have been steeped in Ash Wednesday. They have talked about the natural cycle of death with their loved one. But of course we now live in a world where over three-quarters of the population are like Chris. Not 4

5 only have they never talked about death with one another, they avoid any discussion of the d word. These are the people who spend years attempting to heal from their loss and sometimes never do. For the most part, Americans today are totally unprepared to deal with death, whether it be their own or someone else s. I have watched countless families have absolutely no idea what to do or how to act when a loved one is dying. And I am convinced that if my friend Chris had experienced what we do here tonight, in the midst of a loving community that shared her pain and her journey with her, her healing process would have been nowhere near as overwhelming. What we do here tonight is nearly as ancient as the church. We have attempted to remind you of that by utilizing that traditional language. But make no mistake, Ash Wednesday is a radically counter-cultural ritual. While the rest of the world is hiding death and attempting to prevent us from experiencing it, we gather tonight to do the opposite, to remind ourselves that death is just another part of life, and that it can be experienced as one of the most sacred and beautiful moments of our entire lives. While my friend Chris was horrified at the sight of ashes on my head, it is this symbol that has the power to remind us of just how precious every moment of life is for us. Ash Wednesday should not make us morose about life, but instead passionate about living every moment of it to its fullest. As we gather here tonight, Virginia Zuelow sits at the side of her sister in Oregon as she dies. And she reports that the sacredness of these moments have brought her and her family to a sense of peace my friend Chris could have only imagined. Where I believe we have gone wrong as a church in the past is when we have forgotten this central importance of Ash Wednesday. It is not just the symbol of those 5

6 ashes on your head, but also the fact that we come together as community to take part in this ritual. For centuries, we stressed that the season we begin tonight was to be taken as an individual journey to personal salvation. But let us remember that this is the reason that Chris and so many others in today s world suffer so profoundly. She tried to make her Lenten journey alone and it nearly killed her. Tonight though, I get to share with you the rest of Chris story. I learned just a few short months ago, that it did not kill her. I learned that standing outside that door right there on a Sunday. Walking towards me that morning I saw our friend Willie Schlenz. Willie is a central contributor to GSP in so many ways, not the least of which is her coordination of our lay worship leaders. But this day, I noticed that Willie was deliberately blocking my view of what was behind her. When she reached me, she suddenly stepped aside, and there, standing in front of me was a person I had not seen for 11 years. Yes, it was. It was Chris. She and Willie, it turned out, were long time friends. Neither of them had any idea that they shared another mutual friend, until they talked the night before. I could not believe my eyes. But then something even more remarkable happened. The woman who had vowed to me that she would never darken the door of a church, walked through that threshold. The roof did not collapse, as she so often predicted it would. I watched her demeanor change during the service that morning from skepticism to wonder. Then I saw something I will never forget. Willie put out her hand and Chris took it and came right here and received communion. Chris still has plenty of difficulty in her life. In fact, it has increased. But that day, she received a gift that she never expected, a gift that brought her a strength and a 6

7 reserve she never knew was possible. She found her way not by going on an individual journey, but by grabbing on to her friend Willie s hand and trusting her. That beloved, is why we are here tonight. Ash Wednesday is about Chris and all the Chris in our lives. It is about coming together as the beloved community and caring for one another in the midst of death and despair. It is about being Willie to one another, reaching out our hand and bringing into this community someone who needs to have those ashes placed on their head, who needs desperately to experience the love and support of all of you. It is about bringing this possibility of full life to another who is trying to survive in this post-religious society. All of us know that some of us who receive ashes on our head tonight are not going to be with us in body by next Ash Wednesday. Perhaps that will be me or you. But what we do know is that because we are here together, because we are willing to consider our own mortality, it will make every moment of our remaining lives saturated with life and meaning. It will help each of us live every moment to the fullest. It will allow all of us to be totally joyful, even though we know the facts. That is the Lent to which I will invite you in a few moments. That is the Lent that has the power to save all of us. That is the Lent that can give hope and courage to a post-religious world that is searching everywhere for it. So come on in, let us journey together as we cherish the beauty of every step of our lives. Let us begin that walk, together, always together, in simplicity, reaching out that hand to one another and everyone else we encounter on this journey. Amen. 7