Ash Wednesday - 3/9/11 Grace St. Paul s. flagellants. I am not talking about a few loose screws here and there, but

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1 Ash Wednesday - 3/9/11 Grace St. Paul s It started in Europe in the 13 th century. They referred to themselves as flagellants. I am not talking about a few loose screws here and there, but thousands of seemingly normal people of every make up, laity and clergy, men and women, even young children took part in a regular routine of imparting physical pain on their own body. They scourged themselves in atonement for their sin and the sins of the whole world. They didn t do this at home or in back alleys, but in gigantic public processions through large European cities. There were as many as 10,000 people in some of those processions, each beating themselves as they marched, while also calling the faithful who were witnessing to repentance. Clergy would lead the way with crosses and banners. The people behind them would have covered faces and bare chests and they would whip themselves with leather thongs till the blood ran, singing hymns and canticles of the Passion of Christ, entering the churches and prostrating themselves before the altars. Unfortunately, this was not some passing fad that would taper off after the many struggles and plagues of the Middle Ages. The trend lived on down through the centuries, and actually spread across Europe and then overseas. I would dearly love to tell you that we have since evolved beyond such barbarism, but as we sit here today, there are still official groups just to our north and east, in New Mexico and Colorado, who continue the practice of self inflicting themselves 1

2 with wounds. They are called Los Hermanos Penitentes. Though they do many of their acts in secret now, we know that in addition to whipping themselves to atone for their sins, they also shoulder immense crosses and carry them for miles. They also physically bind themselves to those crosses and purposely tie up their appendages to restrict their circulation of blood. If you have any doubt about how prevalent this theology remains in our culture, I only need point you to Mel Gibson s, The Passion of the Christ. When Jesus is depicted as the Braveheart of religion, as the one who is the greatest because he can take the most pain of all, there is no doubt that this aspect of our faith is very alive and well. That beloved, is the Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent that I, and I know, some of you were immersed in as children and adults. I don t mean, of course, that our priests and ministers enrolled us in Los Hermanos Penitentes. But some of us we were taught a theology of Ash Wednesday and Lent that actually suggested that such behavior was justifiable. I am embarrassed to say that while at times during history, the practices of flagellants were chastised by some church leaders, they were never forbidden. For example, both Pope Clement VI and Leo XIII condemned the movement, but allowed it to continue, only with them regulating it. In other words, they saw nothing wrong with the self mortification, only that it was happening outside their control. How could and can the church allow people to do this to themselves? The unfortunate answer is that it is part of classic orthodox Western Christian theology. After all, we have been taught that humans are inherently evil, that ALL 2

3 human beings are morally depraved, that ALL humans are a condemned lump, and as such, God must have condemned all. That theology saturated our prayers and liturgies when I was a child. I was also reminded of this teaching at least once a week in grade school. For the most part, that language, if not the theology itself, has been replaced, at least in Episcopal liturgies. Not completely however. Part of the reason I wanted to expose us to the Prayer Book liturgy this one and only time all year, is to remind us from where we have come. And I will readily admit to you that today, all those feelings of guilt that I felt as a child come rushing back to me when we begin with that opening salutation, and worthily lament our sins and acknowledge our wretchedness. I will confess to all of you that those words suggest to me once again that I am worthless excrement, as opposed to worthwhile excrement, and they immediately return me to feelings of bitterness and resentment for those past experiences in the church. Perhaps this theology did not lead all of us to the self-flagellation of a penitente, but it most certainly guided us into the darkest regions of our souls. It lowered our self esteem, it created constant guilt for our failures and sometimes even our successes, and it gave many of us inferiority complexes so deep that we are still dealing with them today. So first, let me state clearly and emphatically that this crippling theology has no basis in Jesus. Zero. In fact, it did not exist in the church at all for 350 years after Jesus s death. When it did come about, it was not introduced by a gaggle of Bishops or a throng of lay church leaders, but out of the reflections of 3

4 one solitary person, a gentlemen who desperately wanted to explain why he could not control his sexual appetite. Somehow however, it stuck. Augustine of Hippo s, the devil made me do it theology, has, in my opinion, done as much harm to faithful church goers as anything we have ever been exposed to in our lives, and it has made Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent something to fear and avoid. The answer to this, for many, has been to toss it all out. As we all know, many churches have dropped liturgical seasons all together, and who can blame them if that would rid us of this dreadful theology? But beloved, this is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. And the backlash from eliminating Ash Wednesday and Lent entirely from life has been just as bad as the original sin that we were handed down from Augustine. Perhaps the most notable result of forgetting the tradition that we mark here tonight is our society s inability today to deal with death on any level. Without a ritual to remind us of our own mortality, we make believe death does not really exist. All of which has caused immeasurable suffering for people when they are faced squarely with the death of a loved one. I cannot tell you how many people I have watched crash and burn because they have absolutely no clue how to decide when and if to terminate life support for a loved one and what to do when that loved one dies. That is why tonight remains so critically important to all of us. We love Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday of course, but we NEED Ash Wednesday. Ash 4

5 Wednesday offers us something so profound and so meaningful, especially in today s world, that it is worth battling through all that Augustinian worthless scum theology to experience it. In addition to the huge corrective that Ash Wednesday offers us in seeing the normalcy of death for all of us, those ashes we will smear on your head made from last year s palms, are also meant to remind us of our connection with every living thing on this planet, as well as connecting us with all those who came before. They are our reminder that we are not separate from the rest of creation, but an integral part of everything. They are our reminder that this season is here to reconnect us with God, with the earth and with each other. That just may be the most important environmental message we will ever get. When we come to terms with the circle of life meaning of tonight, our lives are suddenly put in perspective. In this culture that is so good at embracing excess, indulgence and over-consumption, the ashes we will put on your head are a wonderfully subversive act. You are telling the world, enough already! It is time to separate ourselves from the garbage we surround ourselves with as an attempt to avoid the real meanings of life. It is time to stop living into the addictive behaviors of our culture and remove from our lives those things we are obsessing about. It is time to simplify our lives so that we can see again. Finally, for centuries, we have seen Lent in the church as a profoundly personal season, a time of private spiritual discipline and a time to blaze our own individual path to God. But that is exactly where Augustine went wrong. 5

6 Everything that happened in Augustine s life was not about him. Everything that happens in our lives is not about you and me. It is about us, all of us together. The path we embark on tonight can at times be lonely, but it is not a solitary journey. It is a road that we are meant to travel together, lifting up each other and transforming each other from what we were, to what we can become. It is not about self growth, but growth of the community. How selfish can we be to think that this season of preparation is about us? It is about being there when the person sitting next to you needs you. Spiritual disciplines are great, but we fall right back into the Augustinian pit if we create them only to grow our own self awareness and lives. If we are to save Lent again, we must make it a community adventure. This is the Ash Wednesday and the Lent that we honor here at Grace St. Paul s. It has nothing to do with the depravity of humanity and our own failures. It is about journeying together so that we may transform ourselves into a new way of life. No guilt trips, no personal scourging, no self-inflicted pain. Instead of seeing The Passion of the Christ as our idea of a Lenten experience, I am going to suggest another movie upon which we will model our journey. How about Dead Poet s Society? How about we approach this Lent as our Carpe Diem experience, as our chance to seize every moment of our lives and relish them. Or for those of you who like to use musicals as your background for life, how about The Sound of Music? Like the Von Trapp family, all of us this season must face death squarely. We must leave our wealth, possessions and privilege behind and 6

7 discover together the meaning of life. We will face many challenges along the way, mountains to climb and streams to ford. But we will do it all together, with faith in God and faith in each other. That is the what the true Lenten experience is all about. It is also what maturing in faith is all about. Are you ready to start the journey? Amen. 7