"The Grace of Ashes," by The Rev. Bennett A. Brockman
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015
Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Isaiah 58: 1-12 Psalm 103:8-14
2 Cor. 5:20b-6:10 Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21
The Rev. Bennett A. Brockman, Ph.D., Deputy Rector
The Grace of Ashes
If you’re here for this service (or bothering to read this sermon), chances are you already get it about Ash Wednesday and what the smudge of ashes imposed on your forehead means: that we are finite human beings—dust we are and to dust we shall return; that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; and that we must be mindful of how we practice our piety, not for public approval but from the impulse of the heart; and that a gracious God is ready to forgive us each time we recognize our sin, repent, and seek God’s mercy.
I think even those Christians who have time only for “ashes to go” on their way to work or in the midst of their busy work day, even those who want their ashes out of some dimly remembered sense of obligation, that that’s what one must do on Ash Wednesday, they also understand that there’s something deeply basic to Christianity about Ash Wednesday—even if they couldn’t quite put their finger on what it is.
I suspect that the something folks perhaps couldn’t name is, in fact, humility. Not the showy and superficial appearance of humility that Isaiah denounces, but something more deeply grounded, something that takes us near to the heart of God. So I want to take a few minutes and meditate about why it is that humility is rightly considered a primary Christian virtue. It is the first of the beatitudes; Jesus says that those who are “poor in spirit” are blessed, and heirs of God’s realm (Matthew 5:3).
Recall first that humility is paired against pride, the cardinal sin. Why? Because the proud person is self-sufficient, having little need for anyone else, especially not God. Humility is the opposite virtue precisely because it begins in the acknowledgement of insufficiency, and it longs for God’s presence and aid. That’s why it is easier for me at least to admire a searching agnostic than an overconfident believer.
Receiving the ashes implies humility, a willingness to be open to the operation of the divine power. Humility opens the door that pride closes, indeed slams shut. It is an active, not a passive virtue. Because humility resides in the longing for God its natural work is to clear away the false gods that stand between God and the believer—including even the ceremonies and rituals—like the imposition of ashes—that Isaiah decries for having become ends in themselves.
Humility opens the connection between our deep being and God. The more honest we can be about who we really are, the more fully we then access the grace that brings us more fully into being the person God created us to become, the deep self made wholly in God’s image.
Because of Sunday’s snowstorm, we omitted the usual ritual of burning last year’s palm crosses from Palm Sunday to create this year’s ashes for Ash Wednesday. And we discovered that we had plenty of ashes left over from previous years. There’s no shortage of ashes. A little goes a long way.
In the same way, there’s no shortage of grace, and humility opens the channel through which grace surges. And to dwell in humility is to be continually open to grace. Which is a good thing, because that’s how often we need grace. Continually. “Now is the acceptable day of salvation,” St Paul says. And now and today continually recur, and abounding grace never ceases.
And grace entering our lives through humility transfigures us human beings, just as Jesus was transfigured, just as St Paul also affirms in that great passage in II Cor. 4: “God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” And the glory that shines within us is nothing less than an anticipation of “an eternal weight of glory” Paul continues, that is still to come.
Yet I suspect we fear this glory. At least I do. We are vividly aware that the light of the glory of God in Christ we carry in our hearts is held in what Paul describes as “clay jars,” our very limited human selves, the very selves we acknowledge with the imposition of ashes. That fear rightly constrains us; it reminds us that the grace and glory are rooted not in pride but in humility.
At the same time, that fear constrains us inappropriately. Because the ashes that are imposed on us today signify not only that we are dust and to dust we will return, they also signify that because we in humility walk the way of the Cross we are also the glory of God and empowered to manifest God’s glory in this world. St Irenaeus said, “the glory of God is the human being fully alive—and the life of human kind is the vision of God.” That balance of humble receptivity to the vision of God, alongside the confidence of God’s glory dwelling within, empowers us to become the person God created us to be, and so to confidently to BE God’s person in the world, and confidently to do the work Isaiah so magnificently describes as the fast that pleases God: to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless—work that this parish and so many people in it are so diligently devoted to. This of course is also the work that Jesus enjoined his followers to carry out, caring for the least of these his brothers and sisters.
The great blessing to reside humbly in that place, to be that Christian, to boldly do that work, is as Isaiah promised, to be the watered garden, the spring of never-failing water, the restorer of the streets we live in, and the homes wherein we dwell.
Amen.
