Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

The Proper Liturgy for this day is on page 264.

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou
hast made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are
penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that
we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our
wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The hardest thing about starting off this project in Lent is that ....well it's Lent. Pentitential seasons can be pretty hard on us post-modern Christians. All that kneeling and bowing, and if we are orthodox, prostrating can seem pretty medieval now. And in our culture repentance is something we are pretty uncomfortable with. Look at the death of the art of simple apology. If public figures can't even offer a simple unequivocal apology when clearly caught out in something wrong, what hope is there for any genuine contrition. It's simply out of fashion.

And yet there's something about Lent. I look forward to it every year. All the self-denial and discipline stuff appeals to me in some way. Rather than think of it as penance...or even self-denial...I like to think of it as slowing down my life to make room for something deeper. Eat less...because my uncontrolled weight is interferring with all of the good things I would like to do in my life for myself and for others. Stop watching frivolous TV....because since becoming addicted to reality TV I've read far less than usual and can often use an episode of Survivor as an excuse not to pray. Looked at this way, at least for me, it's not about depriving myself but actually about really nourishing myself spiritually...taking time to live out the values I profess to have.

At first glance the Ash Wednesday Collect can be pretty intimidating. I chose the old traditional language version because...why not actually. The contemporary version is no more friendly than this one...all of the language of "wrechedness" and "lamenting our sins" is found in both versions. But if you read it more carefully this Collect, together with the readings for the Ash Wednesday service, provide a beautiful tutorial on what pentitence really is. 

First look at the salutation and it's attribution - Almighty and everlasting God who hatest nothing that thou hast made. Despite what we might feel...our inner guilt and doubt...we are immediately reminded that it is impossible for God to hate what God has made. And we are made in the image of God, and God pronounced us good from the beginning...before the fall...before Cain killed Abel...God saw us as his own creation, loved us and pronounced us good. We may have strayed far from that original blessing, but God continues to love us and will forever. Therefore, messages of God's hate are far from us...at least in my church. We may disagree about, say, the sinfulness of gay people amoung ourselves, but we can NEVER hold a sign that says "God Hates Fags"...because God hates nothing that he has made.

Having assured us of God's love and his willing forgiveness, the collect continues by asking nothing less than that God completely remake our hearts. This is a request for radical change and not to be taken lightly. The implications of the request are actually kind of terrifying when you think of it seriously. More often than not I think I end up following that famous prayer of Augustine's "Lord make me good, but not just yet." I want to repent...but just to keep this "little" sin in my back pocket. That's not what we are asking God in this collect...we are asking for new and contrite hearts, not our current hearts which are puffed up with pride, arrogance, sloth, laziness, and so many other petty and not so petty sins.

Then the fruits of this request are even more difficult and run even more counter to the currents in our time. We hope that we will worthily lament our sins and acknowledge our wretchedness and thus obtain forgivness. Wow does that run counter to our culture. Think about it. When was the last time you really lamented your sinfullness? When was the last time you really felt your own wretchedness? It's not a particularly joyful or popular thing to do. It can feel demeaning. It afflicts our egos, and we live in a time where false self-esteem is almost deified. The whole idea of this can be very off putting. But I think of it this way.

We live in the light of the love of God. It can be hard sometimes to remember that, but God's love is so great that it surrounds the very atoms of our being. It is so great that is it infinitely higher than any human love we can imagine. When we stand in the perfection of that love, in prayer and contemplation, we become aware of all the things in our lives that don't reflect that precious gift. We see all the ways in which we shut out that love...or repay that love with petulance. So all sin is actually a failure to live up to the wonderful gift of love that God is giving us moment by moment. We are imperfect and will never be able to live up to that standard. But when we are able to stand before God and really see ourselves as we are and not as we'd like to be...see every little blemish...something marvelous can happen. That love can enter us. It can heal us, which is really what remission of sins is...it's healing the disease of sin which we all have inherited either through the original rebellion of our first parents (the traditional reading) or through the consequences of our upbringing (the psychological reading which I believe is actually what original sin means....sin passed down through generations by upbringing.) That beautiful gift of forgiveness...the remission of sins...all of that is  possible, but only if we let it be possible. Without repentence we don't know we are sick.

So ultimately, this collect is calling us to a thorough examination of our lives. We must bring it all to God, who knows it anyway. Acknowledging our inability to change without the love and mercy of God is the first step in real transformation. And the first step in the beautiful journey of this Holy Season.

Have a blessed and Holy Lent everyone.