Ash Wednesday – a celebration of impermanence – Rev.Jane McDougle

Isaiah 58:1-12, Ps.103:8-14, 2Cor5:20-6:10, Matt 6;1-6,16-21

The party’s over.  We’ve sung our last ‘Alleluias’. We’ve put away our dancing shoes. We’ve wiped our chins clean of the last of the pancake crumbs, butter and maple syrup. And where are we now?  Peering into those austere forty days of Lent, and contemplating our unarguable finitude in these bodies, on this planet: just about to have black crosses drawn on our foreheads and those words about being dust, and returning to dust.

I don’t know about you, but I find the idea of Lent itself, with its ideas of spiritual stocktaking, its practices of spiritual discipline, and its invitation to consider and act on issues of social justice, accessible and appealing.  I may not be as disciplined as I’d like, but every year offers new opportunities.  The day of Ash Wednesday itself is trickier: its connections with season of Lent a little fuzzy with its seeming emphasis on the cutting down rather than the building up.

Interestingly, as with most Christian practices, there was a Jewish precedent: the imposition of ashes on the first day of Lent was predated by a Jewish custom of placing an X of ash on foreheads as a sign of humility, penitence, and a reminder of mortality.

As a culture, we are not particularly interested in spending time considering mortality; considering our own deaths or those of others.  We learn either earlier or later about the fragility of life as our hearts are repeatedly broken by the deaths of loved ones.  We learn that love and loss are irrevocably entwined.  And death seems to shock us every time.  Our own deaths? Not much point worrying about them: they will happen, and what’s to be gained by spending any time on thinking about that: it would just depress us for no good reason.  Better just to keep moving through our lives, one day at a time.

But is it? I’m not so sure about that.   I think of the Tibetan Buddhists for example: they live their lives preparing themselves spiritually for their death: you have probably seen books of living and dying coming out of that tradition.  It sounds very odd, perhaps to us, but they are not a people who spend their lives with long faces: think of the Dalai Lama for instance.  In every description that I have read, he appears consistently to be a man of great joy and transparency.

There are very few certainties in this life, but we can be sure of one thing: we will all, sooner or later, die.   It is the way of the world for all living things: we are born, we live some length of time, and we die.  All of us, at some time or other, wish that weren’t so, but it is.  If it were not so, life would be unbearable: we and the world would experience none of the freshness and beauty of the newly created: everything would just ‘be’, with no sense of wonder and adventure.

And so much of the beauty in our life has to do with its very impermanence.  I think of the exquisitely soft and beautiful Magnolia blossoms that appear on those seemingly dead branches every spring time.    I think of the fire of the changing fall foliage as the season cools.  I think of the wonder of birth, and the delight of babies.  I think of children and puppies! All living things move through the cycle of life. We are born, we grow up, live our brief lives, and we die. And generations upon generations have preceded and will follow us. It is the way of things.

And what an opportunity we have this, and every Ash Wednesday.  If we are being reminded that our lives are not going to last for ever, then, instead of just considering enterprises of austerity to build up our spiritual muscles through the forty days, perhaps we might also consider how we can treasure each and every moment of our short lives: treasuring every moment, every encounter, noticing the gift of each, and giving thanks for all that we have.

This Ash Wednesday, I thank God for this yearly reminder of the fragility and impermanence of our lives, and I pray that I may spend these forty days paying attention to the wonder and beauty in the world that God has graced us with, that I can see in every moment if I am paying attention.  I pray that I may spend these days giving thanks for everything that I have, for every gift that God gives me.  I pray for the imagination to know how to be, really be, with those who accompany me, and those who meet me.  I pray for the strength to live passionately the implications of my faith in this amazing world.

One of my favorite blessings seems particularly appropriate as a conclusion, you may know it:

Life is short,
And we do not have much time
to gladden the hearts of those who
make the journey with us.
So . . . be swift to love,
and make haste to be kind.
And the blessing of God,
who made us,
who loves us,
and who travels with us
be with you now and forever.
Amen.