Ash Wednesday (Year B, Narrative Lectionary)
22 February 2012
Isaiah 58:1-17, Mark 9:30-50
What’s
the smallest unit of measure in any society? The individual… Individuals make
up our families, whether by blood or choice. The solo person gets added to more
solo people and then we have a group… a congregation… a town… a state… and so
on. There is no such thing as a self-made individual because everyone has some
help along the way. No one makes himself or herself from the ground up. What’s
the smallest unit of individual? A child.
In
our society, Western society, the child is the smallest individual. When we
look at children, we see the possibility of a future productive individual, so
we spend our energy in shaping that person. “What about the children?” is such
a central question to our way of thinking that we easily miss what Jesus is
saying by using a child as an example in this gospel lesson.
In
this period (and for well beyond it and still in some parts of the world
today), children were not the smallest individual unit of society. They were
the smallest productive members of the smallest societal unit- the family. If
you survived infancy, the relief was not only that you lived, but that now you
could help out! You could sweep, run errands, change straw, watch animals, help
cook… whatever was appropriate for your gender and your family’s status. And
you were socially invisible. A child still didn’t count until he or she was
marrying out and cost money or marrying in and bringing money. A child is a
non-person, uncounted.
So
when Jesus, sighing over the disciples’ fight about greatness, calls a child…
this should get our attention. First, Jesus separates the Twelve, so there must
be a larger group. Secondly, the larger group must have men and women in it
because a group of only men wouldn’t have children in it. Thirdly, the children
might be invisible, but they can hear and they must have known who Jesus was or
heard stories about him.
When Jesus sits the Twelve down and
the rest of the crowd is close enough for the Teacher to call a child over, everyone
is listening. And then Jesus goes on to say, “Whoever welcomes on such child in
my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.” A non-person, an invisible being
represents Jesus, God on earth? An emissary represents his or her sender. The
emissary of the king comes glittering and riding a fine horse, even if the king
is struggling, because how people perceive the emissary is how they perceive
the king.
Jesus
is the Divine Emissary. How Jesus is perceived (and received) is how God is
perceived (and received). And here Jesus is telling the disciples (and everyone
else) that in order to welcome God, you must train yourself to see what you
previously treated as invisible. Invisible like a child. Like a leper. Like a person with
AIDS. Like hungry Africans. Like homeless Alaska Natives. Like a teenager with
an eating disorder. Like a friend with depression. Like a lesbian or a gay man.
Like a couple after a miscarriage. Like a person who goes to prison for murder.
In order to welcome God, you must train yourself to see what you previously
treated as invisible.
In
the season of Lent, many of us turn inward- thinking about our personal
spiritual practices, our internal habits. There is nothing wrong with this. The
ashes on our foreheads are also on our hearts, covering our quiet prayers, our
doubts, our inward struggles. But Lent is not only about introspection. The
inward reflection must be met with outward actions. Consider the words of
Isaiah: Is such the fast that I choose, a
day to humble onself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in
sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo
the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into
your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself
from your own kin?”
Here’s
the thing about Lenten discipline. We want to make it about God and me. God and
Bob. God and Phyllis. God and Gene. Whether we set aside things that are truly
in our way spiritually or whether we take up disciplines to challenge our
thinking and our faith, the ultimate result shouldn’t be God and me… it should be God in
me. Christ in me. Spirit in me.
“God
and me” is taken care of through
Jesus the Christ. But God in me
matters to the people I encounter every day. In order to welcome God, we must
train ourselves to see what we previously treated as invisible. If you have
ashes on your head (or on your heart), if you say you believe, if you wear a
cross, if you participate in church activities of any kind… you are an
emissary. What you do reflects the one who sends you. What you do reflects on
Christ. On your Creator. On your Advocate. The people we miss because they are
invisible to us are being denied an experience of Christ because of us. The
people whom we engage with grace are having an experience of Christ because of
us. Are we willing to open ourselves to greater encounters in Christ and with
Christ as we walk toward resurrection?
This Lenten season, are we prepared
to die, within ourselves and in our actions, to our prejudices, to our blind
spots, to our fears, to our insecurities? Are you prepared to fast from
injustice, from anger, from judgment, and from mistrust? Do you believe that
you can close your eyes, receive the ashes- that marker of mortality, and have
your eyes opened to new possibilities of grace? Are you willing to let Christ
do that in you and through you?
Even
on Ash Wednesday, we are Easter people.
Resurrection begins right now. You are an ambassador, an emissary for Christ,
in Christ, with Christ…
On
each of these forty days, and beyond, God will be encountering you in other
people. Do you see them? Do they see Christ?
Amen.
Comments