Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2018
After
the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, many industries
became more mechanized and required more unskilled workers. Working conditions
in mills and factories were horrible, as this was before we had the 40 hour
workweek and minimum wage. These conditions led to the beginning of workers’
unions, who often organized strikes in order to force the mill owners to change
and improve the conditions. One of the more famous strikes was called the Bread
and Roses’ strike at a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. Bread and roses: food is one of the basic
necessities of life, and yet so is beauty. After all, we know that Jesus says,
“You cannot live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.”[1]
Jesus tells that to the devil after he’s been fasting in the wilderness for
forty days and he’s starving. Yet Jesus is actually quoting the Old Testament,
the book of Deuteronomy, where God’s people are told, “Remember how God led you
in the wilderness for forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what
was in your heart, … God fed you with manna, which neither you nor your
ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on
every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”[2]
Bread and roses. Love and ashes. It took a weird timing of the calendar to
combine Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, and yet the two holy days go
together really well.
Consider
all the times hearts and love occur in the Ash Wednesdays readings. In Joel, we
read, “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart… rend your
heart and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious
and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” We’re going to
be talking about covenants this Lent and even when we break our end of the
covenant, God does not break his end. God’s love never ends. It’s not
conditional. Instead, when we get to our prayer of confession from Psalm 51,
we’ll pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me… The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite
heart, O God, you will not despise.” Lent is about examining your own heart and
reorienting yourself back to God. That’s what ‘repent’ means, to turn back.
While Valentine’s Day has become about candy and cards,
the saint it’s named for was not. St. Valentine was a priest in third century
Rome. The Roman Emperor, Claudius II, decided he needed a bigger army and so he
banned people from getting married. He thought single men made better soldiers
and, therefore, no one could get married. Well, Valentine, as a priest,
continued to secretly marry couples. He was eventually found out and taken
before the Emperor. At first Claudius liked him, and tried to convert him to
Emperor worship. Then Valentine tried to convert Claudius to Christianity… and
was condemned to death. Valentine was
executed February 14, 269 and about two hundred years later is when the day was
made into a saint’s day. Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay
down your life for your friends.”[3]
Valentine laid down his life as a martyr, and Jesus did, too, as we are now
orienting toward the cross, toward Good Friday, and ultimately toward Easter.
But before resurrection comes death. Before new life comes a reminder of our
mortality. And yet through it all is God’s everlasting, steadfast, faithful
love. Love is why God sent Jesus: “For God so loved the whole world that he
gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him might not perish but
have eternal life. God did not send his son to condemn the world but to save
the world thru him.”[4]
It was all done out of love. God formed us out of love, and dust. God saves us
out of love, and dust.
Love and dust, bread and roses. The workers on strike
were seeking something higher than subsistence living. We Christians know that
something more as the abundant life that Jesus offers. And yet abundant life, a
full life, is only found through the cross. We love the mountaintop and shiny
things, but Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Our Bishop is
encouraging us to fast one day a week this Lent, whether from food or from
something like television or spending money. She also reminds us that all
spiritual disciplines are always accompanied by prayer. The point of it is to
draw us closer to God. Use the time you usually watch TV and spend it in prayer
instead. Take the money you would spend on a meal out and give it to a soup
kitchen. If you need accountability, which we usually all do, let me or another
friend know what you’re doing for Lent so that we can ask you about it. The
Christian journey is not one we do by ourselves. Even Jesus had someone help
carry his cross at the very end of the road, Joseph of Arimathea. I’ll share
with you what I’m doing: I’ve decided to fast from infections. I’ve tried to
keep it low-key, but I’ve been on antibiotics for six out of the past ten
weeks, going back to when I had pneumonia in December. I had an ear infection
last month that morphed into chronic sinusitis. For Lent I want to give up
being sick. However, I recognize I don’t have a lot of control over it because
life in a bubble is not abundant life. I can only do it with God’s help. It’s
good to remember that “We are not earning God’s love with disciplines done in
fear of failure.” Don’t choose your fast based on what you think you can do. Self-discipline
will only get you so far. Instead, think of it as “responding to God’s love by
being the very best disciples we can.” We love, because God first loved us,
just as we are. And so just as we are, we come to Jesus.
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