Living Among Ashes

by

There’s an ancient Jewish tale about a rabbi who carried two slips of paper in his pockets. The slip in one pocket read, “You are nothing but dust and ashes,”  and the slip in the other read, “The world was created for you.” We humans are creatures of the dust who are enlivened by the breath of God and created in God’s image. Our lives are a meeting place of earth and heaven, and we bounce between humility and hubris.

Lent is a season for humility, beginning with the most humble of days, Ash Wednesday. The ashes Christians use to mark our foreheads remind us that we are made of dust and will return to dust. Traditionally the ashes are made by burning the palms from the previous Palm Sunday. These ashes contain vestiges of Jesus’ lauded entry into Jerusalem that began a week in which he was arrested and executed, only to triumph over death in resurrection.

We too often live for the exultant moments – the dazzling transfiguration of Jesus, celebrated on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the bright joy of Easter and the powerful surge of Pentecost, which is followed Ordinary Time – forgetting that glory lives adjacent to the mundane. Humans have been trying to escape earth’s limits since the citizens of Babel built a tower to the sky (Genesis 11:1-9), and like them, we are often brought down by those efforts.

We live increasingly with devastation resulting from human-made machines. While technology has improved life in many ways, carbon emissions from the fossil fuels that drive those machines have altered the climate, creating more extreme weather. We are already experiencing significant drought, more severe storms, flooding, and sea level rise, and these conditions will only worsen in coming decades.

Being stamped with the image of God can encourage a hubris that takes God’s commandment to have dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26) as license to plunder it. Theology that prizes mind and spirit over body allows us to identify with the divine and see heaven as our true home, rather than the earth of which we are made and where we live. Our failure to care for earth may bring about our downfall. Humanity’s hubris has endangered future life on earth.

We live among ashes of our own making. Persistent drought has led to such frequent wildfires that the US Forest Service now considers fire season to be year-round. Bushfires in Australia in 2019-20 burned 10 million hectares (almost 25 million acres), killed over 1 billion animals, and released as much smoke into the atmosphere as a volcanic eruption. A recent report by the United Nations Environmental Program says wildfires will increase by 50% by the end of the century, noting, “The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes.”

The twin towers of the World Trade Center, once the tallest buildings in the world, collapsed into rubble and ashes on September 11, 2001. For many people, these buildings symbolized globalized capitalism, which has created enormous wealth for some, while miring other in poverty. The causes of terrorism are complex, but the selected targets suggest that the impact of globalization on Islamic countries was a contributing factor.1 Like Icarus of Greek mythology, we reached for the sky, only to be brought low.

As we enter our third Lenten season in the age of COVID, the pandemic itself highlights our twin responses to the human condition. Recognizing our human frailty, most people have been vaccinated and wear face coverings when recommended, in order to protect themselves, as well as vulnerable populations, health care professionals, and other essential workers. Others, including a great many evangelical Christians, reject such restrictions as a violation of their individual rights, flouting a virus that has killed nearly 6 million people worldwide.

On Ash Wednesday, Christians are imposed with ashes, an act that also has a dual meaning. We generally think of an imposition as an unreasonable expectation, such as an unwanted tax, or a mask mandate. But it can also mean the laying on of hands as a form of blessing. The imposition of ashes is a humbling reminder of the frailties of the human condition and our mortality. At the same time, we experience the ashes as a blessing and a sign of God’s abiding love and forgiveness.

While we may not be as restricted as we were during the last two seasons of Lent, Christians would do well to remember that the word “quarantine” also has holy roots, dating to a period of 40 days (quaranta giorni) of isolation during the Black Death before entering some cities. Rather than see quarantine, or the Lenten season itself, as an imposition, we can follow the biblical examples of those who sought God’s mercy by humbling themselves and sitting among the ashes – Mordecai (Esther 4:1-3), Job (Job 42:1-6), Daniel (Daniel 9:1-3), and the Ninevites (Jonah 3:4-6).

By living among ashes for the 40 days of Lent, Christians can cultivate a healthy humility that acknowledges our reflection of the divine, without glorifying ourselves. The Apostle Paul reminds us to imitate the spirit of Christ, who shunned his own equality with God and emptied himself, in order share our humanity (Philippians 2:5-8). Glory is God’s to give, not ours to grasp. Following the example of Christ, Christian are called to humility, patience, generosity, and love – qualities that are in short supply in our world, but that are so desperately needed.

Author of book "We Shall Not Be Moved: Methodists Debate Race, Gender, and Homosexuality," the Rev. Jane Ellen Nickell is a retired clergy member of the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference. This post is republished with permission from her blog, A Nickell for Your Thoughts. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author.