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Ash Wednesday - February 6, 2008 - Rev. Gary Strubel

When I was a kid, my dad smoked, so my entire mental concept of ashes was that nasty smelling stuff at the bottom of an ash tray. When I first heard that I was to receive ashes on my forehead, on Ash Wednesday, I was in a panic. I envisioned the priest sticking his thumb in some old ashtray and rubbing that stuff on my face. It wasn’t until I actually saw the stuff that my revulsion abated.

As I grew older, my vision of ashes continued to evolve. For instance, volcanic ash, while initially destructive, leaves behind a nutrient rich soil that feeds the new life that springs from the … well… ash. The lush canopy of South Pacific islands sprang from the destructive ash of volcanoes. Natural forest fires burn away old growth and accumulated brush, to (again) leave a nutrient soil. Within weeks of a fire, the barren gray and black slopes are transformed into velvety hills of green. In a way, ashes come to symbolize the death necessary to bring new life – or resurrection.

At first glance, Ash Wednesday seems like a downer. Indeed, the black ash representing our mortality and penitence sounds rather ghoulish. But that’s only half the story. The ash represents a death, from which springs new life. The beginning of Lent (Ash Wednesday) points to the end of Lent (Good Friday) with the promise of resurrection (Easter). Thus, ashes aren’t a sign of defeat, but rather a sign of triumph. We’re secure in contemplating our sin and mortality, because we’re armed with the knowledge of forgiveness and everlasting life.

But so often, we forget this healing part of Lent. Contemplating our faults without knowing that we’ll be forgiven only makes us depressed. Contemplating our mortality without trusting in everlasting life only makes us anxious. Thus, we become desperate to fill that void and often look for praise from others, which is the point that Jesus is making in our Gospel reading. For many of us, Lent becomes an end onto itself – see me morosely contemplate my mortality; see me giving to the needy till it hurts; see me going out of my way to make an effort to do something extra religious. And, we wonder why we don’t get anything out of Lent.

In the end, everything that we have on earth will melt away – all the stuff that we’ve worked so hard to gather, all the relationships we tried so hard to foster, and the health that we’ve tried so hard to safeguard. The only thing that remains is our relationship with God. It is this relationship with God that we’re called to strive for. In the practice of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, we learn to become the people that God’s wants to become. We learn to treasure what God treasures.

Jesus says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Everything else, belongs in the ash tray.