February 25, 2009 | Ash Wednesday

Not What We Want

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21
Isaiah 58:1–12

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ash Wednesday is a sobering day, perhaps the most sobering day of our church year. To be sure, on the other end of Lent, on Good Friday, we confront the mysteries of Christ’s death and we typically find that day to be a somber one. But today is different, because on this day we confront our own mortality. We confront the reality that we too will die, as will all those we love and hold dear.

This year it seems that our congregation doesn’t need another reminder of that. Many of our hearts still sting from the loss of our dear friend and pastor, Dana Ferguson. And the vast majority of us, perhaps every single one of us, has surely experienced other loss as well this year—family and friends who have died before their time or at least before we were ready for them to go.

And our reflection on mortality and the precariousness of life is no doubt sharpened this year by the economic reality that a growing number of us are facing. More so than in a long time we are mindful of the cost of living. We realize once again that food and clothing and shelter are not givens, though there are certainly those among us who have known this for a long, long time.

So on this Ash Wednesday evening, my hope is not that we will wallow in despair or brood over our common fate in the dust. Instead, my hope is that we might consider what comes next. As we take this first step of our Lenten journey, what is it that God is calling us to do in response to the truth that we are confronted with on this day? And I’d like to suggest that we begin our reflection by thinking about the practice and discipline of fasting.

Since ancient times, fasting has been a part of the Lenten discipline. Lent is a season of preparation for the great mysteries of Jesus’ death and resurrection that we experience during Holy Week and Easter. Fasting and prayer have traditionally been part of this spiritual preparation, means by which we focus our attention on the sacred. Fasting during Lent, as during the rest of the year, can run the gamut from an absolute fast to a partial fast to something more moderate, such as abstinence from certain foods or activities. However it is practiced, fasting is as much a part of Lent as feasting is a part of Easter.

Fasting is an almost universal religious practice, from ancient to modern times and across the peoples of the world. Though we don’t talk about it much anymore, fasting has its place in our Presbyterian tradition, as well. While he certainly discussed other purposes for fasting, John Calvin seems to have focused primarily on the biblical tradition of fasting as an element of repentance, a focus you will recognize still in the liturgy we observe this evening.

But in our contemporary world, fasting is resurfacing throughout the church as a spiritual discipline that helps us to detach ourselves from appetites we have let run unchecked for far too long. That consumerism and materialism have themselves consumed our culture is painfully obvious. Our current economic troubles and the call of our national leaders for more restraint only highlight the fact that our society has succumbed to the temptations of reckless consumption.

Fasting, then, is a way for us to confront those temptations and curb our consumptive appetites. Fasting reminds us that meeting material needs is not sufficient for our peace and well-being, especially when we abuse those needs through gluttony and greed. In the face of these temptations, Presbyterian minister and spiritual director Marjorie Thompson suggests, “the discipline of fasting has to do with the critical dynamic of accepting those limits which are life restoring” (Soul Feast: An Invitation to Christian Spiritual Life, p. 80).

The idea that limits might be life-restoring is as antithetical to our culture as anything we might find in our faith tradition. Our culture conditions us to despise limits, to yearn for absolute freedom, even when that freedom leads to self-destruction. Yet the paradox of our faith is that we become most free when we submit ourselves to the will of God. When we rely on God more than we rely on ourselves, we finally and most fully experience true freedom.

To do this, we must set aside our egos and our selfish desires. As Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans, we must die to ourselves and become alive to God. This is why recognizing and embracing our limits is so important. Even in his own fasting and temptation, Jesus accepted the full limits of human existence. In those forty days in the desert and throughout his entire life, Jesus refused to exert his own power and self-sufficiency, relying instead on God, pointing always to God instead of to himself. Even at his moment of deepest fear, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane as his passion drew near, Jesus denied himself what he wanted and submitted himself to what God wanted.

Likewise, fasting is a way of denying what we want. What we want is to consume. What we want is to feast. What we want is to be comfortable. What we want is to succeed. What we want is to always win. What we want is to be respected. What we want is to always be the best.

But we’re not always the best. We aren’t always respected. We don’t always win. We don’t always succeed. We aren’t always comfortable. We can’t always feast. And if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, pretty soon we’ll run out of things to consume altogether.

Friends, these are realities that are true for every single one of us, true for every single person in the world. When we embrace the hunger of fasting, a hunger that all of us feel—though some of us certainly feel it more than others—when we embrace that hunger, we come closer to embracing the truth of Ash Wednesday: from dust we come and to dust we shall return. All of us. Each one of us. Despite our wealth or lack of wealth, despite our education or lack of education, despite our homes or lack of homes, despite our power or lack of power, despite our prestige or lack of prestige—every single one of us comes from the same stuff and every single one of us will return there once our days are done.

I call this radical equality. And the response to radical equality is radical humility.

What would it look like for a congregation like ours—a congregation that gathers in a sanctuary like this on Michigan Avenue—what would it look like for our congregation to practice radical humility? What would it look like for each one of us, in our individual lives, to practice radical humility?

I don’t exactly know what radical humility would look like for our congregation or what it would look like for you in your life. I do know what it looks like for a guy named Shane Claiborne. Shane is a founding member of a new monastic intentional community called the Potter Street Community.

His journey began in college when a group of homeless people that had found shelter in an abandoned church were about to be evicted. Along with other students, he wanted to help. Instead of just giving the homeless handouts, he began to hang out with them. He lived with them and became a part of their community. He recognized the radical equality between himself and the homeless, and it changed his life. He spent ten weeks with Mother Teresa in Calcutta and learned even more about what it means to serve the poor by living with them. His whole life is a prophetic witness to radical equality and radical humility. He makes his own clothes. He lives simply. He promotes nonviolence. He values community over material comforts. He serves the poor as he lives in community where they live. (Please read Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.)

Radical equality inspires radical humility and draws us closer to likeness of Christ.

What might that look like for us? Again, I don’t exactly know what radical humility would look like for our congregation. I don’t know what it would look like for each of you. But I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what it might look like for me, in my life. And to be completely honest, every time I get a glimpse of it, it scares me to death. It frightens me to the very core of who I am. Because the core of who I am is far from humble. The core of who I am likes good food and good drink. The core of who I am enjoys nice things. The core of who I am wants to be respected and admired. The core of who I am likes to be comfortable. The core of who I am wants to be the best at what I do.

And in the abundance of God’s goodness, there is a time and a place for these things. But there is also a time and a place for radical humility, because when we let ourselves be consumed by these things, we die to the image of God within us.

Shane Claiborne lives the life I always wish I could. But I’m always too scared to try, too scared to go that far, too scared to go all the way.

On this day I believe that God is calling us to recognize and embrace the radical equality that binds us all together. And in response, I believe we are called to act with radical humility.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Amen.