Secrets

 

Ash Wednesday     Church of the Redeemer             The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

            In our Eucharistic liturgy throughout the year, we begin the service with a prayer, which is called a Collect for Purity. In it we claim that before God, no secrets are hid, and all desires are known. Now such claims can make some people nervous. I have heard some people actually appalled by this thought, thinking “Oh my God” God knows what I think, as well as my secret desires, and it’s not good. In contrast, other people have confessed that they find comfort in this knowledge. That God knows everything about them and it’s still OK.

            Members of my family have struggled with a variety of addictions over their lifetimes, and as a grateful member of Al-anon, I like the saying, “You are only as sick as your secrets.” Acknowledging that alcoholism is a family disease that feeds on the denial of the illness, while hurting its members, then “coming out of the closet” about what’s really going on inside your own soul and your family is important. Admitting that there is a problem is always a good first step.

            The Ash Wednesday service is our liturgy for coming out of the closet, even if it only means that we go into the privacy of our own rooms and confess to God the truth about ourselves. We acknowledge that our new year’s resolutions have faded like yesterday’s news, we’ve done those things which we ought not to have done, and we’re ready to give it another try. On a very basic level, we admit that we are dust and it is to dust that we shall return. Indeed, Ash Wednesday has been called the day when we attend our own funerals, and there is no denying our mortality. (Feasting, p21)

The late Rev. Marilyn McCord Adams said it best, “Lent grapples with the fact that our human denial systems are very strong. Most of the time we need to think, and we need others to think, we are decent people. The Ash Wednesday liturgy stage-manages us into public exposure; we are not what we seem. Deliberately disobeying the gospel by receiving ashes is a way of coming out of the closet; we are people who are not pure in heart, who do not love God with all we have.” (p24, Feasting) Today, we publicly confess our sins in a very long litany of penitence.

Now, in all fairness, we want people to see us as decent human beings, and we are. However, we all have various wounds and baggage that weigh us down and prevent us from living fully into the beloved children of God that we are. Rather than thriving like a well oiled machine, we survive. And so we need to shake off some of that rust that corrodes our beauty.

Physical temptations come in a variety of shapes and sizes. We may admit that we have been digging our own graves by overindulgence in food and drink, in process addictions like gambling and pornography, for cheating on our partners and on our taxes, for lying to ourselves and to others. We have erred and strayed like lost sheep away from the best version of ourselves and we’re ready to get back on the treadmill, one day at a time, one step at a time!

            There are two other sayings in the twelve step community that are relevant for today’s service. “Fake it until you make it” we say, encouraging better behavior. And yet this is a very different injunction from what Jesus is saying in the gospel of Matthew. He warned the crowd around him, “Do not become like those hypocrites” (read religious leaders). Don’t be a fake, he cautioned them!

Apparently, the Greek word “hypocrite” used by St. Matthew is translated as “stage actors.” When we fake it, we are acting on a public stage to pretend to be a better version of ourselves. We put on masks and too often, when we are play-acting, or managing our stage performances, we will secretly hide our true selves from others. Maybe even from our very own selves.

 As actors on the stage of real life, we can fake it until we make it in good ways. We can pretend to behave better until we do. We can act lovingly even when we hate. We can behave peacefully and speak respectfully, when we really want to tear someone apart. We can give generously even when we’re afraid to let go and let God. We can fast from negativity.

The other saying in the twelve step community is similar. We are encouraged to “act as if.” Hidden behind this pithy little statement are three words that point to the possibility of transformation. Act as if you are a Christian because you are one. Act as if you are a good and decent human being, because you are one. Act as if until you are a better version of yourself until you are.

Transformation involves a process. It’s never a “one and done” kind of affair. When we act as if we love God and our neighbors as ourselves, eventually, over time, and with faithful application to that process, we will change for the better. We will shed our bad habits like the COVID virus, and we will become contagious to others.

Lent is our season for self-examination, repentance, confession, and amendment of life. Now “giving things up” during Lent has been the standard operating procedure. We give up tonic but not the gin. We give up chocolate but not the desserts. We give up swearing but not the gossip. And if we stay on that very superficial level, we will miss the point.

The idea of resolutions and Lenten disciplines is not an exercise in self-flagellation or a temporary amendment of life. Rather, Lent is a time to recognize the truth of our humanity and reorient ourselves to God. We are coming out of the closet and coming clean about our humanity, knowing that we can do better, while putting God back into the center of our lives.

So over time, many people have focused on the positive disciplines of Lent, that is taking on spiritual practices instead of giving up what we consider to be negative drags on our lives. Do it in order to reconnect your life with God, not to show off your holiness or decency to others.

Routinely, there is the age-old argument of whether or not we keep the ashes on our foreheads visible after we leave church. Even before the COVID lockdowns, some clergy had started offering ashes “to go” at train stations, or right in the middle of the market square, claiming it as an evangelism tool. Others argued it was only an inappropriate marketing strategy that was disconnected from the church community and therefore just a “shiny new object” in search of new members.

So what arguments do we make for being public about those smudges on our foreheads? Should we wash them away as soon as we can? Barbara Brown Taylor raises some interesting points. “Whereas St. Matthew presumably wrote for a culture in which religious observance was common, obligatory, and relatively uniform, western Christians today inhabit a culture in which religious observance is peculiar, optional, and decidedly pluralistic.

Therefore, in Matthew’s world, keeping one’s religious practice to oneself would have been countercultural.” And so, keeping ashes visible today would be our new counter-cultural response.

Similarly, Brown makes the point that during the time that St. Matthew wrote his gospel, being a hypocrite meant that one made a big deal about their religious practices, showing off in the market squares how holy and faithful they were. Today however, Brown suggests that the word “hypocrite” bears reexamination. “Detractors of religion now use the same word to describe someone whose practice appears to be nonexistent. In such a changed cultural context, might there be something to be said for wearing an ash cross to the grocery store?” she wondered. (p23, Feasting) In an increasingly secular and non-religious society, we are not showing off but rather witnessing to our faith publicly. We are coming out of the closet.

So, here are three practical suggestions for you today. Be counter-cultural. Don’t wash off the ashes until you are ready for bed tonight. Let people see you as a Christian, however proud or uncomfortable it makes you feel. Confess to God a little secret or a big secret in the privacy of your own room. And if you’re really bold, tell another person whom you trust, knowing that from God no secrets are hid and all desires are known. Finally, take on some sort of positive spiritual discipline, like starting your day in prayer.

This Lent, fake it until you make it and act as if you are a Christian because you are.

 

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21