Pr. Craig Mueller
Ash Wednesday
March 6, 2019
Sound The Alarm
Alarms can be annoying. Especially the ones on old-fashioned alarm clocks. Of course, these days many alarm sounds are more refined—enough to wake us up but not enough to startle the bejesus out of us.
And then there are those car alarms that go off by accident and then keep going. How annoying. How they can grate on our nerves. Turn it off. Turn off the alarm!
And that’s what we may want to do with Ash Wednesday. Particularly the way the prophet Joel talks. Blow the trumpet. Sound the alarm. Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. And if that’s not alarming and troubling enough, he talks about the day of the Lord as a day of darkness and gloom.
It’s attention-getting that’s for sure. But it’s not the energetic cry for a pep rally, a Super Bowl, an Academy Award ceremony, a military parade. Joel is calling a day of mourning and repentance. Not the kind of event that will get RSVP’s and happy-face emojis. Not the kind of event that will get great Yelp reviews in our short-attention-spanned, death-denying culture fixated on immediate gratification and the next happiness high.
It’s an alarm that may be for our own good, but who would choose it? To assemble so we can confess that we have messed up. And then get an ash-cross that literally means we’re gonna die. Happy Ash Wednesday!
And then there’s the news that leaves us discouraged, dejected and depressed. We know who’s the problem. Those people in government, especially the ones who disagree with us. Those people who are resisting science and the reality of climate change. Those people who are close-minded and intolerant of everyone this church gladly welcomes.
But I have to warn you, it’s going to feel alarming, it’s going to catch in our throats when we say the words of the confession: not they have sinned but we have sinned. It’s in the plural. We confess our pride, envy, apathy, and indifference to injustice. Our waste and pollution. Our contempt—such a strong word—our contempt toward toward those who differ from us. And then the h-word. It’s downright alarming to hear people call the church a bunch of hypocrites. But I’m sorry to say: we are. But so is everybody. And it seems to be getting worse, doesn’t it?
The Mardi Gras party is over. The alarm is sounding. It’s a time for fasting, prayer, and works of love. It’s a time for taking stock. When you’ve been ash-ed and you know life is short, everything is different.
And quite frankly, it’s alarming to put ashes on our face right after hearing a gospel in which Jesus tells people to wash their faces if they’re fasting in order to be seen by others. But I’m not sure it’s showing off to have ashes on your brow. After all, the ashes are an imposition. Our mortality isn’t something we choose, after all. Who would choose to impose ashes on the forehead of an infant or someone living terminal illness?
You’d think our churches would be empty on Alarm Wednesday. Yet maybe we love this day because the alarm is what is takes to get our attention, to hear God’s longing for us. Maybe the alarm is what wakes us from lethargy, from our unconscious bias and privilege, from looking away, from thinking only of ourselves. Maybe the alarm opens our eyes to the real emergency of these days. Maybe the alarm brings a repentance, a changing of our mind and ways. Maybe the alarm shows how spiritually poor we really are, how we live on the surface of things, how unwilling we are to go deeper and face our illusions. Maybe the annoying alarm opens our hearts to the treasure of grace offered to us.
Now is the day of salvation, St. Paul writes. Martin Luther invites us to remember our baptism every morning. Think of the alarm as a reminder that each day we die to sin and rise to new life with Christ. When things look the bleakest, we return each day to a God who is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love.
Ash Wednesday is weird, no doubt. But also, wonderful. Keep death before your eyes, the alarm seems to say. It’s something our desert spiritual forebears talked about, something Buddhists teach as well.
Hear the alarm differently this day. The alarm is the beginning of freedom. The alarm is this joyful announcement: the desert journey is the path to spring, the path to wholeness, the path to Easter, the path to resurrection, the path to new life.