Lectionary Reflections for Ash Wednesday<\/strong> Can we remember Ash Wednesday without guilt?\u00a0 Can Lent be an embodied, rather than ascetic season? Is it possible to focus on transformation and creativity \u2013 the simplicity of spirit \u2013 that awakens us to quotidian resurrections throughout the Lenten and Easter Season?\u00a0 Ash Wednesday calls us to self-examination.\u00a0 Out of self-examination, embracing the wholeness of our lives, we take the first steps toward the resurrection joy of Easter.<\/p>\n In the Roman Catholic mass, worshipers repeat as a celebration of the eucharist:\u00a0\u201cLord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.\u201d\u00a0 I wonder how many congregants focus on the first section, \u201cLord, I am not worthy\u2026\u201d and omit the words of promise that follow, \u201cJust say the word and I shall be healed?\u201d\u00a0 Although the Roman Catholic church recently changed these words, now more reflective of Matthew\u2019s intent, \u201cLord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed,\u201d the statement is still ambiguous spiritually, emotionally, and theologically. \u00a0\u00a0It places unworthiness as primary and love as an afterthought. \u00a0It makes sin rather than blessing \u201coriginal\u201d to our nature.\u00a0 In reality, despite our imperfections, we are first of all, God\u2019s beloved children, worthy of love.<\/p>\n Words matter! I believe that words repeated over and over can transform our cells as well as our souls, our unconscious as well as our conscious minds; and I wonder how many souls have shriveled, and how many feelings of self-loathing, have emerged from repeating these words over the centuries.\u00a0 Yes, God heals, but are we really unworthy of God\u2019s love and care?\u00a0 They suggest that God loves us in spite of who we are, not because we are God\u2019s children.\u00a0 They create a bridge between God and us in which we are passive and can do nothing on our own to remedy our situation.\u00a0 What would we think of child-parent relationship, characterized by the child\u2019s belief \u201cI am not worthy of your love?\u201d\u00a0 Let me state again: you are worthy of God\u2019s love.\u00a0 God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it.<\/p>\n I feel the same way about many of the words invoked on Ash Wednesday and, frankly, omit them from the lectionary as reflective of my commitment to healthy, life-transforming, and abundant-living theology and spirituality.\u00a0 Ponder these words from Psalm 51:<\/p>\n Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.<\/em><\/p>\n What feelings emerge as your reflect on these words?\u00a0 Do our sins only affect God?\u00a0 What about actions or omissions that harm others, human and non-human?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t the impact of our actions on our fellow creatures, human and non-human matter?\u00a0 Further, is God primarily some sort of hanging judge, whose primary task is to punish us when we have sullied God\u2019s honor?\u00a0 Are we really born guilty, sinful from the start, and naughty by nature? I advise you to eliminate this part of the Psalm unless you are planning to address it as an existential statement, related to how we feel when we turn away from God to our own finite and self-serving schemes.<\/p>\n I recall a curious conversation some forty years ago at a wedding reception.\u00a0 My wife, two year old son, and I were placed near a staunch Calvinist.\u00a0 Somehow the discussion turned to the nature of sin.\u00a0 (I never look forward to theological conversations at weddings or on airplanes!)\u00a0 He asserted that his two year old was selfish, sinful, and depraved.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really want to argue with him; but I thought to myself, \u201cWell, his daughter may be depraved, but my son isn\u2019t!\u201d\u00a0 I also pondered the impact of such guilt-oriented theologies of people\u2019s overall well-being, self-esteem, and joy in life.\u00a0 What happens when you hear that you are essentially depraved from childhood? What happens when you grow up believing that God is an oversensitive and arbitrary sovereign, easily angered, ready to punish, and offended by any creativity on our part?\u00a0 What happens when deep down you believe that God is out to get you?<\/p>\n I do not believe we need to debase ourselves to give God glory or affirm God\u2019s majesty.\u00a0 God is not an egocentric potentate who needs self-abasing to be pleased with us.\u00a0 In fact, I believe that when we rejoice in the creature we implicitly give thanks to the Creator.\u00a0 Faith is not an either\/or proposition \u2013 God or the world \u2013 but a both\/and proposition \u2013 in the language of my teacher, John Cobb, God and<\/em> the world.<\/p>\n I believe that Ash Wednesday can be a day of healing and transformation!\u00a0 I believe that we can hold in contrast our own sin and brokenness with our inherent value as God\u2019s beloved!\u00a0 Ash Wednesday is a call to reflective action, not brooding morbidity. I believe that we can experience Ash Wednesday without guilt!<\/p>\n Let us begin with the rehabilitation of Psalm 51 so that these ancient words heal rather than harm.\u00a0 We need to take a long, hard look at the words: \u201cAgainst you only [God] I have sinned.\u201d\u00a0 Do they really portray the impact of our destructive attitudes and behavior?\u00a0 In fact, they may minimize the impact of sin by making it an abstraction rather than a concrete lived reality.\u00a0 There is no doubt that there is enough brokenness, abuse, violence, and destruction to go around.\u00a0 Although I believe that God experiences the pain of the world, seeing our sin as primarily an offense against God minimizes the harm we do to children killed because of \u201cwild west\u201d notions of gun possession; glaciers falling into the ocean as a result of our consumption; animals brutalized in factory farms; babies starving due to economic and governmental policies such as cutting USAID; persons begging for food, shelter, and health care in the wealthiest nation on Earth!\u00a0 God feels our pain, but God can endure it; many of our fellow creatures are destroyed physically, emotionally, and spiritually as a result of our actions, lifestyle, governmental policies, and omissions.<\/p>\n Let me state this clearly as the heart of any creation-affirming theology: When we love creation, we love God.\u00a0 When we hurt creation, we hurt God.\u00a0 Everything we do touches God, but it more significantly touches the mortals who are our companions on planet Earth.\u00a0 Our pain matters, and their pain matters, not because it is an affront to God \u2013 although it is! \u2013 but because unnecessary pain destroys the beauty of experience.\u00a0 It harms vulnerable ones and diminishes possibilities for abundant life.\u00a0 Yes, God is the fellow sufferer who understands, but this can\u2019t be affirmed apart from the recognition of creaturely suffering.\u00a0 God is out to love us, not out to get us.<\/p>\n We need also to transform the words, \u201cI was born guilty\u201d as unworthy of the divine proclamation, \u201cand it was good.\u201d\u00a0 The first words every child needs to hear are: I love you, you matter, you are valuable, or as Aibileen says to the neglected toddler Mae Mobley in The Help<\/em> \u201cYou is kind. You is smart. You is important.\u201d\u00a0 Blessing always comes before correction.\u00a0 Love is more important than punishment.\u00a0 Many of our sins would be eliminated preventatively if we were told early and often \u2013 and treated in ways that affirmed \u2013 that we are good, loved, valuable, and worthy.\u00a0 Let Ash Wednesday be a day of spiritual affirmation.<\/p>\n The words of Joel and Jesus speak of inner transformation.\u00a0 We can change and turn around, and open ourselves and the world to new and creative possibilities.\u00a0 We are not condemned to repeat past pain and injustice, we can become new creations. We don\u2019t need to boast of our piety.\u00a0 Instead, we need to become people whose actions are pious and holy, and healing to the earth and its creatures.\u00a0 The spiritual journey joins inner and outer, and contemplation and action.<\/p>\n The words of Joel assert that transformed spirits lead to transformed social conditions and to greater manifestations of divine energy.\u00a0 What we do matters to God and opens or closes doors to God\u2019s love for us and all creation.\u00a0 God is merciful and loving, but the impact of God\u2019s love in the world is connected with our willingness to be channels of justice and healing.<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 words from the Sermon on the Mount are a counsel to authentic spirituality, not external exhibitionism.\u00a0 Let your relationship with God be heart-felt and not advantageous socially or economically.\u00a0 Let it come forth as an inner fire that gives light to the world. \u00a0Opening to divine fire, we become agents of transformation, and companions in God\u2019s quest to heal the world.<\/p>\n +++<\/p>\n Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD (https:\/\/www.westmorelanducc.org\/<\/a>) and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 80 books including: \u201cHomegrown Mystics: Restoring the Soul of Our Nation through the Healing Wisdom of America\u2019s Mystics\u201d (Amazon.com: Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America\u2019s Visionaries: 9781625249142: Epperly, Bruce: Books<\/a>) \u201cJesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet \u201c(Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet: Epperly, Bruce: 9781625248732: Amazon.com: Books<\/a>), Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet\u201d( Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999215: Amazon.com: Books<\/a>), and his most recent book, \u201cGod of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality and Social Change.\u201d (The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books<\/a> The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lectionary Reflections for Ash Wednesday March 5, 2025 Joel 2:1-2, 12-17;\u00a0Psalm 51:1-12;\u00a02 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10;\u00a0Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Can we remember Ash Wednesday without guilt?\u00a0 Can Lent be an embodied, rather than ascetic season? Is it possible to focus on transformation and creativity \u2013 the simplicity of spirit \u2013 that awakens us to quotidian resurrections throughout the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[152,1715,1541],"class_list":["post-6596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ash-wednesday","tag-original-goodness","tag-original-sin"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMarch 5, 2025
\nJoel 2:1-2, 12-17;\u00a0Psalm 51:1-12;\u00a02 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10;\u00a0Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21<\/em><\/p>\n