Ash Wednesday, Lent, and the Counter-Formation We Need

In the Scripture 40 is a number that represents an extended period of time that is long enough and challenging enough that it brings transformation. The forty days of rain in the Noah story brought a renewal to the earth. The forty years in the wilderness did not just get Israel out of Egypt, but were also used by God to get the ways of Egypt out of them. Moses met with God for forty days on Mt Sinai and received the new life offered through the Torah. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness not only reliving Israel's wanderings (now in faithfulness), but it was there that the Lord resisted the temptation to define the Kingdom through full stomachs, signs and wonders, or in conquest.

These forty days of Lent, beginning today on Ash Wednesday, are meant to be for Christians an annual time of concentrated counter-formation. In Lent we fast in order to break up the routines that are constantly shaping us. It is a time when we resist the ways we are being patterned, habited, and taught what to love (the ways we are fed) by various practices and "cultural liturgies," and intentionally give ourselves to the counter-formation of the cross and the purposes of God revealed in its shadow.

I always find Lent to be important, but for many reasons, this year seems especially personal and important to me. I don't know if it's my recent journey through loss and grief or the cultural tensions and practices that are so prevalent during an election season, but there are several "counter practices" we experience in Lent that seem especially timely this time around.

Lent (Ash Wednesday in particular) reminds us that we are going to die. One of the texts for this first Sunday of Lent is Genesis 2-3 where the serpent whispers to Eve, "You won't die!" (3:4). It is fascinating that in response to the serpentine lie, we will repeated remind the faithful today in words and in the symbol of ash, "Hey, don't listen to the serpent. You are dust and ash. You are going to die."

Being reminded of our mortality is an important counter-practice for people formed in a culture that idolizes youthfulness and that fights desperately against aging and maturing. But it is also an important counter-practice for people formed in a culture of rugged individualism. We need to be reminded of our dependence. Walking through the recent loss of my dad not only forced me to come to grips with his mortality, but with my own. One of the hardest - and also most beautiful - things to witness was my father becoming so dependent in the last few weeks of his life. He was resistant at first, but eventually he gave in to his need for the care of my mother, his family, his care-takers, and the breath of his Creator.

We live in a time of rugged individualism and the desire to be increasingly independent, self-made, and isolated from others. We need someone to remind us today, "You will die. You are dependent on the life and goodness of others. You do not control your days. Your breath is gift from God."

Lent invites us to confess our sin. Again, the Genesis text for this first week is about sin, rebellion, and turning away from God's purposes. However, it is also about blame. Adam blames Eve and God. Eve blames the serpent. No one confesses. Everyone points the finger.

We live in a time when confession and admitting our sins is not very popular. There is a famous line from the old novel and movie Love Story: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." I'm not sure about that. However, I am sure that much of our cultural liturgies today believe that, "Power means never having to say you're sorry." The counter-liturgy of Lent invites God's people to stand beneath the shadow of the cross again and again and confess our sins of commission and omission.

I am continually struck by an inversion that happens in the Old Testament prophets. The early sections of the OT seem to imagine that shalom will happen only when our enemies are defeated and "our" side is vindicated. In the Noah story, for example, the righteous float in safety while the wicked drown. By the time of the prophets there is a new imagination. For the prophets, the problem is not so much "those people" out there, but rather the lack of faithfulness "in here." The Jonah story, for example, inverts our imaginations. In Jonah, the wicked are redeemed when the righteous submit themselves to going into the depths.

In a time filled with the language and imagination of "us v. them" we need practices that invite us to see the shadows of sin in us.

Lent breaks the scapegoating cycle. The work of a sociologist/theologian named Rene Girard has helped us to see that the cross reveals our tendency to participate in practices of scapegoating. For Girard, when our rivalries, fears, tensions, and sense of dissatisfactions get intense enough, it helps to get rid of those feelings of helplessness and anger by taking it out on someone else. The most obvious examples from the last century are the Nazi's scapegoating of Jews, the Turks scapegoating of Armenians, the Hutu's scapegoating of Tutsis, etc. Again, for Girard, this scapegoating process goes on and on from culture to culture at various levels of violence and exclusion.

The healing and transformative mystery, for Girard, of the cross of Jesus is that, in this case, the one who is scapegoated - cast out, excluded, misused, and crucified - turns out to be the innocent one. The scapegoat is without sin, those doing the scapegoating are revealed as guilty. It is this revelation that turns the tables on the scapegoating process and should break the cycle of memetic violence.

Again, this is a time where tensions and fears seem to be running incredibly high. It is easy for us to turn and pour out those tensions on various scapegoats. "If we just got rid of ______," we think, tweet, post, and proclaim, "then everything would be okay." (You can fill in the blank).

Lent invites us to be very wary of our anger and our tendency to focus that seeming righteous indignation on particular persons, peoples, and groups. There are certainly things in the world worth getting upset about. However, Lent invites us to step back and be cautious of how our anger gets lived out in cycles of retribution. It also invites us to allow the cruciformed love of Jesus, that takes in all sin, wrath, and violence, help us find constructive and life-giving ways to deal with our hurts, frustrations, and anger.

There are certainly many other ways Lent is trying to counter-form us to be reflections of Christ and ambassadors of reconciliation. But these three feel especially important to me today on this Ash Wednesday.

Comments

[Kendra]

Yes! Yes! Yes!
Thankful for this reminder that I am dust and how I want this time to remind me of what "Egypt" ways need to be removed over the next 40 days.

[Harold Parry]

Excellent essay reminding us why Lent is so important in our journey with Jesus in community.

[sharon r templeman]

Thank you Pastor...I appreciate these thoughts and challenge to constructive and life-giving ways daily and consistently.

[Rob Prince]

Thank you Scott. You always give a good word!

[John Stauffer]

I appreciate the concise warrants for why you have found Ash Wednesday and perhaps for those who worship on Sunday and otherwise would not celebrate what you have given to us to consider.

I told my wife a few days ago that I struggled to find the Scripture that supports the solemn practice of allowing for ashes crossed upon my forehead. Now I have sufficient evidence .

All of your comments in this valuable paper will remain in my mind and in the files for future teaching reference.