Thomas Kleinert
We use ash to mark the beginning of Lent. Ash has long been used as a symbol of grief and repentance. Ash is all that is left when the fire has burned out. The ash we use on Ash Wednesday is what is left of the palm fronds we spread on the ground or waved with joy when we welcomed Jesus and his reign to the city. That bonfire of glad expectation burned out fast, and it’s humbling to realize how short-lived our commitments can be.
We use ash to leave a visible mark on our skin, but the words we hear during the ritual remind us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We let ourselves be reminded that we are earthlings—creatures of God, made in the image of God, made from dust. “Being human means acknowledging that we’re made from the earth and will return to the earth,” wrote Richard Rohr. “We are earth that has come to consciousness. … And then we return to where we started—in the heart of God. Everything in between is a school of love.”[1] It is fitting that the words human, humus, and humble all come from the same Latin root, meaning soil. In the second creation account in Genesis, God forms the human being, adam in Hebrew, from adamah—dust of the ground, dirt, soil—and breathes into the earthling’s nostrils the breath of life. We belong to God and to the ground from which God has made us. We belong to creation and to the Creator, and we are to live in ways that honor our deep belongingness to both. With ashes on our foreheads, we humbly remember our humanity. When we forget our deep belongingness to God and to creation, the opposites of humble emerge: we become arrogant, haughty, imperious, pretentious.
According to the story in Genesis, God planted a garden in Eden, and put us in it to keep it. God said, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Our story doesn’t begin with ashes; it begins with a garden and the human vocation to work and keep this marvel of lush life. One tree God has declared off limits.
You know there’s another voice in the garden, the serpent, more crafty than any other wild animal that God had made. And the crafty serpent doesn’t say much, it only asks a question, “Did God say, you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” It’s not what God said, but like some crafty podcaster, the serpent is “just asking questions,” sowing seeds of suspicion: “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” God did not tell the whole truth, the voice insinuates, and the relationship between humans and God begins to unravel. We’re meant to be gardeners in Eden, but we wonder if perhaps the other voice has a point… and we eat. When questioned by God, the man blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent, and the serpent is silent. Guilt and fear, shame and blame have entered the scene, and jealousy and violence soon follow. We look around, and nothing, it seems, is the way it’s supposed to be.
There’s that arrogant little man with his dreams of empire who invaded a neighboring country, shelling its cities and killing its citizens, sending hundreds of thousands to die for the dream of greatness. He’s a violent little man, ruling over a house of greed and lies, in alliance with violent little men in Pyongyang and Teheran, and greatly admired by the pretentious little man with the red hat—yes, they are dangerous, but they’re just little men who can think of power only in terms of domination, because they have forgotten that life is a school of love.
The story of the earthling in the garden invites us to consider that the most consequential crack in our very fractured world is the rift in our relationship with God. And with that, we’re also invited to consider that the wholeness of life we all long for begins with the healing of that rift. Haughty little men with dreams of empire will continue to rise, their souls, their imaginations, and their actions utterly out of tune with the humility that goes with being human—they will continue to rise, and perhaps we can learn to recognize them sooner, before they convince so many of us that their violent pomposity is strength.
But the greater task for us is to remember our deep belongingness. We must know and strengthen what connects us. We must nurture what helps us work together. We must seek to live with the courage to love God with our whole and broken selves.
Our faith teaches us to say, “We have sinned. We have not trusted you. Guilt and fear have built their walls around us, and shame has locked the door. Forgive us. Set us free. Take us home.” We learn to say, “I have sinned.” We learn to trust God’s word, “You are forgiven.” And we begin again to live out our belonging to God, to each other, and to creation.
When Jesus was baptized, a voice came from heaven, “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” In the next scene, Jesus is led by the Spirit in the wilderness. Jesus is alone, and he is not. He is filled with the Spirit. And he knows who he is. The voice he heard by the river didn’t mumble. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Jesus enters the wilderness to fast and pray. Forty days of sleeping in caves during the heat of the day. Forty nights of praying under a blanket of stars—just he and his questions and the spirit-companion. Until the hunger pangs come upon him with ferocious need. That’s when he hears that other voice—a friendly voice, concerned, almost caring. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You are the Son of God, why are you sitting on your hands?” This is not the voice from the river. Who or what then is this?
“How about one small miracle for yourself?” the voice whispers. “Come on, help yourself to some bread. Nobody’s watching. It’s just you and me here. Touch that stone and turn it into bread, and eat.” But Jesus doesn’t. He is famished, weak, and vulnerable, but he won’t act in self-serving ways.
He has a vision. He sees all the kingdoms of the world, east and west, north and south, great and small, rich and poor, the ones with just rulers and the ones with self-serving kleptocrats in charge. And he hears that voice again. “I can give all this to anyone I please. Take it. Think of all the good you could do as ruler of the world: end hunger and war, or whatever it is you want. You’ll be in charge. Just show me a little respect.” But Jesus continues to be led by the Spirit.
Then he finds himself in Jerusalem, way up on top of the temple, and there’s that voice again. “You are the son of God, are you not? Show them. Show Jerusalem and the world who you are. Just throw yourself down. It is written, is it not, ‘God will command the angels concerning you to protect you… On their hands they will bear you up so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone…’ Go ahead, jump and let them see you glide down on angels’ wings.”
But Jesus says no. He won’t serve his own interests first. He won’t take advantage of any opportunity to rise to the top by any means. And we won’t manipulate people with publicity stunts. Instead, he chooses to love God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind. He chooses to honor his deep belongingness to God and to us.
The most consequential crack in our very fractured world is the rift in our relationship with God, and in Jesus’ life the rift has been healed. The final clash of God’s reign and the demonic dominion of the power whisperer happened on the cross. Again Jesus heard the voice suggesting that he use his power for himself. “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one,” some scoffed. Others said, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” And one kept deriding him, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”[2] He didn’t save himself. He trusted in the faithfulness of God. And raising him from the dead, God affirmed his friendship with sinners, his subversive eating habits, and all his teachings.
The story of Jesus is the story of humanity and God. It is a retelling of our story that begins in Eden, and its healing. Jesus heard the whispers of the other voice as we all do, but he didn’t allow it to sow its seeds of suspicion. He humbly lived out our deep belongingness to God, to each other, and to the earth. In the power of the Spirit, he followed the path of love and obedience, and he bore the full weight of sin: the betrayals, the lies, the torture, the arrogance of the empire builders—all of it. He bore it and trusted God to forgive, redeem, and heal—all of it. Jesus didn’t turn stones into bread, but in the end his entire life was bread—blessed, broken, and shared for the life of the world.
[1] Douglas Kindschi https://www.gvsu.edu/cms4/asset/843249C9-B1E5-BD47-A25EDBC68363B726/grandrapidspress_2017-sep_14_from_the_earth_-_humus_humanity_humility.pdf
[2] Luke 23:35, 37, 39