Opinions Made of Dust
Preacher: The Rev. Andrew Van Kirk
Passage: Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
I assume that when I’m done talking, and I invite you to the observance of a Holy Lent, and you come forward and receive the imposition of ashes, I assume that you’re going to leave those ashes on your forehead for the duration of the service.
My assumption, in fact, is that I’ll greet you on the way out with a smudge mortality upon thy brow. But then what will happen then? How long will it stay there? Will it make it to lunch/dinner? To your next meeting?
I never really faced this question until I got to college. Ash Wednesday is always a school day, and I went to Catholic school, and everyone — even the protestants — got ashes. So we’d sit through Latin and Algebra classes in the afternoon and every single one of us bore an aggressively drawn cross made by a monk who had wrapped twelve months of frustration with the antics, misbehavior, and sins of the teenage boys in their charge into one firm gesture of piety — but at least we all had one.
There was exactly one kid in my class who didn’t get marked; he was Muslim. But, Market Street right now only has a handful of people in it so marked. If you go, you’ll look funny. You’ll stick out. Shouldn’t you just wipe it off?
Jesus, you got to let me know
Should it stay or should it go?
If you say that it should stay
It’ll last 'till the end of day
So you got to let me know
Should it stay or should it go?
This big black cross makes others scoff
If you don't want it, wipe it off
But if you don’t want to be strange
Has your heart let God make any change?
Come on and let me know
Should it stay or should it go?
And our gospel reading forces this question, for after all, Jesus says, “Do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.”
I’ve always thought this was a strange Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday. Jesus literally says, do not do anything to your face that makes it obvious you’re doing something holy. And then, right after that, I invite you to come forward and do something to your face to make it obvious you’re doing something holy!
And yet I’d guess most of us aren’t worried about looking excessively holy. We’re more worried about looking excessively weird.
Unlike the Galilee and Judea of Jesus’ day, where there was social capital to be earned by the public display of one’s religious practice, we don’t live in a broader culture where practicing one’s piety before others is necessarily desirable. Our broader culture is much more secular.
In North Texas, the cultural ideal is probably to be passively religious. Let the wooden sign we picked up at Hobby Lobby with the fragment of a Bible verse in script do most of the heavy lifting as far as evangelism, right? We want people to think us good but not weird.
All this of course is dependent on your surrounding culture. In Europe, or even parts of our country, where things are much more secular, it takes much less to stand out as a weird Christian. Even a dim bulb shines brightly in a dark room.
We simply cannot agree with Jesus that blowing a trumpet as you give to the church will make others praise you. We don’t do that anymore. If you want that sort of praise, you donate to put your name on a college football stadium.
Sometimes is more desirable to be seen as secular rather than religious. That’s why, perhaps, that cross one your forehead will meet the baby wipe in your car.
But practicing one’s secularity before others is just as problematic as practicing one’s piety. Being seen by others is its own reward. But so is being not seen.
It’s really quite the trap, you see. I remember when we built the building expansion and made available naming opportunities for the rooms and the patio, people would come to me and say, “I want to give in secret so that people don’t think I wanted their praise.”
And I say, “Thank you. But also, as soon as you’re making your choice based on what other people think, you’re already neck deep in the problem.” Being inconspicuous in the eyes of others is not the same as being unconcerned about the eyes of others.
As long as our concerns about what other people think are shaping our religious practice, we’re hosed.
Other people’s impressions of us are the most precious sort of treasure on earth, regardless of whether we store them up by showing off or by keeping our head down. I don’t know if you noticed, but our reading ends with this famous saying of Jesus: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth” — but in context, the earthly treasure he’s just been talking about is the treasure of other’s opinions, not actual silver and gold.
This cross of ash is a reminder not of our piety, but of the end of all that is earthly. Take the smudge across your forehead not just as a reminder of your death, but of the death of every single opinion, impression, and judgment about you. There is no one who will look at you today and think anything about you, good or bad, who will not go the way of that ash. Let your worry about them die.
Many of you probably know that Facebook has this helpful feature for dying. You can set up a legacy contact so that if you die – when you die – someone else can take control of your Facebook account. And I get why that is helpful and useful, in some cases even necessary. But also, it fills me with despair.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and social media generally — this is the world’s most ruthlessly efficient system for collecting the earthy treasure of others opinions about us — likes, dislikes, anger faces, hearts, tears. As the administrator of the church’s page, I can see our storehouse of earthly treasure distilled down into a single page: likes, interactions, follows, etc. It’s like a bank statement for our savings account of others’ opinions. Facebook doesn’t let individuals see the data this way, because it would be bad for our mental health, but they have it.
And now, in our phenomenal hubris, we’ve engineered a system for making those opinions live beyond the life of the person herself.
We’re doing our best to make the treasure immortal, while the people themselves return to the dust. I don’t want to live on in the form of likes and hearts and tears and angry faces. This used to be the greatest curse of the famous: they have to live on in the judgment of the living. Now we’ve cursed us all.
I don’t want to live forever in the judgment of human beings; I only want to live forever in the judgment of God, exercised though the mercy of Jesus Christ. Let the Father who is in secret have mercy on my eternal soul. Let the rest of it return to dust and ash.
As for the physical ash on your forehead today, do what you want. Just do it knowing that whatever opinion you’re worried about others holding of you, that opinion will die. The world has its praises and its accolades. Make our choices on what to do, or not to do, for the sake of winning them is to set our heart set on things that will die.
I’m going to smudge the final state of the world’s opinions about you on your forehead today: ashes; dust. Those opinions will die as surely as you will; they are not a reward worth your life.
Remember, you – and those opinions – are dust, and to dust you shall return. But unlike those opinions, you won’t stay that way.
Amen.
