Wednesday, February 06, 2008
From AscensionNYC
Ash Wednesday
by Charles Hill
Psalm 51:1-17
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
All of the texts under discussion illustrate the need for this journey and a hoped-for result, or a move from false piety to true piety. The prophet Isaiah puts this in the context of fasting. Is it an ostentatious display or a means of helping the destitute? The psalmist cries out for purging and forgiveness. It is hard to believe that several hundred years have passed between these texts and the New Testament ones because the themes and even the terminology are very similar.
Life is so simple in the Bible: there are the hypocrites and the true believers. But for the twenty-first century New Yorker it's not so easy. Why do we rush to church before going to work to receive the ashes that we can ostentatiously display all day rather than staying home a few more minutes to plan ways we can utilize our spirituality for the betterment of others? Are we not like the hypocrites of all ages who display their piety in public? Only God knows.
Comments:
Thank you, Charles, for you moving meditation. I commented last year on Ash Wednesday that I always want to rub off the ashes before leaving the church, but that leaving them on opens up some interesting conversations. So this year, I left them on, and the results were a bit astonishing. My academic colleagues reacted with incredulity to my assertion of faith. Somehow it seems that religion and academia are no longer compatible, that a thinking woman cannot also be a faithful one. It was more difficult than coming out as a lesbian. Among my students, though, it was like opening a flood-gate. I fielded numerous questions about my faith and its compatibility with my career and my sexuality, and had a really interesting in-class discussion with two Jewish and one Christian student about the difficulties they experience as believers in this city and this university. Somehow it gave me a new insight. Perhaps the point of visible displays of faith, like this, is not to display our piety, but rather our willingness to talk. Being open to conversation is much less invasive than evangelizing, and perhaps in the long run, more effective.
choirgirl : February 06, 2008 Post a Comment
