One of the things I’ve spoken about in the past is my fondness for going into schools to lead assemblies and worship for children. One of the things I like best about doing that is listening to the things that children say and trying to answer the questions they ask. Sometimes those questions are completely unexpected, often because they don’t seem to have anything to do with what I’ve been talking about. Such as was the case, not too long ago, when a very young child asked, “Fr Stephen, why do you look like God?” and after I’d said something about us all being made in the image and likeness of God, he then asked, “So are you and God twins?” Sometimes, their questions are unexpected because they go off at tangents to the subject I’ve been talking about, such as the time when I was talking about king Herod’s plot to kill the baby Jesus, and I was asked “Fr Stephen, how old was Hitler?”
Sometimes the questions children ask display a level of understanding that’s quite surprising, but at other times they display the innocence and naivety you might expect from young children. But, on the basis that the only silly question is the one that isn’t asked and that we never learn anything if we don’t ask, I always answer children’s questions, however bizarre they might seem to be. I always try to do that too because I remember that, as a young child, I was always asking questions and I asked them because I wanted to know that answers. And I do remember once asking my mum a very innocent, childlike question about today, Ash Wednesday. The question was this. “Mum, if we eat pancakes on pancake Tuesday, why don’t we have potato hash on Ash Wednesday?” I honestly can’t remember the exact answer I got except that it was something about the kind of ash that’s meant on Ash Wednesday not being the kind of hash that we eat so I did learn something, but it wasn’t until a long time afterwards that I realised what the ash in Ash Wednesday is really about.
As I’m sure we all know, Ash Wednesday gets it’s name from the biblical practice of people wearing sackcloth and either sitting in ashes or putting ashes on their heads as a sign of sorrow and mourning, and perhaps especially as a sign of repentance for sin. So, we read in the Book of Daniel that, when he prays for forgiveness for the sinfulness of Jerusalem, Daniel says,
“…I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.”
Or again, we read in the Book of Jonah that, when Jonah finally goes to the city of Nineveh and calls them to turn from their evil ways, the people of Nineveh,
‘…believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.’
And we find it too in the teaching of Jesus when he speaks about the lack of repentance he finds amongst the people in the towns and cities where he’d performed miracles:
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
So the ash referred to in Ash Wednesday is this kind of ash, the ash that represents our sorrow for the sins we’ve committed and a sign of our repentance of those sins. These days of course, we don’t wear sackcloth and we don’t sit in ashes to show these things, but we do we begin the season of Lent, the most penitential season of the Church’s year, the season when we’re called to think about our sins and make a real, determined effort to repent of them, to turn from them permanently, by being marked on our foreheads with the sign of the Cross, in ash, on Ash Wednesday. But, unless we’re going to make Ash Wednesday the start of that real, determined effort to repent and turn permanently from our sins, then rather than having our foreheads marked with the sign of the Cross in ash today, we might just as well make Ash Wednesday a day for eating potato hash.
The usual way for people in the Church to keep Lent is, as you know, by taking on some kind of Lenten discipline, either giving something up for Lent, or taking something on for Lent. That’s fine. But we always have to remember what the purpose of a Lenten discipline is. A Lenten discipline is supposed to help us to become better Christians, and not just better Christians for the 40 days of Lent, but better Christians always from the time we take on that discipline.
So, if we give something up for Lent, ideally, we should give up something that’s holding us back from being better Christians. And if we do give up something for Lent that’s holding us back in our Christian discipleship, we should make Lent the time when we resolve give it up for good. But isn’t it true that when we do give things up for Lent, we do just that; give them up for Lent and then take them up again at Easter? It’s also true that when people give something up for Lent, many of them don’t even really do that because many people, encouraged by the clergy it must be said, say that as Sunday’s are a feast day, they’re days when we don’t have to keep our Lenten discipline. So they have a day off on Sundays. But the 40 days of Lent are intended to mirror our Lord’s 40 days and nights in the wilderness, and we don’t read that he went back home or into town for a day off on the Sabbath, so why should his disciples, which is what we are, think is OK for us to have one day a week off during Lent? And isn’t it also true that what we give up very often has nothing to do with becoming better Christians but is to do with our physical health and earthly wealth? How many people do you know who have or do give up things like beer, chocolate, cigarettes, crisps and chips for Lent? If that’s all our Lenten discipline is about then we might just as well give up marking the start of Lent by putting ash on our foreheads and take up eating potato hash on Ash Wednesday instead.
And if we take something on for Lent, again, it should be something that’s going to help us to become better Christians, and we should do it with the purpose of making it a permanent addition to our lives, not just something we do for a few weeks before Easter. But how many people use Lent take up things that are of personal rather than spiritual interest or benefit? How many people do you know who’ve taken up daily exercise as a Lenten discipline? There’s nothing wrong with improving our health but a Lenten discipline should be about our spiritual health, not just our physical health. How many people have you known who’ve used Lent as a time to take up a new hobby or pastime? There’s nothing wrong with taking up hobbies either, in fact, it’s a very beneficial thing to do. But again, a Lenten discipline shouldn’t be about making time to do something we want to do or something we simply like doing, it should be about benefitting us in a spiritual sense and very often that means taking on something we find hard to do, perhaps even something that, at times, we don’t really want to do. The clue is in the name, it’s a Lenten discipline, not a Lenten hobby. And a Lenten discipline should be something we take on with the aim of carrying it on beyond Easter.
Over the years I’ve had a number of people ask me to suggest some Bible reading they could do during Lent. When I’ve been asked to do that, I’ve always suggested something because it’s never a bad thing to read the Scriptures, but I’ve also suggested that rather than just reading the Bible during Lent and then not looking at it again until next Lent, a far better thing to do would be to use this Lent to make a start on reading the Bible every day throughout the year. Again if we’re going to take things on that don’t benefit us as Christians, things that don’t help us to be better disciples of Christ each and every day of our lives, we might as well take up eating potato hash for Lent.
I don’t know what you’ve all decided to do as your Lenten discipline this year, but I hope you have decided to do something. Having said that, although the season of Lent has begun again today, it’s not too late to think about your Lenten discipline again. To think about whether what you’re going to do really will help you to become a better Christian, not just for the next six and a half weeks, but each and every day throughout this and every year. To think about whether your Lenten discipline is about potato hash, or the ashes of sorrow for sin and the repentance that leads to eternal life.
Amen.
The Propers for Ash Wednesday can be found here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 