Remember thou art Mortal
I was at Trinity Church today for their Noon Eucharist and imposition of Ashes. It was a bit of a surprise to me: by their (mostly unusable) website as well as by the blogs of their clergy, I sort of expected some liturgical innovations. There were very few, to be sure. Yes, the sermon was read from the altar – which was in the middle of the gathered community. But other than that, it was a standard-issue BCP Ashes service. I would go so far as to call it Broad Church BCP. This is fine by me – although a surprise as I indicated. Having come from St Gregory of Nyssa church, almost anything is “normal”!
Listening to the sermon today, in a standard sort of liberal broad church, about the idea of fasting while smiling or giving alms in secret, the preacher took us to a different place. Her sermon seemed rather open ended: I felt like I had got to a precipice and she was asking me to look over (and maybe leap).
She ended her sermon…
Because no matter what our laws say, or refuse to say about taking care of the marginalized, no matter how others who also worship God may approach the sacred texts we share in common, the sacred texts that we read one way to tell us this is important, the sacred texts that they read another way to say that other things are more important, no matter that our society, our community is not yet at that ideal place of institutionalized justice for all that we value so much in theory, no matter… if what Jesus was trying to say was be hospitable, rather than alienating when it comes not just to people you know and love, but everyone else around you, be hospitable rather than alienating… if what Jesus was trying to say was be humble, rather than arrogant, when it comes to the things God is not requesting, but requiring of you, be humble rather than arrogant… then perhaps this reading is incredibly relevant for us, today, here, right now.
And I spent a good part of the day wondering about that – not “how is it relevant” but rather “WTF am I going to do about it?”
And when I knelt before the rector, and he put the ashes on my head and said, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” I nearly cried: given my current emotional state – and the low blood sugar I was having – I’m kind of surprised I made it.
This is what comes to me on Ash Wednesday:
What do we mean when we say “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”?
It seems to me there are two different ways of emphasising our mortality, two radically different ways to understand the implications of our status as Sons of Adam (earth) and daughters of Havvah (life).
On the one hand it seems to say “this life is way short so focus on things eternal.”
This is the standard reading, I think, for Christians. This life is short, don’t focus on the the flesh for it passes away, but instead focus on the spirit for it is eternal. Don’t focus on this world – focus on the next.
There are two logical ends to that line of thought: monasticism or nihilism. If you accept the implications, everything becomes a monastic choice – marriage, celibacy, food, social life, line of work. Podvig. Struggle. Not struggle in the way that Genesis implies – all of life is struggle – but a specific kind of spiritual struggle to “overcome the world”. If you reject the implications of this way of thinking (but if, as St Ignatius implied) your twenty-plus years of brainwashing schooling have made it impossible to think in any other way, then in rejection you’re left with the root of nihilism: there is no spirit and this life is too short. Party on dude, there is no morality of any lasting import.
What if there is another way?
Is there a way to hear “Dust you are…” as a teaching that Life is important, we have something to do, and damn it, we’d better get busy!?
Can we hear it as if we – like some in Jesus’ day – maybe not “reject the Resurrection” but live as if it wasn’t important? Is it possible to live a Christian life agnostic about “the next world” and as if we must spend this life in Tikkun Olam, healing the world? Not in preparation for something else, mind you, but because this life is all there is and if I don’t make this world better by being here, I’m just a waste of space, air, time and energy.
Having done that – having ridden this life into the ground making things better – if there is something else, mightn’t I be better prepared for it?
As my mind wondered across this pattern, looking at it sideway and longways and on the Diagon Alley. I think that, if we take repair of the world to be important, it is our podvig, it is our spiritual journey. It becomes the only thing worth doing, in fact.
I’ve looked for a Jewish Drash or commentary on “dust you are” and I can’t find one (I’m open to suggestions). But as my Muslim Brother pointed out, this is the Muslim teaching – as well as the Muslim understanding of Jesus’s teaching. That we are in this world in order to do good – in preparation for the next.
I find it interesting that the Liberal/Broad Church understanding is in the same ball park as Islam and Judaism, while the conservative Christian understanding (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) is different.
Category: goats and sheep
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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I have never found the monastic tradition either in reading or actual encounter with monks and nuns as world denying in the way you set up the dichotomy in this post.
Rather I see it in the latter camp you place the Liberal Broad Church etc. Though it is my experience that in fact many liberal broad church folks simply want to focus on the making the world better which is fine but not so much on the other stuff except as nice liturgical decorations.
Of course the conservatives you speak of in my sense of things are hardly orthodox or catholic in the beliefs and are what could much more be called \\\”Gnostic\\\”. But I would contend that both Orthodox and Catholic teaching is not world denying, and is often misunderstood because it requires not instantaneous comprehension but a life of living into it an effort many (perhaps) most who claim to follow the way of Christ have no interest in. Well that is my melancholic response on this second day of Lent. Catch me at another moment I may have a more sanguine response.
I was perhaps unclear in my use of “monastic”. You are right, btw: regarding monastics in general. I agree.
But – for example – see those conservative Orthodox who see marriage as just “a different sort of monasticism”. Or those who insist that there is no option for adult Christians other than Marriage or Monasticism. These folks then read their mania backwards into the history of monasticism and see the same pseudo gnosticism in everything from Francis to Pachomious. It is easy – terribly easy – to drift two steps into gnosticism with most all Christian teaching.
On the other hand, there are many (Fr Schmemann, St Maria of Paris, etc) who do not fit this mould. Yet it is important to note that there are nearly *no* lay saints in any Christian Tradition other than Anglicanism ,and the number gets smaller as we come into the modern era. Some see this as evidence of the sinfulness of the world. I see, rather, a bias. Anyone living “in the world” – falling in love, having children, working at McDonalds, can’t be holy. I see this as a denial of the Incarnation.
I see “overcome the world” when rendered in a way to indicate without discrimination pretty much everything from the internet to the Simpsons to Jordache Jeans, to be be world denying and gnostic and, in that context, a good many (nearly but thank God, not *all*) of the Orthodox that I know fit it. And a good few more think they will fit it if they just try harder than they are now.
Well with your clarification of your use of “monastic” you have answered largely my objection.
I think your critique/observation of a failure to fully live into the incarnation and of “overcoming the world” seems to cut across all forms of Christianity I have had contact with whether Anglican, Lutheran Methodist (liberal or conservative) evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox. Of course one may object to this if one either interprets overcoming the world in terms only of working for political justice or some form of withdrawal (into an exclusive sect) from the world.
I am coming more and more to see that catholic and orthodox theology to be the best antidote to what you are speaking of. Of course so many Catholics and Orthodox hardly have any more sense of what is catholic and orthodox than most Protestants I know.
You are dead on.
I think that’s where I’m finding the overlap of which I spoke in the original post: the overlap between Jewish, Christian and (at least in their understanding of Jesus) Muslim thought. It is “incarnational” in meaning even if the words never say the same thing: if we understand “incarnational” as meaning making manifest the communion of the Trinity in all the world.
So many folks (in the US, at least) understand religion to mean “avoiding an eternity in hell”. Even after 20+ years of claiming (O)rthodox/(c)atholic and liberal doctrines I still find myself using that very childish understanding – as I picked up from my fundamentalist childhood. I find myself to project that on others too. Just last night, listening to a Rabbi on YouTube, I heard him explain a prayer that is used every morning in Judaism – one that I’d used several times without understanding.
And yet, having read that, I keep projecting “working to get out of hell” on Judaism because, according to my childhood faith, that’s what *all* religion is. And, so common is that sense, that when I talk to non-Christians about a Christianity that doesn’t include that “get out of hell” aspect, they think I’m making up something new rather than talking about something ancient.
If, on the other hand, proper religion is about restoring to humanity that level of communion that is ours by creation and divine intent – communion with the Holy One and with each other – then we have a common ground (dust) from which we arise and to which we return.
I could hardly have said it better myself. ;-)
Though, I can’t entirely understand this sense of religion as a means to “get out of hell.” Thankfully those who trained me in the faith never had that attitude, in my childhood in my faith community the above belief seemed (as far as I remember ) to be a minority opinion.