February 17, Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21)
The distinctions between how we love God, neighbor, and self are not terribly thick.
On Wednesday, February 26, 2020, people around the world gathered in churches and received a smear of ashes on their foreheads. Others going about their lives encountered a clergyperson, perhaps wearing a stole over a thick winter coat and cupping a small bowl in one hand, and decided on a whim to receive ashes to go.
Barely two weeks later, COVID lockdowns swept over the United States, making that smear of ashes one of the last liturgical actions many of us experienced person to person, skin to skin, before our long period of social distancing, mask wearing, and worrying over case positivity rates. It’s fitting, perhaps, that a reminder of our mortality would be the setup for what has been an unflinching season highlighting our own vulnerability.
Our reading from Matthew is a strange passage to read on Ash Wednesday. It feels so didactic, such a contrast to the wordless wonder of sitting in a darkened sanctuary with our humanness on messy and embarrassing display—our mortality literally scrawled across our faces. These instructions from Jesus seem more suited to a Sunday school classroom than a service designed to invite us to contemplate the mysteries of life and the inevitability of our own deaths. What do the picayune forms of our devotion matter when staring into the existential abyss?
