Telling the Truth
The structure of this Ash Wednesday service is unique, but at
a typical celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday morning right after the
opening dialogue of greeting between the celebrant and people we pray a prayer
called the collect for purity.
Almighty God to you
all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by
the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and
worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord.
We call it the collect for purity because the intercession, the
primary prayer, the action we seek from God is cleansing. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts. Purify us as we prepare to come before
you in worship.
But I often get hung up a bit on the first part of the
prayer, the introductory part. Almighty
God to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.
There’s a lot there!
I suspect that if we really focus on this prayer we hope that God will
purify us without anyone really having to look too closely or specifically at
our hearts, desires or secrets. Or
we certainly hope that God will cleanse us without disclosing our secrets. Most of the time, we prefer our hearts
closed, our deep desires unknown to the broader world and we definitely like
our secrets to remain hidden.
Our sincere prayer might be something more like: Almighty God, cleanse us if you can,
but please hide our insecurities, our mistakes, our shortcomings. Hide anything about us that seems to
make us “less,” in our own eyes or the eyes of the world. Keep the secrets of our sins
hidden.
In a recent reflection on Ash Wednesday in the Christian Century, Nurya Love Parish
talks about the first Ash Wednesday service she ever attended. She was in her twenties and describes
herself at that time as a “spiritual tourist.” She had grown up without any religious practice, but had
become captivated by spiritual exploration.
That exploration took her to a church in Boston on Ash
Wednesday for a service using the traditional Christian liturgy for Ash
Wednesday.
I’ll never forget
sitting in that old box pew, watching as people went up for the imposition of
ashes. I realized something: this was a place where people told the truth. The liturgy made them do it. They told the truth about
themselves—that they were mortal, that they were sinners, that they were
scared.
I had been a lot of
places in my first twentysome years of life. I had never been anywhere quite as truthful as that Ash Wednesday
liturgy.
The Ash Wednesday liturgy makes people tell the truth. No secrets are hid.
We are mortal.
We are sinners. And often we
are scared.
Paradoxically, I think a big part of the appeal of this
service, this Ash Wednesday liturgy is the power of its truth-telling. The truth is laid bare.
Today, in these words, there is no wiggle room, no
conditional mistakes or excuses.
You are dust.
Remember that you are dust.
And to dust you shall return.
We are sinners.
A little later in this service we will say the litany of penitence. This is the only service in which we
say this litany. (We’re permitted
to use it at other times, but choose not to.) Listen to the words.
Listen to the litany of sins that we own. These are our words.
Our truth.
Also in this liturgy, right after the imposition of ashes,
we will say together Psalm 51. I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever
before me. We proclaim the
truth.
We are mortal.
We are profound sinners.
Those are important truths that are spoken in this liturgy. Yet our mortality and sinfulness are
not the most important truth we say today. We proclaim our dependence upon God. Our dependence
upon God.
Without God, we
are nothing more than dust. Without God, we are nothing but
miserable sinners.
But with God…
With God, we are
more. By God’s grace, we are given
new and contrite hearts, fullness of life and wholeness of soul, renewal and
reconciliation that overcome death and estrangement.
Almighty God, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, you desire not the death of sinner, but rather that
we may turn from our wickedness and live…
The Ash Wednesday liturgy proclaims that truth as well.
