What is Your Name?

Last updated on: February 22, 2017 at 4:10 pm by John C Holbert

What is Your Name? 2017-02-22T16:10:03-05:00 John C Holbert

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(Lectionary for March 1, 2017–Ash Wednesday)

And so, here we go again. Another Ash W Ash_Wednesday ednesday where we smudge up our foreheads with some inky black, ashy watery mixture, stand solemnly and sing quietly with our fellow smudgees, file slowly into the night, home to wash our faces. For women this ancient action merely adds to the makeup they regularly use; the ablution afterwards is nothing different than usual for them. For men, the addition to their craggy faces is different, something rather uncomfortable, something not to be shown outside the church walls, something to be expunged before entering back into that manly society of clean visage and unspotted brow.

“Dust you are, and to dust you will return,” the leader intones, and we think however briefly of the passage of time and the inevitable ending we all face. All the more reason to get that mark off the face as soon as possible; not good to dwell on death! That way lies sadness, melancholy, possible depression. I need affirmation, happiness, joy from my faith, not confrontation, not too much human reality.

I have lead and participated in countless services for Ash Wednesday, surely at least 40 of them, and the more I do them the more I think they simply do not capture for me quite what this day, this inauguration of another Lent, is finally meant to do. I speak now very personally. I simply do not think that this day ought begin with introspection, with soul gazing, with solemnity only. Please do not misunderstand me; there is always a time and place for taking stock of the state of one’s life and one’s preparedness for death. The imposition of the ashes attempts to do that, and it generally accomplishes that for me.

But that cannot be all that Lent and Easter are about, an individual soul journey, leading to the assurance of my personal resurrection and eternal bliss with Jesus. As I have stated before in these columns of mine, I retain no actual belief in p Fast_Day ersonal resurrection, nor in the historical resurrection of Jesus. Both to me are narratives, great and life-giving narratives to be sure, but stories, not events in the world. The purpose and meaning of the next seven weeks are far more than personal or individual to me. I hold with Isaiah 58, the second lectionary choice for the Hebrew Bible passage for Ash Wednesday, and surely one of the Bible’s most significant and stupendous texts. I can hardly do it justice in one brief essay, but its riches cannot go unannounced at least in part.

“Cry out with the throat! Don’t hold back!

Speak to my people of their rebellion,

to the house of Jacob their sins!

Day after day they seek me (in worship),

supposedly hunger to know my ways,

just like a nation that does righteousness,

and did not abandon the justice of their God” (Is. 58:1-2)!

Note first the stark difference between the demanding sarcasm of Isaiah and the black smudge of the ashes on each individual forehead in our Ash Wednesday. The announcement of sin is all corporate here: we hear of “my people” and “the house of Jacob” and “a nation.” These Israelites, shouts Isaiah, worship up a storm, making a great show of desiring to know YHWH’s ways, acting just like a righteous nation (which they obviously are not), but rather have abandoned God’s call for justice.

He then turns to a sardonic portrayal of what these hypocritical imposters sound like: “Why do we fast, but you do not see; why humble our lives, but you take no notice?” YHWH, they whine, look at our fasting; look how we bow before you in deep contrition. Look at our profound piety! Observe the dark smudge on our foreheads!

But YHWH is not fooled by such antics. “On your fast day, you search for your own interest, at the same time oppressing all your workers. Look! You fast only to quarrel and fight, to attack with a wicked fist. Such fasting as this will not get your voice heard on high” (Is. 58:3-4)! To fast while evils are perpetrated in the land, injustice, oppression, fist fighting among yourselves, renders the fast useless, nothing more than refusing food in order to have more time for evil!

“Is this the sort of fast I want, a day of false personal humility? Is it a day to bend down your head like a bulrush, to lie in sackcloth and ashes? You dare call this a fast, a day acceptable to YHWH” (Is. 58:5)? These references to false personal humility, bending one’s head low, and lying is ashes, cuts close to the bone of our modern celebrations of Ash Wednesday. Is it just conceivable that such activities are precisely what God has no interest in at all? Well, what does God want from us on such a day?

“Is not this the fast I choose: Shatter the bonds of injustice; untie the thongs of the yoke; let the oppressed go free; shatter every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry, bring inside the homeless poor; when you see the naked, cover them; do not hide yourself from your own flesh” (Is. 58:6-7)? A genuine fast, says Isaiah, is not about denying food to yourself, but rather about sharing food with the hungry. A genuine fast is not about personal prayer and quiet, but rather seeking the homeless and offering them shelter. A genuine fast is not about wearing garments that suggest personal sorrow and contrition, but rather offering clothing to the naked. In short, fasting is not about me and my spirit; it is about others in need and my need to respond to them. Only that sort of fast will gain the attention of YHWH.

“Then you will call out, and YHWH will answer; you shall cry out for help, and YHWH will say, ‘Here I am’” (Is. 58:9). In fact, fasting like that will give to you a new name. No longer will you be called John or Sarah or Diana or Kyle. God will grant you a new name, a name of high honor, a name of which you may be very proud. You will now be named “Breach Repairer” or “Street Restorer” (Is. 58:12). In the ancient world, no more important task existed than the reparation of shattered or crumbling walls, barriers that protected village dwellers from marauding bands of desperate people or ravenous beasts bent on devouring whatever they could catch. Likewise, there was no more crucial job than the constant attention to the streets, paths, and highways that connected peoples near and far. To be named “Breach Repairer” or “Street Restorer” was to be known as a central figure in the ongoing lives of countless people next door and in neighboring villages.

Isaiah here speaks metaphorically, employing well-known and important jobs to make his point. A genuine fast is one that is in reality deeds of justice, acts of mercy, active engagement in works of undoing oppression and evil. Isaiah suggests that a genuine fast is as crucial to the community of Israel as the wall repairer and the street restorer. All of these jobs are critical, and all must be undertaken regularly if the community is to thrive and be whole.

So this Ash Wednesday I suggest that we all get our ash smudges, but that instead of bowing our head down like bulrushes and remaining locked in our own personal worlds of reflection on our mortalities, that instead we redouble our efforts to do what the prophets of Israel have bid us do for 2800 years, namely, “to do justice, love (and do) mercy, and to walk persistently (I find the translation “humble” not altogether accurate or helpful) with our God.” That is in the end the fast that God calls us to perform.

(Images from Wikimedia Commons)

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