Lord Jesus
Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your
servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at
length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your
tender mercies’ sake. Amen.
I begin today’s sermon with that
prayer, which comes from our funeral service, because Ash Wednesday is a day in
which we are presented with our own mortality. Later in the service, you will
come forward, towards the cross, which is itself an instrument of death, to have
ashes put on your forehead. You will be reminded that “you are dust, and to
dust you shall return.” Death will come for us all, there is no avoiding that.
But how we face that reality will make all the difference.
Jesus says “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Death is the great equalizer. It comes for the faithful and the faithless, for the rich and the poor, for the young and the old. Death knows no boundaries. And so Jesus cautions us from fooling ourselves into thinking that earthly treasures are important. For in death, they will all be taken away from us. Therefore, don’t focus our living on the amassing of wealth, or property, or prestige, but instead, focus on living for the Kingdom.
As the Hebrew people are on the precipice
of entering the Holy Land, Moses says to them “I have set before you life and
death, blessings and curses. Choose life.” Ash Wednesday presents us with the
same option- will we choose life or death? Most of us have chosen to live with
death, not life, as the ultimate reality. In 1973, Ernest Becker wrote a book
that still speaks volumes to our modern society. In The Denial of Death, he outlines the way in which we are a
death-defying culture. First, he says that the world is a terrifying place,
with danger around every corner. Our most basic biological motivation for
action is to control these anxieties and find ways to deny this terror. So,
Becker says, we try to transcend death in a variety of ways- either by making
ourselves into a hero, or by trying to make a reputation for ourselves so that
our legacy will live on, even after our death. And it is the effects of this denial
of death that he says causes so many issues in the world. It becomes my evils
versus yours, my reputation versus yours. In the introduction to the book, the
argument is summed up as “the root of humanly caused evil is not man’s animal
nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to
gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our
desire for the best is the cause of the worst.”
We spend so much energy on avoiding
death, that we miss out on life. If we are to fully embrace life, we must also
fully embrace the fact that our lives will come to an end one day. And our
culture is built on the premise that we are to avoid death at all costs.
Hollywood is saturated with movies built on the concept of vampires and zombies
that avoid death, or are altogether “undead.” Even the funeral industry tries
to avoid the reality of death. The company that makes the stones for our
Memorial Garden is named “Everlasting Monuments,” which we all know is false
advertising. Given enough time, those stones will fade away. Or consider the
experience of going to a funeral home visitation. Often the dead body will be
laid out in their best outfit and pumped full of embalming fluid to make it
appear as if the person could come back to life at any moment. And when you go
to the cemetery to have the casket placed in the ground, you won’t find any
exposed dirt, instead they take artificial grass carpeting and cover over the
very real fact that the lifeless body will soon be covered by six feet of dirt.
Sometimes even in the Church we get
it wrong. How many times have you gone to a “memorial service?” Again, it’s a denial
of death. Look through a Prayer Book sometime though, you won’t find “memorial
service” or “celebration of life” anywhere in the table of contents. Instead,
you’ll find “Burial of the Dead.” And that title for the service is often
jarring to people, because it truthfully presents us with reality. With that
title, there is no denying why we have gathered.
And
you can, of course, see some of the costs of denying death in our medical
system, which has a rather unhealthy view around end-of-life issues. In 1990,
15% of survey respondents in the US said that doctors should do everything
possible for a patient, even in the case of incurable diseases and pain. Today,
that number has doubled to 31%. Even when faced with the certainty of death, we
fight death instead of embracing the life that remains. As a priest, I’ve seen
this story many times- family members who are unable to deal with past guilt
and fears, and so they deny and delay death’s coming, robbing the final moments
of life from truly being alive. When asked about the issue of our own deaths,
only 37% of Americans say that they have given “significant” thought to the
topic of end-of-life issues.
What ends up happening when we deny
death is that we are no longer able to live. We focus on the wrong things when
we worry about our legacy or reputation. We end up with flawed theologies that
over-prioritize life after death at the cost of life during life. We end up
with death as the ruler of life, instead of embracing the Christian claim that
life is the ruler of death. When we seek to live on forever, we live with an
eye towards our end, not the gift of the present, of the gift of life. One of
my favorite quotes about death comes from Edna St. Vincent Mallay, who said “I shall
die, but that is all I shall do for death.” What boldness!
And that is what Jesus is inviting
us into today. Don’t worry about riches or treasures which are only ways to
assuage our fear of death. Don’t focus on trying to create something that will
somehow make you immune from the effects of death. Instead, embrace life. In
the hymn What Wondrous Love Is This? the
final verse proclaims “And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on. And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be, and through eternity I’ll sing on.”
Our invitation is to join in that song today. We are free from death not after
it has happened to us, but during life. What’s the point of being free from
death when we have no life left? If God simply wanted us to rejoice in Heaven,
there would be no earth, no life. But rather, life is the most holy gift we
have received. And God gives us the opportunity to be free from death so that
we can be fully alive.
CS Lewis wrote that “humanity must
embrace death freely, submit to it with total humanity, drink it to the dregs,
and so covert it into that mystical death which is the secret of life.” The
season of Lent, which begins today, is a journey towards Easter, which is, of
course, the great Feast of the Church in which we celebrate that Jesus, who
died, has transcended death and taken away its sting and finality. But Jesus
did not take away its reality. Death is still very real and still makes a
strong argument that it has the final say. Death still causes pain and is
accompanied by the fear of the unknown. It has been said that “death is a
horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” Seeing past a horizon
though, can be a challenge; there is nothing wrong with experiencing that pain.
But what we do with that pain is of interest to those of us who follow Jesus.
As we
journey through Lent, I will leave you with two suggestions for how we might
avoid denying death and instead affirm life. The first is to have those discussions
with your loved one about end-of-life issues. The experience will be
life-giving and when the time comes, will make the dying process not about
death, but life. Talk about your hopes and fears about your death. Create a Living
Will. If you have aging parents or relatives, invite them into that
conversation. At the end of life, have the death part already taken care of, so
that more time and energy can go into figuring out how to live, instead of how
to die.
And the
second suggestion is take Jesus’ advice to focus on where we put our hearts, on
what we are living for. CS Lewis once wrote “die before you die. There is no
chance after.” And I think by this he meant, live a life worth dying. Love
recklessly, live hopefully, serve joyfully, worship fully, give
compassionately. We can do none of those things to our fullest ability if we’re
watching for Death’s lurking in the shadows. Now I’m not saying to be unsafe,
but live life to the fullest.
Many people talk about giving things
up for Lent. And, at least for this year, I’m going to do the opposite. You’ll
have plenty of time to give up chocolate when you’re dead. I’m not suggesting
that you should eat enough of it as to hasten death, but don’t deny life while
you’re in the midst of living it. Instead of giving up for Lent, how about we
more fully embrace life? Focus more on doing ministry, on praying, on serving
others, on having a good time with family and friends, on doing things that you
enjoy, on loving, on doing the work of the Kingdom, so that it might come on
earth as it is in heaven.
Today’s Psalm says “[God] redeems
your life from the grave and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness.” Though
today that crown might look like ashes, those ashes of death are truly the
crown of life. Wear them boldly.
