Lectionary Readings
O Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy death didst take away the sting of death: Grant unto us thy servants so to follow in faith where thou hast led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in thee, and awake up after thy likeness; for thy tender mercies’ sake. Amen.
It’s been said that Ash Wednesday is the day Christians attend their own funeral. Indeed, Ash Wednesday is perhaps the most honest day in the Church year: “Remember that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.” As if we needed a reminder this year. Last year on Ash Wednesday, we gathered in the church unaware of what awaited us. We’re closing in on half a million deaths in our country due to this pandemic; and lest we not be able to process such a large number, when we are able to regather in this space, there will be people missing because they have returned to the dust. But this is nothing new. Death was not introduced with the Coronavirus, it just became something that confronted us more directly. And what better place to consider our mortality than in the shadow of the Cross?
At the end of each year, Google puts out an interesting report on search data over the past year. Given the news, searches for “Kobe Bryant” spiked in January 2020, “Coronavirus” in February, “Zoom” was trending in March, “masks” in April, “stimulus check” in May, “George Floyd” in June, and “vaccine” in November. There was one search trend though that was high from January through December: “death.” Before any of us were worrying about an epidemic, let alone a pandemic, we were thinking about death. That’s the interesting thing about Google search results – they are a window into what people are really thinking about when they think no one is looking. To be clear, this isn’t about an invasion of privacy, it’s about societal trends. And this data just confirms what theologians and psychologists have always known to be true – we live in the valley of the shadow of death.
It was the theologian Paul Tillich who says that finitude in awareness is anxiety. Indeed, we are finite beings and death threatens this existence. When we take an honest look at this reality, the result is anxiety. Avoiding this anxiety is not the endeavor of our faith, rather the question, for us, is what we do with that anxiety. Some focus on denying the reality of death by pretending they are not anxious about it. Some focus on “living my life to the fullest,” but denying or diminishing the fact that all our lives will come to an end is not healthy. Instead, remembering that we are dust and to dust shall we return is not morbid, rather is the way to truly embrace the gift of life. We see this in the great hymn of praise that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi – “All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voices let us sing… And even you, most gentled death, waiting to hush our final breath, O praise him.” The only way that we can call death “gentle” is when we’ve honestly looked death in the face and trust that “Christ that way hath trod.”
What such a posture does is allow us to practice what was called Ars moriendi, “the art of dying,” in the late Middle Ages. Interestingly, Ars moriendi became popular as societies emerged from social turmoils such as demographic changes, political instability, and religious upheavals, and from a pandemic known as the Black Plague. Given our turmoil and pandemic over the last year, perhaps a focus on this sacred art would do us well. A British Bishop of the 1600s, Jeremy Taylor, wrote a book called Holy Dying in this school of Ars moriendi in which he says, “It is very remarkable, that God who giveth plenteously to all creatures hath scattered the firmament with stars yet in the distribution of our time, seems to be straight-handed, and give it to us, not as nature gives rivers, enough to drown us, but drop by drop, minute after minute, so that we never have two moments together, but he takes away one when he gives us another. This should teach us to value our time, since God so values it.”
When we embrace “remember that thou art dust and unto dust shalt thou return” not as bad news but as Good News, then we are ready to receive the gift that we are given in life. As Taylor notes, because each moment comes at us anew, we seek to receive the gift of each moment. CS Lewis, another British author from our tradition, remarked that the present is when time touches eternity. Part of the art of dying is to cherish each moment, for we know not how many we shall have. And this is a point that St. Francis de Sales makes in a meditation on death that he wrote. His words may be hard for us to consider since our society has trained us not to think this way, but they are the words of faith: “Consider the uncertainty of the day of your death. One day, my soul, you must depart from this body. When will it be? In winter or summer? In town or country? At home or afar? During the day or the night? With or without warning? As a result of illness, of accident? With loved ones nearby or alone? Shall I be assisted by a priest? Will I be prepared? Unhappily, I know the answer to none of these things. Only one thing is certain - that I shall die, and sooner than I imagine.”
The thing about death that is perhaps most troubling is our lack of control in it. We do not get to decide when there will be tragedies and diagnoses; whether we respond to treatment is not a decision we get to make. Thus, the art of dying is heeding the wisdom that we heard in verses 13 and 14 of Psalm 103: “As a father cares for his children; so does the LORD care for those who fear him. For God himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust.” Later in that reflection by St. Francis de Sales, he writes “Pray to God and cast yourself into his arms.” This is the Christian approach to death and how we approach the art of dying – we cast our anxieties on God our Father. As Tillich noted, “finitude in awareness is anxiety.” Well, God is the opposite of finitude as God is infinite. Whereas we are limited to existing in one place and at one moment, God is present at all times and in all places. Yes, we shall all die, but it is just as true that God will never die, and therein lies our hope.
The truth that we are dust and to the dust we shall return is a liberating and glorious truth. In Genesis where a version of that line is recorded, it is presented as the relief from a life of toil and labor. In the Hebrew of Genesis, humanity, adam, as it is named, is fashioned out of the adamah, the ground. We tend to think of Adam as an individual person, but this limits the point that Genesis is trying to make – rather humans come from the humus, earthlings from the earth, dust from the dust. Whatever we want to call it, earth, dirt, ashes – it is what God creates us from. God does amazing things with the dust, creating all that is. In the genre of wisdom literature in the Bible is Ecclesiastes, which says “All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.” This is not punishment, not anxiety, but wisdom.
The wisdom here that helps us in the art not only of dying, but living is that all things are as God created them. The problem of anxiety comes when we think of ourselves as more than dust. Becoming dust isn’t a change at all – we are dust and we are going to the dust. This the humble and honest truth. The anxieties around death stem from the fact that we put ourselves at the center of meaning instead of God. We see death as the end of our power, our projects, our control, our knowing, our experience. And that is true, those things will end, at least in the way that we now know them. But God endures. We have never been anything more than dust, and how wonderful it is to be given the gift of being dust animated by the life-giving Spirit of God! Trouble happens when we think of ourselves as better than dust, as more than creatures of God’s own making. St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things are passing away: God never changes. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.” This is the art of dying, to know that God alone and always suffices.
Turning again to Jeremy Taylor, he counsels that “He that would die well must always look for death, every day knocking at the gates of the grave; and then the gates of the grave shall never prevail against him to do him mischief.” It reminds me of the quote that I often share at funerals from an American poet: “I will die; but that is all I will do for death.” We might say that the art of dying is to stare down death knowing that because we have been Baptized into the Death of Jesus, we shall rise with him in Resurrection life, and thus fear death no more. It is not an ignoring of death, but rather a bold invitation for death to do its worst. And, to be sure, death will do its worst to each of us, but God will also do his best to each up of us, to raise us up on the last day.
This Ash Wednesday, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, is certainly a different one. Notably, I won’t be putting ashes on any of you. Instead, if you came by church to pick up ashes, you’ll be putting them on yourself, or your spouse, your children, your parents. And even if you didn’t have the chance to get ashes, grab some dirt and make a cross on your forehead, or when the time comes in this liturgy, even if you don’t put anything on your forehead, still say “Remember that thou art dust, and unto dust shall thou return.” I’m sure saying those words to yourself and your loved ones, and to hear those words spoken by your loved ones to you will impact you perhaps in an even more poignant way. Don’t run from the emotions it will stir, but stay with them as a way of practicing the art of holy dying.
We are dust. It’s the truth. Each of us is lovingly made by our Creator out of the earth. And though death may end our living, death does not have power over love. If the first law of thermodynamics is that matter can be changed, but never destroyed, then the first law of holy dying is that which is loved by God can never be destroyed. This is the art of both holy living and holy dying, to put our hope and trust in the loving mercy of God.
