Ashes, Practice, Belief

Ash Wednesday--

Growing up, I was largely unaware of the holiday at all, Lent--or any other Liturgical Year event--not being a typical Southern Baptist observance. My small-town Oklahoma experiences (largely bereft of Catholics) didn't prepare me for our mid-1980s move to south Louisiana, where it seemed that Catholics and Baptists waged an eternal cold war for Cajun souls. I had to learn to create a new mental box for Catholics, an addition to my childhood taxonomy of "Christians" (i.e., Baptists), "sort-of-Christians" (i.e., Methodists and other Protestants), and "Non-Christians" (e.g., Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus).

At the time, Catholics seemed to fall somewhere between "sort-of-Christian" and "Hindu." There was so much that was so different. Their crosses had Jesus still crucified on them. They called their pastors "Father" instead of "Brother." They apparently thought that Mary should be worshiped (not accurate, I know, but such was Baptist propaganda). And one day out of the year, everyone showed up to school with dirty foreheads.

I don't recall thinking too deeply about what the cross-shaped smudges meant. I just lumped the practice into my ever-growing category of "weird [i.e., non-Baptist] things Catholics do."

As I grew older, of course, my concept boxes changed. I asked my father once if he had a Catholic Bible because I wanted to see how their Bible recorded the story of Mary differently. Daddy of course informed me that the Gospel accounts were the same for both Catholics and Baptists. Interpretation and tradition, not the text itself, proved to be the distinguishing factor.

Moving into the Methodist Church (which my family did during my high school years) meant incorporating some more high-church, "Catholic-y" traditions and interpretations into my spiritual life, a practice I initially resisted. I have to admit, though, that the performer in me was thrilled to be able to join the club of smudgy foreheads. It took me a few years, however, to think through exactly what Ash Wednesday means, to realize that it was more than just a piece of liturgical theatre.

The little service I went to at noon today nicely encapsulated what I've absorbed. There about thirty of us gathered in our small chapel. We prayed, sang, and heard a short homily. Then came the ashes, to remind us of our mortality. Then another prayer. Then a silent exit from the chapel, with bowls of water to remind us of our Baptisms (the dialectical complement to mortality). Simple enough.

But in that brief service I realized a deep distinction from the faith of my Baptist childhood. For Baptists, the focus of Christian faith lies primarily in belief--faith in Christ and acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior. Baptists understand this core belief as manifesting in or prompting certain practices: walking down the aisle to get saved, giving a testimony, getting Baptized, taking the Lord's Supper. But these practices remain secondary effects, radiations of the belief in God's saving grace. It's belief, not practice, that saves.

My pastor in today's service titled his mini-sermon "Practice, Practice, Practice," inviting us to take advantage of Lent as a time to be aware of the practices that define us as Christians. The call to a discipline of awareness echoes a similar call made during Advent. I like to think of Advent and Lent as parallels, two sides of the same coin; both are times of preparation for the coming of God-With-Us. The Liturgical Year in general imposes on believers a call to remember, to keep in mind, to practice awareness of faith. In this understanding, belief accompanies practice, grows from it, rather than causing it. To believe is to do is to believe.

I'm reminded, for example, of the story (I've heard various versions from various sources) of a priest who was asked by a man how he could become a Christian. "I don't believe in God," the man told the priest. "I've tried and tried, but the faith won't come." The priest instructed him to rise at each dawn, kneel, and pray. "But I don't believe," said the man. "Pray every day as I've said," advised the priest, "and you will."

To my childhood Baptist self, and I think for many evangelicals, such advice runs counter to their understanding of how Christianity works. You pray out of belief, not to create belief. I remember hearing sermons warning of such fallacious thinking, sermons that pointed to passages like Matthew 7:21 ("Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven."). Prayer doesn't save; belief does.

But, as I've written before, belief--the feeling of conviction in certain truths--often proves uncertain. Belief wavers. Confidence gets shaken. Sometimes my faith (as feeling) seems so small that even a mustard seed could dwarf it. Does this mean that my Christianity--my status as God's adopted--wavers with my emotional or cognitive state? For many, many years I thought just that. Doubt became an enemy not just of faith but of salvation. Questioning my faith opened the door to hell.

That I now think differently stems from a number of sources and teachers, but I think my adoption of the Liturgical Year, with its Advents and Lents, has played an important role.

Certainly I'm cognizant of the dangers of empty practice, words and motions that really are nothing deeper than a display of piety. As the readings in today's service reminded us, Christ speaks harshly against such showiness.

Yet I have found a great deal of comfort, a ring of deep truth, in the practice of the Liturgical Year, in the idea of faith as a discipline of awareness and action that persists regardless of my emotional state. Like the service today, the discipline of faith warns me that mortality and loss happen no matter my feelings toward them. But that same faith reassures me that God works for my redemption and reconciliation, that the Spirit intercedes with deep cries, that Christ arrives and is with me always--even when I don't feel it.

Happy Ash Wednesday, all. Remember to remember.

More later,

JF