Pastor’s Notes
Gary N. McCluskey, Pastor
Ash Wednesday fast approaches (February 21). We begin the season of Lent with dirty foreheads reminiscent of our sin and mortality. I want to ask you a question: What do you do with the ashen cross on your forehead? Do you quickly go home to wash it off before venturing out in public? Do you instead leave it there for all to see?
Former Senator John Danforth is also an Episcopalian priest. In his recent book, “Faith and Politics,” he describes his struggle with that very issue. Does washing if off (as he generally did) shortly after worship signify an embarrassment of one’s Christian faith? Does leaving it on make one like the hypocrite who prays loudly before others in public so they might be impressed?
Though this is not a particular thorny or deep issue among all the issues that trouble our world and faith, it does often betray how we feel about being a Christian. Are we private Christians? Are we public with our faith? And to what extent are we private or public about our faith? So often in conducting funerals, weddings, or Christmas Eve or Easter worship, someone from the community attends and meets a member or members whom they know well. They greet the member with astonishment and say, “I didn’t know you went here?” And my question is, “Why didn’t they know?”.
Yes, the deeper issue is not whether or not we let the ashes remain on our forehead. The deeper issue is “How do we live our faith in the public arena?”. Do we live our faith to the extent that others take notice?
Is part of living our faith humbly and publicly acknowledging from where the motivation for our life comes?
Gratefully, today, Lent is no longer a depressing time. But it is a time when we take seriously the suffering and death of Jesus and our sin. I invite you this Lent to do and old thing. Give something up for Lent. Something you enjoy. Give it up as a reminder that as Christians we are always called to give up something of ourselves for a purpose beyond ourselves. Give something up as a reminder the Christian life is not all about us. Spend the time of Lent struggling with just how public your faith is and how public it ought to be.
These things just might connect you a bit more with the season. They just might add a note of seriousness and strength to you faith.
I look forward to journeying and struggling with you this Lent.
Gratefully in Christ,
Gary N. McCluskey
Pastor