Ben’s February Letter
Dear Friends in Christ,
Sometimes the church calendar throws us a curveball that makes us re-think the days we are marking. Easter sometimes falls on April Fools’ Day, leaving us to consider Paul’s assertion that the Gospel seems foolish to outsiders (1 Cor. 1:23). Christmas sometimes falls on a Sunday, and we must think about the meaning and purpose of the day, and figure out if worship fits. Pentecost commonly aligns with Memorial Day weekend, and church leaders must discern how the celebratory nature of the one holiday fits with the somber nature of the other. Sometimes (like this year!) Ash Wednesday lands on Valentine’s Day. And we have to make sense of that. They don’t seem to fit. One is about confession of sins and remembering our mortality. The other is about celebrating love and specifically romance. One is hearts and candy, the other is sackcloth and ashes. Oh and don’t forget—unless you want an early dinner or a late one with ashes on your forehead—you’ll have to pick which one to observe day of. But dig deeper and you’ll find that the two holidays on February 14 share something important: they’re both about telling the truth. At Ash Wednesday services, we linger over the condition of our souls—prone as they are to selfishness and stubbornness and following idols. We will confess by admitting who we are, by speaking aloud an inward truth about ourselves. But during Valentine’s Day we will speak other inward truths—the truth about our soul’s capacity to love. We will confess love for a spouse or other loved one, sometimes someone separated from us by time, distance, or death. This February 14 we are speaking the truth. And that truth is that we might not love as well or as deeply as God has, but it’s not for lack of trying.
This will be my seventh Ash Wednesday in ministry, and my first married Valentine’s Day. And what I’ve come to understand is that the two occasions aren’t as far apart as we imagine. Is confessing wrongs done to each other a part of any relationship? Does death impact love? Do messy, sinful, finite people still find ways to connect? The answer to all of these is of course “yes”. Valentine’s and Ash Wednesday pick different color schemes, but neither can escape the fact that love and death and telling the truth aren’t as far apart as we want them to be. Indeed— this February 14 is a reminder of how close they really are.
As we begin the Lenten season and the countdown to Easter, perhaps we can speak the truth. About love—how strong it can be, how difficult is can be, how it it is changed (but not ended) by death. About sin—what we have done, what we are prone to doing, and how we have sinned against those we love. About death—its power, the urgency it creates to live well, its inability to conquer love, its inability to conquer God. How else would we celebrate when Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday line up?
In Christ,
Rev. Ben