The street value of ashes

I burned palm leaves this morning to make Lenten ashes.

The leaves have been sitting in my garage for a few years now. I had picked up a few strays at the end of a Palm Sunday worship service and brought them home with me to dry them out. The tradition in many churches (and my own favorite way to do it) is to burn the palm leaves and use the ashes for the following year’s Ash Wednesday service.

When I was a newbie with this whole ash thing, I found myself in churches that expected to have ashes applied to the foreheads of congregants during the Ash Wednesday service. While I was raised in a church that certainly wouldn’t oppose ash application, the churches I attended never did that. It was “too Catholic,” everyone thought.

It kind of bothered me not because it was too Catholic, but because walking around during the day with a black smudge on a person’s forehead kind of screamed “I’m a Christian and on top of that I’m holy.” It seemed contrary to what Jesus taught about going into a closet to pray rather than pompously parading and proclaiming one’s religiosity and personal piety to the world.

My first personal experience with ashes did happen in my own denomination one Ash Wednesday evening when the minister proceeded to pass a bowl of oily ashes around the sanctuary. The idea was that each person was to apply the ashes to the forehead of the person sitting next to him or her. I hadn’t been given a heads up that this was going to happen. I think I did know that there would be an ash option, but my plan was to just sit it out. What happened that night left me shuddering. I really didn’t want the ashes applied to my forehead, but when the bowl came my direction, I found myself literally fighting off, manhandling the man next to me, a long-time friend, who insisted that I had to have the ashes smeared on my head in the form of a cross. Perhaps he was the one who manhandled me, but I was fighting him off. It turned into a real skirmish and feelings were hurt. I believe a verbal “No!” was finally uttered which resulted in people turning around to stare. It was an awful experience. I was willing to apply them to anyone who wanted them, but I didn’t want them myself. I just wasn’t there yet.

After I became ordained, I had to give the whole idea some serious thought. I was, after all, expected in some of my churches to apply ashes to congregants and I had to figure out how I felt about that not only for myself but for all those who, like me, wanted no part of having oily soot applied to their foreheads. What was worse, I had not figured on using ashes at all that first time and I found myself scrambling into the nearby city on Ash Wednesday morning to find a Christian bookstore that, indeed, still had a small package of ashes remaining and they were holding them for me.

Now, when I say “small package,” I mean small package. Less than an ounce of palm ashes ready for mixing with the oil of choice was running about $8 that year. I’m not sure if they jacked up the price because it was last minute and they were my only option, but I have priced ashes since and even in advance they can run from $4 to $8 and if you have to overnight them because you find yourself without a local source to buy, it’s easy to tack another $40 on to that. Honestly, I felt like I was dealing in dope.

After that, I learned that when the children and congregants had finished waving their palm branches in celebration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, I would scurry around the sanctuary and gather up the leftovers to save for next year’s ashes. I put them high atop one of the shelves in my church office and there they would stay until it was time to burn them for the next Ash Wednesday (well, with the exception of the year when an overly zealous church member decided to sweep through the church building to rid it of all unnecessary items and my carefully guarded palm branches disappeared leaving me to once again make last minute call to the neighboring city’s Christian bookstore to reserve their last small packet of ashes with an exorbitant street value).

Even getting my own burned palm leaves to a point that they are ready to be used for Ash Wednesday worship takes time. Lighting the match and throwing it into the bucket of leaves is just the beginning. Once the fire is dead and the ashes are cooled, all of the extraneous materials like twigs and match sticks must be picked out by hand and thrown away. Then I dump the ashes onto a piece of waxed paper on my kitchen counter, cover it with another piece of waxed paper and use my rolling pin back and forth to turn those once live and waving palm branches into the finest dust I can make. Then I package it. One year’s worth of only a few leftover palm branches will make several packages of ashes. A small congregation could live for several years on the ashes I make.

When it comes time for Ash Wednesday worship, I pour some olive oil into a small glass pitcher and carry that along with a small mortar containing the ashes and pestle into the sanctuary. In front of everyone, I pour just an inkling of the oil into the mortar and stir it thoroughly to make a light paste. It’s then ready to go.

But, still, there is this nagging feeling in my heart that reminds me that not everyone wants to have ashes applied to their foreheads. So I developed a plan. With the assistance of a church elder or deacon, I would make the offer for folks to come forward to receive the ashes which they could have on their foreheads or on the back of their hands. If they preferred no ashes at all, they could walk right past me and go to the elder who would place his or her hand on the congregant’s head and offer a blessing. And those who weren’t comfortable with the whole thing were given the option to just stay seated with the promise that there would be no judgment given. What I discovered was that many folks opted for both the ashes and the blessing. Some took the ashes only on the backs of their hands. A few just sat through the rite.

It was all just fine. The first time I did that, I turned to the elder who assisted me and had her make the sign of the cross on my forehead with the ashes. As I recall, she asked for just a blessing. When the service was finished and the congregation silently filed out, I went to the restroom to wash the greasy mess off my face.

But as the years went by and I continued to make my own ashes rather than buy them (and enlisted the confirmation class to help burn them), I found that the process changed my heart. The once living, vital palm branches that had been laid at the feet of the Christ less than a year before, had died and been burned. They were now lovingly rolled into a fine dust reminding me that I came from dust and to dust I shall return. And they were applied to the foreheads and the hands of people I loved as their pastor and to my forehead by a colleague in ministry. It is all a rather messy business, but so is life.

Yes, Jesus tells us that when we pray we should do so in private, but Jesus also demonstrated and told us to love one another. People don’t know us as Christians because we have ashes smeared on our faces. They know we are Christians by our love. Is it possible, then, to put a street value on love?

It’s something to think about for the 40 days of Lent.

And now receive this blessing:

May Christ be glorified in all you do and say. Remember that God accepts and loves you. Amen.

 

 

5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” – Matthew 6:5-6

“…you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3:19b

Almighty God,
you have created us out of the dust of the earth.
May these ashes be for us
a sign of our mortality and penitence,
and a reminder that only by your gracious gift
are we given everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen. – from the Presbyterian Church (USA) order of worship for Ash Wednesday

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