March 2, 2022 + Ash Wednesday + Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 + Pr. Craig Mueller
They’re called controlled burns. We notice the black, burned prairie grass each spring at Glacial Park Conservation Area near McHenry.
It seems counterproductive. Why would you burn the prairie grass? My brain doesn’t quite how you burn something in order that new life may emerge.
Here is what I learned. The fire leaves behind a black ash that absorbs the sun’s energy. The ash becomes a nutrient soaked into the grass with each rainfall. Burning is the source of renewing energy. Ashes, the result of that burning.
Many churches burn palms from the previous Palm Sunday to make ashes for Ash Wednesday. I confess that some years we just purchased tidy, pre-packaged, ready-to-go ashes from church supply houses. But last year, I decided to burn a big stack of dry palms that were in the basement. I got out the Easter Vigil firepit and lit a match. The palms burned quickly. And now we have a container with so much ash . . . for decades, I suspect.
Is there a spiritual lesson in the Lenten burning? The fiery Spirit burns away the debris, the underbrush, that consumes so much of our spiritual and emotional energy. Some of this underbrush is the sin that we confess on Ash Wednesday. The many ways that we as individuals and as a community fail to trust, fail to love, fail to live out our baptismal calling.1
Some of the underbrush is the burnout that we feel due to stress. Our lives are cluttered and unfocused. We become overwhelmed. We lack motivation. We turn to addictive or unhealthy behaviors.
Other times we feel burned by life, quite honestly. The burdens we face—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—seem too much. And we lament: life is not fair! But then we pause. We notice the suffering, the hurt, the brokenness all around us, all around the world.
Saint Paul lists ways that life can burn us: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. Yet he says that now is the time of salvation. Now is the time to repent: to change our minds, to change our lives, to change our hearts. And then gives a paradox. Even is sorrow, there is a kind of joy. Even amid poverty, there are great riches. Even when it looks like we have nothing, we have all that we need. We have spiritual resources to meet the challenges of life.
Imagine those in Ukraine seeing fiery bombs in the night sky. Imagine a hoard of humanity, seeking to flee the violence. Imagine scenes of horror that bring a world together.
Imagine those who lost their homes in the devastating fires in Boulder County several months ago. A prairie burn may bring new life, but fire also destroys and devastates, as the current climate crisis reveals.
The rector of a church in Broomfield, Colorado said that this Ash Wednesday they will clearly see how our frail existence and the fragile environment are linked. She went on: “The tidy application of the remnants of last year’s palm fonds with the solemn call for repentance doesn’t seem sufficient to hold the sorrow of the lived reality of homes consumed in flames.”
The abbot of a Benedictine abbey in Ireland reminds us that the word “Lent” comes from the old English word for “spring.” Lent isn’t a time for feeling sad and miserable for forty days, or even about giving up things, he goes on Lent is springtime. Lent prepares us for the great climax of springtime which is Easter. The Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and works of mercy are not ends in themselves. But they are the springtime sweeping and cleaning of our minds and hearts so new life may emerge at Easter.2
A prairie burn releases new energy for growth. It leads to an even greater greening of the earth. What new growth might burst forth from the ashes of our lives? What new growth might bud from a burgeoning commitment to the health of the planet, and our fellow earth creatures most vulnerable? What new growth might surprise us into deeper humility, riskier openness, and intoxicating gratitude?
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be, Jesus reminds us. We enter this season of Lent, we embrace the burn of Lent, we even take on the practices of Lent for a greater good: that our hearts may burn more and more for justice, for kindness, for compassion.
We’ve had a true Chicago winter this year. And believe it or not, spring is only a couple weeks away. Here is the sign of hope that nature provides us this night. I learned that in the summer the prairie areas that were burned are twice the height of those that were not. Fire is as essential as sunlight for prairie plants. The fire clears out old leaf litter so that sunlight can reach the new grass and flower shoots.
Fire. From burned palm branches. To ashes on our foreheads. We journey on to the new fire at the Easter Vigil. And then to the fire of Pentecost that renews the face of the earth.
May our hearts burn with fiery hope this Lent.
1Lenten reflections by Abbot John Claussen, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville. February 17, 2021.
2Abbot Brendan’s Lenten message. Glenstal Abbey, Limerick, Ireland.