Becoming Dust: Ash Wednesday in Dying (and Thriving) Congregations
We are all becoming dust.
I remember the first time I marked ashes on the foreheads of my own kids. It took my breath away, because it felt so… unnecessary. I longed to smile and tell them to just go sit back down, that this wasn’t really for them. You’re just young kids! You have a whole life ahead of you! You aren’t dying! Of course, in the back of my mind I knew that none of us knows how long we’ll live on this earth; even if it’s not for many decades, my own children will one day die. So I ashed their foreheads, looking into their eyes and telling them: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
We are all becoming dust.
Ash Wednesday is a day set apart in the Christian year when ashes (traditionally and significantly made from last year’s palms) are imposed on our foreheads. The ashes remind ourselves and each other of our own mortality. Ash Wednesday requires us to face the uncertainty of the future without rushing toward resurrection, no matter how much we want to start planning for Easter. In a culture consumed with prolonging youth and liveliness, even the word “death” is taboo, as we have been taught to defer to euphemisms that might avoid the discomfort of that reality. And though, due to age or illness or danger, some are more aware of our own mortality, others take comfort in our youth and vibrancy, just as I wanted to with my kids, ignoring those faint whispers of eternity. Yet no matter how much we cling to signs of life, death is just around the corner… which is why it is so incredibly vital to name:
I will die. You will die. We will die.
Far from nihilistic, this reminder of death grants permission to get really clear about what life means— and that we might live faithfully while we can. We are dying, but we are not dead.
On the last Ash Wednesday before the congregation I pastored closed, we did not physically meet together. Not only was our community meeting only online due to COVID, but our state of Texas had had a record-breaking snowstorm that knocked out power that week, so even our Zoom gathering was canceled. We already knew that Easter would be our final service, so I was struck with the question: What does Ash Wednesday mean to a closing congregation, even when we aren’t together? How do we mark ourselves for death, and choose to live faithfully, knowing our collective is nearing its end of life?
For me, it meant a recognition that the Church Universal is eternal; congregations housed within buildings are not. Sometimes it’s easy to conflate those things, and we do well to remember they are not the same. Even when an individual — or a congregation — dies, that is not the end of their story, for the Spirit continues their impact and legacy.
That last Ash Wednesday, I encouraged my congregation to look around their own homes for dust — maybe behind the tv, or on a high shelf. Dust is all around. Maybe we don’t keep the literal ash from last year’s palms in our houses, but the remnants of what-was-once-living surrounds us, serving as a reminder that we are all becoming dust.
As we mark ourselves as individuals with ash — or even with dust on our fingertips — to remind us of our mortality, I wonder what it might mean to “ash” our whole congregations, to mark them for death? What would it mean for those congregations who already know they are near death? What would it mean for those congregations for whom death seems far off? What if the palms of your congregation today are being prepared for the ashes of tomorrow? Even when signs of life abound, every congregation eventually becomes dust.
Today, let us remember that we are a part of the story, but only a part, and that the Spirit binds us all together, even when we are not together.
One day, we will die.
But today, we live.
