Do Love and Ashes Mix?

 I write this on Ash Wednesday—the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent—which this year happens to coincide with the secular Valentine’s Day.  It can seem like an odd juxtaposition to have these two days occur simultaneously.  But I think when we give it some thought, love and ashes really do mix.   (I blogged about this in 2018—the last time these two events coincided.) 

One songwriter asks: “What is love?!” and begs their lover not to “hurt them no more.”  (I bet many of can think of some time we’ve heard this song; for me it’s a Saturday Night Live bit with two dudes at a nightclub doing everythingtogether in rhythm to the music.)  Another singer exclaims love is “more than a feeling,” while yet another dismisses it as a “second-hand emotion.”  One says, “love as a battleground,” while another sings that he’s “finally found the love of a lifetime, one that lasts my whole life through.” We could list volumes more contrasting perspectives offered in songs—to say nothing of poems and prose.  To say the least, it seems like there’s a range of opinions about what love is.  

 

In Christian contexts, it’s popular to say that love is a verb.  What we mean is that love implies action from both the lover and the beloved.  We who are the object of love don’t just passively receive it; we’re expected to actively respond to the lover’s advance, so that it becomes a two-way relationship. 

 

Love is a grace from God—and while that grace is free, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that it’s not cheap. While it’s never something we earn, it’s always something worthy of our utmost effort to maintain.

 

Of course, when we talk about love, it’s not long before we think of 1 Corinthians 13.  It’s worth noting that Paul didn’t originally write this as wedding poetry.  He wrote it as guidelines for a fledgling community of Christ followers to live by as they sought to live lie Jesus, and so the text focuses more on the agape (love of God) and philos (love between siblings and friends) than on eros (romantic love).   But as today’s popular saying goes, in some ways, “love is love,” so it was a natural extension to apply it to eros as well.

 

You might want to take a look at “the Love Chapter” in your Bible as you read the rest of this article.  Notice how full it is of verbs.  Some say what love is; others say what love isn’t—but it’s all about action.  Consider verses 4–6 alone:

 

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; it is not envious or arrogant or boastful ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

There’s a lot of negatives in those two verses.  It’s like love itself an elusive quality that’s hard to capture in words, so Paul chose to “define it” more in terms of what it’s not. (You can tell he wasn’t married, right?)   On the other hand, people have done the same thing for centuries when they attempt to describe God.  It’s known as the via negativa (“the negative way”)—or apophatic theology. So, since Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), maybe the Bachelor Apostle was on to something when he chose to walk the via negativa when describing love. 

 

I looked up the antonyms for some of the words Paul says love isn’t.  When I did so, I quickly gained sympathy for Paul. There were many choices for each verb.  Finding just the right words to say, “what love is,” is challenging!  If the poets and songwriters struggle to express what love is, I guess it’s sort of arrogant of me to assume I could do any better. Nevertheless, I’m a writer, so I persisted.  For each negative quality, I picked a word or phrase that stood out to me on the list of antonyms.  I did keep one negative although I changed it for our context.  

 

If I were to frame 1 Corinthians 13:4–6 more positively maybe I’d say something like: 

 

Love is patient, love is kind.  Love is benevolent and humble, genuine and gracious. Love is not a narcissist; it is even-tempered and at peace with itself and others.  It puts up with much, always believing in and hoping for the best.  Love perseveres to the end.

 

I’m drawn to all the action words that describe love at this time because I’ve become keenly aware that—even after more than twenty years of marriage—it takes ongoing intentional effort from both partners to keep eros strong.  The same goes for other philos relationships we have with siblings and friends (I’m learning that with my own brother in recent days) and it certainly applies to agape. After all, what relationship is more worthy of our best effort than our relationship with God?   Still, it’s easy to settle into a passive acceptance of the way things are in our love relationships.  But true love never settles.  No, it always strives to find the “more excellent way.”  Even if things seem to be good… they can always get better.  

 

Ultimately eros and philos are echoes of agape—and agape is what is on display on Ash Wednesday and throughout the season of Lent and Holy Week. 

 

Through our spouses (eros) and through our family and friends (philos) we see through a mirror dimly what (and who) we will one day encounter face to face (agape).  If we are paying attention, we get opportunities daily to practice Jesus’ agape way of love through our human love relationships.  During Lent, we come face to face with our limitations.  We learn to stop denying them or feeling shame over them but rather to embrace them as part of us and even, after a while, to celebrate them, knowing they are the “shadow side” of who God created us to be.  In the shadow of the cross, and all that Christ accomplished there, we know we can always count on God’s strength and grace to be sufficient whenever we feel weak, unqualified, incompetent, ashamed, etc. 

 

So, while you won’t find Hallmark Cards to mark Ash Wednesday like you do for Valentine’s Day (as soon as Christmas is over!), I do think love and ashes really do belong together.   If we were to choose a Lenten “theme song” the classic hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, might be a good choice.  Verse 3 speaks of how, at the cross,“sorrow and love flow mingled down.”  This song reminds us that the cross is where our Lenten journey is headed. (The season of Lent ends as Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday—when Jesus enters Jerusalem and begins his Last Week on Earth.)  Hopefully our Holy Week experience will be all the more powerful after we walk this Lenten journey mindful of where the journey will end.  Along the way, I pray that we all learn to embrace our true selves more fully (both individually and corporately) and the agape love that is always waiting to embrace us. 

Let God's Words Shape Your Story

 

Erratum: For those who may have read an earlier version of this article with footnote 2 about Nazareth.  While creative, it doesn't match Matthew's account, which states clearly that the Magi find the child in Bethlehem.  I confused my Gospel accounts.  It's in Luke that Mary and Joseph journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the birth in response to Caesar's edict.  Matthew includes no such journey.  

Each week during the Advent/Christmas season at Good Shepherd UMC, we sang a song called “Make Room.”  The core question the chorus asks us is: Is there room in your heart for God to write God’s story?   

 

We’ve pondered this question as we journeyed through Advent, considering the gifts of Presence and the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.  Our journey culminated at the manger on Christmas Eve as we celebrated the coming of the Light of the World.  Echoing the sentiments of Mary, Joseph, and the other members of the Christmas Nativity cast, we’ve done our best to answer “yes” and open our hearts to what God wishes to write in our hearts in the coming year.  Like those archetypes from Scripture, we know that although we can come as we are, the choice to let God become (or keep being) a co-author of our story will inevitably impact our life and set us apart as we trade our dreams for God’s glory.

 

As we enter January, the liturgical calendar brings us to the end of the Christmas season, and the beginning of Epiphany. This six-week season invites us to deepen our understanding of what we are seeing as we contemplate the Christ Mystery.   

 

On the first Sunday of Epiphany, it is traditional to remember the visit of the Magi (or Wise Men) to the Christ child.  According to Matthew 2:1–12, these men from the east (the text never says there were only three—that’s a later church invention around the three gifts) follow the guiding light of a “star.” [1] As the story goes, they first visit King Herod’s palace in Jerusalem—figuring this to be the logical place to look for newborn nobility.  To their surprise, however, they don’t find the object of their quest at the palace. Herod feigns curiosity at this news. (Actually, he’s furious—intensely paranoid about a potential threat to his rule.) He sends the Magi to finish their journey and report back to him.  The Magi continue following the Star until they come to a humble home in Bethlehem, where they encounter Mary, Joseph, and their infant son.  Matthew describes the star standing still over the place where Jesus was.  It is here in this “place unexpected” that they have their epiphany: This infant is the object of their quest.  This is the king for whom they’ve searched.  Their response is to bow down and worship toddler Jesus. They offer the child and his parents gifts befitting not a peasant but a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

 

The Wise Men continue to receive inspiration and direction even after they leave the Holy Family.  This time the plot device Matthew uses to guide them is a dream in which one of them (probably not all of them?) is warned not to return to Herod.   Apparently, they heed the message they received, as the text says they opt to return to their country via a different road. I’ve heard it said that once we encounter Christ, we too can never back the same way; I think it’s quite true.

 

Like the shepherds in Luke’s Christmas Story, Matthew presents us with unlikely first worshippers of the newborn (more likely toddler) king.  While the Jewish sages and astrologers in Herod’s court seem oblivious to the celestial signs of a birth in their backyard, a group of Gentile Magi from a far-away land are perceptive enough to notice and set out on a journey to find him.  

 

On Epiphany, one of our church’s traditions is to have each person choose a Star Word.  Some might say they are just “random words” written on star-shaped pieces of wood (or paper).  But the process is bathed in prayer.  The pastor prays as she writes them, and we add our prayers as we receive them.  We trust that God might give us a word that may have relevance in the year ahead.  If we are mindful and intentional, I think we might discover they are more than mere words on a star.  Maybe they are indeed God’s word to us.

 

In 2020, my word was gracious.  That was prophetic.  A few months later came the COVID pandemic and accompanying shutdown of life as we know it for many months.  It took a great deal of grace for me—and for all of us—to navigate those difficult days of involuntary isolation.  I had to learn to extend grace not just to others, but to myself.  I’m still learning those lessons.

 

In 2021, my word was soar.  It fit me then and still does now.  The great blue heron is a like a sprit animal for me.  It is rather clumsy when it walks around; it does not fly easily but when it does it is quite majestic to behold.  I am like that heron.  For various reasons, I have struggled to take flight in life.  I feel like God longs to see me soar—but I have to choose to do it, even if the takeoff is hard.

 

I don’t know what my word for 2022 was, but my 2023 word was shine.  It’s another word that speaks volumes to a person like me.  As someone who is much more comfortable blending in and going with the flow, a call to shine feels risky and vulnerable.  Honestly, I’ve struggled to do it.  I’m afraid if I do, I won’t measure up to what’s needed, and yet the call resonates deeply within me.  Howard Thurman would call it the sound of the genuine trying to rise up within me.  But I have to choose to give it voice, no matter what others say or do in response.  That’s where the rubber hits the road.

 

So, maybe they were just words on a star-shaped piece of wood, but they’ve had impact on me.  Sometimes I don’t realize how much until I sit down and think about them for an article like this one.  Words weave together to form stories—and stories combine to form the tapestry of our lives.  So, if we truly want to let God write God’s story on our hearts—individually and institutionally—in the year ahead, then words matter, and we would do well to pay attention to them. We’re especially wise to listen to God’s words to us—even if they come hand-written on the back of a wooden star.  

 

Perhaps, just as the Star in the Sky with its guiding light led the Magi’s journey long ago, our Star with its guiding word can frame our story for the year ahead.  May our journey lead to the same place it did for the Wise Men—to an eye-opening encounter with Christ.

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[1] If this event is factual, what exactly did these men see?  There’s much debate over this.  Some wonder if it could’ve been a star going nova, but growing consensus is that it’s more likely—albeit still an incomplete explanation—that they saw the planet Jupiter processing through the sign of Aries.