February 18: Ash Wednesday

Reflection from Stan Wilson

The first clause of the original lie is telling: “You will not die . . .” 

It was spoken by the serpent to the woman, who had just clarified God’s commandment not to eat of the fruit of a particular tree or “you shall die.” The serpent replied, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

That’s the original lie. God can’t be trusted. God’s hiding something from us. Beneath it is the suggestion that nothing is off-limits for humans. We are immortal, capable of making what we want of the world. Lurking around is the suggestion that we can’t trust each other or respect the earth and the soil. 

It’s all a lie, and it leads to violence and death. 

God replies in a refrain that will be repeated in churches around the world today, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

We are living in a time when truth is hard to come by, and lies are legion, but the ashes smeared on our foreheads are a humble effort to return to ground-level truth: we are fragile, limited creatures, dependent on a gracious God and on a web of created generosity for our very lives.  

In the coming days of Lent, we’ll try to pay attention to a gift economy alive among the birds of the air and microbes in the soil. We’ll look for signs of humans cooperating nonviolently around the world. We’ll look for beauty that reveals human dignity. And each Friday we’ll try to tell the truth about real violence unleashed by human lies. On Saturdays we’ll practice silence.

The journey begins with this truthful sentence: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”