Mark 9:30-37 - February 14, 2024 - Ash Wednesday

“What were you arguing about along the way?”

Jesus and the disciples have been on the road. Jesus again predicts that he would go to Jerusalem, suffer, and die. And the disciples again misunderstand him. And now that they’ve reached their destination for the day, Jesus asks them what they were talking about on the way. Except, they weren’t just talking; they were arguing - arguing about which one of them was the greatest. Cue the embarrassed, deafening silence.  

It seems a bit absurd for the disciples to be talking about this, don’t you think? And while it isn’t something that we openly talk about, striving for greatness is engrained in our society. Anything less is, well, failure. 

That word, “great,” gets thrown around all the time - everything from the greatest country in the world to the greatest quarterback to play the game to “they have great shrimp tacos.” There is always a pecking order for things. Someone is always above - or below - where you are. 

Now, I don’t know if any of us would argue face-to-face with another human being about who is greater, but our world loves to compare us anyway. Livelihood, status, control, finances. All the pieces are in place for setting up the hierarchy. Just listen to the self-aggrandizing discourse happening all around us every day. 

“What were you arguing about along the way?”
The silence should be deafening. 

...

Jesus breaks the silence.
First must be last. First must be the servant of all. 

Jesus turns everything upside down. What we hold most true is flipped on its head. The most coveted things in our world are upended. What our world strives for, what our world wants, what we want… Jesus turns it upside down. 

Greatness isn’t about accumulating. Being first isn’t superiority (real or perceived) over others. Distinction does not come from our status in life. 

Instead, Jesus says, being first is putting others before you. Greatness is seen in serving. True distinction is building up the bottom even though we could be alone at the top.
Greatness is welcoming one such as this. 

And to show that, Jesus - a dignified, respectable, great teacher - scoops up a child. One who needs simple things done for her. One who is reliant on love and care from others. One who is considered in that day and time to be weak and insignificant. 

Jesus says and shows that greatness is hospitality to the one who is most vulnerable, welcome to the one who is last, and serving the one who is even less than a loser in the ways of the world.

...

Ash Wednesday, too, turns things upside down. 

Our life, our greatness, everything our world touts as “the way things are”… they are only dust. It’s the truth our world doesn’t want to get out - that the things we gather, the ways we often live, the things we argue over… they all end. 

This is, for many, a painful dose of reality, because what we are told and taught is important, the things that mislead us into thinking we have it all, the things that promise to make us great… they can’t save us. 

Ash Wednesday is a bold confrontation with death. 

Despite all the bravado and noise of this world, today we admit our perceived greatness. Because one day, no matter who we are or what we have… it’ll end. It will be left as ashes. Even us. We remember we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Those ashes are powerful things. 

“What were you arguing about along the way?”
Today our greatness really should come into perspective. 

…

Several years ago, a good friend of mine, Father Randy Ferebee of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah, had to miss Ash Wednesday services because he was undergoing cancer treatment. As he reflected on that, he said to me, “I haven’t missed an Ash Wednesday service in my entire adult life. I guess I’ll just have to imagine the radiation is my substitute for ashes this year.” 

I still remember the insight of that statement. But those signs of our frailty, our vulnerability, and our finite greatness are all around us, even if we try our best to hide and conceal our lack of continual perfection. 

But today we don’t hide. Today, we put ashes on our foreheads as a visible sign of our mortality, our lack of perfection, and our acknowledgment that we are powerless to prevent it. We wear them to admit and to remind.

But the ashes aren’t just smudged on, as you know, but instead are put on in the shape of a cross. It’s a reminder that Jesus didn’t just turn our world’s ways upside down, but the whole of life and death itself. Yes, we are dust; yes, we are vulnerable; yes, we will die. But Christ is alive. The deafening silence of the tomb has been broken by resurrection. 

The cross is no longer a sign of finitude and death, but instead is a marker of the hope that comes through it. 

And out of no other motivation than love and grace, Jesus, who lowered himself on the cross and was raised in greatness, he now lowers himself to serve us. Jesus came for those who are dead last. Jesus came for those at the bottom, even though he could be alone at the top. He came to welcome ones such as us. 

We who have ashen foreheads. We who undergo radiation. We who have scars. We who hide the addiction. We who act like little children. We with bad knees. We who wait at hospital bedsides. We who argue about greatness. We who think the world of ourselves. We who are dust. 

And while the ashes we wear today will rub off and fade, the cross’s promise has forever claimed us, because, through our baptism, we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. Foreheads aren’t just for ashes; they are for promises, too. 

This is the thing about Ash Wednesday. Today is the day when the promises that were proclaimed at our baptism and the promises that will be proclaimed at our funerals come together. 

What God promises at our birth and at our death,
At our baptisms and our burials,
In our past and our future… all of it comes together today. God’s promises for all of who we are are proclaimed today.

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We come from God, to God we shall return, and nothing changes that. In all that we are, we are beloved children, marked by the cross, held by God's love forever. It is not our striving for greatness that defines us, but rather the unwavering love of God that walks beside us now, tomorrow, and always.