I had occasion yesterday to reconnect by phone with a
friend, a Zen Buddhist priest, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. We were making plans to meet together in
person. I told her that Thursday would
be the earliest I could meet, because I needed to get through Mardi Gras and
Ash Wednesday first. She replied without
missing a beat, “Oh, we have that in Buddhism too: sukha
and duhkha, but I like pancakes and
ashes better.”
Sukha and duhkha are roughly translated as
“happiness” and “suffering.” I wonder,
“Which is the pancakes and which is the ashes?”
It would seem that festive Mardi Gras parties represent happiness far
more readily than the penitential spirit of our Ash Wednesday observance. In fact, most people just skip the latter
altogether. It’s a real downer. Too much focus on sin and suffering.
But maybe pancakes and ashes, Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday,
aren’t so much opposites as they are mutually illuminating correlates. Mardi Gras is about illusion – putting on
masks and pretending to be someone other than ourselves. Part of the act is pretending that the
excesses we engage in during the party providing lasting happiness. The mask we wear covers our dissatisfaction
with a veneer of conviviality. On Mardi
Gras, we put on a literal mask to represent the figurative mask we wear the
other 364 days of the year, the image we project of fulfillment when, in truth,
we all too often feel pretty empty inside; an emptiness that no amount of
pancakes, or champagne, or money, or social status, or career success can
alleviate.
Ash Wednesday, on the other hand, is about taking off the
mask: the mask of sukha (happiness) that
obscures the reality of duhkha (suffering).
Jesus picks up on this in his contrast between hypocrites who practice
piety to be seen by others – those who want to appear to do good, rather than actually
practice justice – and those who practice justice in response to the reward
lavished on them by the Father who sees in secret – those who do good no matter
what others may think.
The word “hypocrite” at its root means actor, and actors in
Jesus’ time wore masks. Jesus is
inviting us to take off the mask, to stop pretending to be someone we are not,
to stop pretending to be satisfied with the reward provided by being seen by
others as having it all together. Take
off the mask, and entrust yourself to the Father who already sees what others
have missed – good, bad, and ugly – and who still lavishes the treasure of his
boundless love on us if we are willing to receive it and, having received it,
can not help but share it.
Jesus warns us about the masks we wear, because he knows how
easy it is for us to fool ourselves about ourselves, so convinced by the roles
we play to entertain, impress, and manipulate others that we lose touch with
our real selves and our heart’s deepest longing. He warns us, because he knows that in losing
touch with reality in this way we readily become complicit in the lies others
tell us to sooth our conscience, saying our prayers and saluting the flag even
as we oppress our workers and quarrel and fight and strike with a wicked fist
(or predator drone). He warns us,
because he knows how often we maintain a faux happiness by refusing to
acknowledge the truth of suffering – our own and that of others.
Genuine happiness – the treasure that moth nor rust consumes
and thieves can’t steal – begins by taking off the mask, by accepting the truth
about ourselves and our world, by letting go of our need to fit in and look
good and not make any waves. It is then
that we can accept how dissatisfied we are and acknowledge our hunger and
thirst for the reward that only God can give.
On Ash Wednesday we are invited to take off the mask and
stand naked before our Creator in all our brokenness, and need, and desire, and
discover that we are loved just as we are.
The Father/Mother who sees us in secret, the self we hide from everyone
else, loves us nevertheless, and desires an intimate relationship with us just
as we are. This is the reward of which Jesus speaks, the
eternal treasure: an intimate, loving relationship with God.
When we take off the mask before God in this way, we can then
begin the work of justice in response to the love we now know to be the most
real thing in the world; the only treasure that really satisfies our deepest
longing. This love burns away all that
is false. It is in the ashes of this
love that we discover true happiness.
Some years ago, Mother Teresa was being interviewed by a
reporter. At the end of the session, the
report mentioned to her how much he admired her passion for the poor. Mother Teresa replied, “I don’t have a
passion for the poor. I have a passion
for Jesus. He has a passion for the
poor, so I serve the poor.”
This is what it means to practice authentic piety, to
practice justice, and not simply to be seen by others, to maintain a facade. Mother Teresa reveals a humble, even brutal,
honesty. It ain’t easy or fun serving
the poor. It doesn’t reflect her gifts
or even her interests, necessarily. Her
ministry is a response to her love of Jesus, her desire to allow that love to
direct her actions.
In fact, I would suggest that Mother Teresa was able to
serve as she did because the realized it wasn’t about her at all. It was about what Jesus desired to do with
and through her. She took off the mask,
fell in love, and let God do the rest: regardless of the cost, no matter how
others perceived her.
Taking off the mask is hard, even painful. I’d rather stay at the party and eat
pancakes. But the ashes that signify our
finitude and our failures also open the way to truth and freedom. They serve to get us in touch with the
reality of suffering and of the love that heals us. These ashes are the remains of the masks
consumed by the fire of God’s love. What
remains is an unsurpassable treasure: the knowledge that we are God’s beloved,
and that we can act on that knowledge in ways that will heal the world. Amen.
