We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask
This poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar is one of my favorites. I love its haunting honesty, and it always comes to my mind around this time of year, this season of Lent.
One of the reasons I think of the poem, “We Wear the Mask,” is because the idea of masks is so prevalent in the reading. The word hypocrite has taken on a negative context in English. A hypocrite is someone who claims certain beliefs or values, and then acts in contradiction to their stated beliefs. In Greek however, hypocrite was a neutral term that meant “stage actors.” In Greek theater, two or three actors would play multiple roles. Masks allowed the audience to tell who was who, to focus on the characters, rather than the actors behind the characters.
But Jesus, of course, was not talking about stage actors. He was talking about people who seem to be stage acting their lives. People who present a carefully curated version of themselves to disguise their true selves. Who speak of honesty while cheating their neighbor, or bemoan violence while cutting with their words, or belittle others to hide their own self-doubt. We’ve met those people, and, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve been those people. Or, better said, we are those people. We, all of us, walk around with masks to hide the truth of our identities, the secrets we wish to conceal.
And, let me be clear, these masks are not inherently a bad thing. If you’ve ever pushed aside your own grief to help someone grieving, or battled exhaustion for someone more tired than you, or faked joy at another’s enthusiasm, these too are masks, and they can be good and helpful ones, masks worn for the betterment of others.
The problem then is not the wearing of the masks themselves, but the motivation behind the masks. Do we wear masks to improve our own well-being, or to help the well-being of others? Are the masks to raise our own status, or to level the playing field of our community? Right-living is not about being quivering masses of availability at all times to all people, it is about finding the balance, when to be open and when to be closed, when to be helpful, and when it is more helpful to withhold help and let someone figure it out on their own. Masks, with the right motivation, can be good tools in helping us along. We can act grace until we feel grace; we can practice mercy until we live mercy.
The other problem with masks is that they are heavy. Masks of false-pride, worn to glorify us at the expense of others, are stressful as we need to maintain them at all times, less our true selves poke through and our vulnerabilities be revealed. Masks of humility prevent us from taking time for ourselves and run us the risk of pouring so much of ourselves into service of others that we have nothing left to give. And the more we wear them, the more of them we seem to pull on, needing different masks for different occasions, until our necks and shoulders become worn down with the weight of disguise.
The gift of Ash Wednesday and indeed of all of Lent, it offers us a time to take off all the masks, both those that serve us well and those that serve us poorly, to evaluate them, to work the kinks out of our shoulders, and to pick up again only the ones that serve us well, and wear them only when they are helpful. Ash Wednesday and Lent are about cutting through all of the false narratives and covered images, laying all of that bare, so we can figure out who we truly are, so that when Easter comes and we step out of the tomb, we carry with us only the things that we need, nothing more and nothing less.
When Jesus taught his disciples about religious life, about almsgiving and prayer and fasting, he did not tell them not to do those things. But rather he told them: give alms to serve others, not to serve yourself. Jesus’ audience were not the wealthy and well-to-do, they were poor. The almsgiving Jesus called them to was not about giving huge checks so that others would think well of them, but was about sharing resources so that what was not enough for one became enough for all. I think, for example, about our relationship with the Co-op. We are a small church with too much building and a hunger for mission, they are a large organization with a strong mission and no building. Alone we as a congregation would be struggling in this space, and they would be without a roof. Together, their mission becomes ours, and helps sustain our worship life while filling our building with people throughout the week. It is not giving so that others think well of us, rather it is sharing out of our abundance to fill each other’s weaknesses so there is enough for all.
Jesus said: Pray to talk to God, not to show others how great you are at praying. Have you ever met someone who spends so much time talking about what a great listener they are, that you cannot get a word in edgewise? Prayer is about relationship, it is about building a relationship with God. If we’re so busy praying so that others may see our great faith, then we don’t have time to hear what God is saying in return. Jesus prayed a lot, and he prayed in public a lot, but when he prayed in public, it wasn’t about being seen, but rather it was about teaching people how to pray, about modeling his relationship, so others may learn how to find their own.
Jesus said: Fast to serve others, not to have others take pity on you. The prophets have long associated fasting with acts of social justice. One of the options for the Old Testament reading for tonight is from Isaiah 58, part of which reads: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house.” Fasting isn’t about giving up food so that you suffer for Jesus, it is about creating space in your life to live in Jesus. It is about remembering that food or chocolate or Facebook or whatever you are giving up is not in the end the master of you, but Jesus, who calls you beloved, is the one in whom you live.
On Ash Wednesday we make ashy crosses on our foreheads to remind us of our brokenness, our sinfulness, and our mortality. We disfigure our faces with ash, not like the hypocrites, who disfigure their faces to show others, but to remind ourselves that the clean, clear image we portray is just that, an image. We are not immortal, moral, right-living beings, we are complex, complicated, stuck in sin and struggling with doubt. There is freedom in that. This ashy cross invites us to lay down our masks at the foot of the cross and hear only the words spoken to us through our baptism, you are my child, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.
When we make the cross of ashes on our foreheads, we hear these words, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” There is harsh reality in this. The only thing we are promised in this life is that we will not get out of it alive. Everyone, from the holiest to the most profane, from the weakest to the strongest, will not live forever. We all will die, and when we die, our bodies will return to the dust from which we came. There is, as the writer of Ecclesiastes said, a time for everything. It is humbling, this reminder that we will become dust.
We will become dust, but we are also made of dust. At the dawn of creation, God gathered dust in divine hands, and breathed life into the dust to create humanity. As our knowledge of science has increased, so has our realization of our interconnectedness with this universe God created. The same atoms, the same combinations of protons and neutrons, that form the ground we walk on, the air we breathe, the mightiest of mountains, the stars that shine, those same atoms are what make us. We are mortal beings composed of immortal elements, bound together by the breathe of the divine into the image of God.
So let this ashy cross on your forehead be a reminder for you, of your humanity and brokenness, but also of the promise that from the dust of creation, you were made in God’s own image, filled with God’s own breath. Let the promise of both of those truths free you to take off all the masks and be wholly yourself, so that you may put on only the ones that serve you well, only those that reflect the blessedness of you were created. Amen.
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