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There are better times to sing that fabulous hymn than a holiday weekend when it doesn't relate to the lectionary.

Furthermore, there are other hymns in the Hymnal 1982 that mention “labor.”

So here's a sort of tongue-in-cheek list of replacements for the Labor Day weekend “Come, labor on” selection.

• Hymn 226/227: ”Come, thou Holy Spirit bright”
  Did I just write about this recently? You betcha. The relevant verse is in the second stanza:

  In our labor, be our aid

• Hymn 228: “Holy Spirit, font of light”
  Unsurprisingly, the above verse also gets translated in this version of ”Veni Sancte Spiritus.”

  On our journey grant us aid,
  freshening breeze and cooling shade,
        in our labor inward rest.

• Hymn 278: “For all the saints, who from their labors rest”
  Why not set our human labor in contrast with those who have been set free?
• Hymn 424: “For the fruit of all creation”
  The second stanza of this hymn, by F. Pratt Green, might genuinely be perfect for Labor Day.

  In the just reward of labor,
     God’s will be done.
  In the help we give our neighbor,
     God’s will be done.
  In our world-wide task of caring
  for the hungry and despairing,
  in the harvests we are sharing,
     God’s will be done.

• Hymn 482: “Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy”
  Here, again, we need look no further than stanza two:

  Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
  whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,
  be there at our labors, and give us, we pray,
  your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

• Hymn 564/565: “He who would valiant be”
  The end of this Percy Dearmer hymn has something to say about the direction in which we should labor.

  Then fancies flee away;
  I’ll fear not what men say,
  I’ll labor night and day
     to be a pilgrim.

• Hymn 586: “Jesus, thou divine Companion”
  The second stanza of Henry Van Dyke's hymn speaks to Jesus' presence among those who work:

  Where the many toil together,
     there art thou among thine own;
  where the solitary labor,
     thou art there with them alone;
  thou, the peace that passeth knowledge,
     dwellest in the daily strife;
  thou, the Bread of heaven, art broken
     in the sacrament of life.

  The third stanza, too — just perfect for Labor Day. We don't sing this hymn enough.

• Hymn 705: “As those of old their first fruits brought”
  Another brilliant summation of the work of the Christian life is found here in the second stanza.

  A world in need now summons us
     to labor, love, and give;
  to make our life an offering
     to God that all may live;

Labels: Hymn 226, Hymn 227, Hymn 228, Hymn 278, Hymn 424, Hymn 482, Hymn 564/565, Hymn 586, Hymn 705, hymns, Percy Dearmer

We're a week away from the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday, the date when the church begins its season of Lent (the 40 days before Easter).

Our Prayer Book offers a lot of commentary on this day and the season within the Ash Wednesday liturgy itself.

And that's just it.

I keep hearing of more places that are offering "ashes to go" or priests (and lay people?) who are willing to just head out into the street and offer ashes to those who want them.

It's all very well and good to say the words "remember you are dust . . ." as you apply these ashes to someone on the street, but what have you lost in taking the Imposition of Ashes out of its full liturgical context?

Many things. Just running down the liturgy: preparation, prayer, readings, the invitation to a holy Lent, litany of penitence, Eucharist, etc.

But more than this, I think we've lost perspective on what worship is. Who we are. Who we are called to be.

The litany of repentance offers confession of "our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us", and this is for people who are already in the church!

How much more me-centric can it get than, "oh, thanks for coming out here as I do my own very important things so that I can quickly, and tangentially be reminded of God's presence and my own mortality"?

This fosters the impression, as my rector put it recently, "that our lives are our own".

In fact, I think carrying the ashes outside the church building itself and away from any sense of liturgical connection implies exactly the opposite meaning that this Imposition is meant to have.

In his A Priests Handbook Dennis Michno opines:

It is inappropriate to distribute or impose ashes outside of the above [Ash Wednesday] liturgy. For serious pastoral reasons, ashes may be imposed at other times in a setting of penitence and confession. The act of receiving ashes must not become a focal point of this day but rather a sign of the day, a sign that is part of the penitential beginning of the season of Lent.

When we try to evangelize with our ashes, or simply make them more available, we don't offer people much and we deny them everything about the liturgy.

Liturgy is not evangelism (see Aidan Kavanaugh Elements of Rite), nor is it convenient (see the wonderful title of Marva Dawn's A Royal "Waste" of Time).

It's really too bad that more and more of the Episcopal Church seems so eager to take Ashes to the streets without thinking through the theological implications of what they are doing.

This brings to mind a phrase of Percy Dearmer who, writing in 1919 about his frustration with churches carrying out rituals without understanding their meaning, said

That is the condition of most of our churches all over the world at the present day ; that is the impression they make, both in service-time and when they are empty. The ashes of a little fire that has gone out.

Labels: Ash Wednesday, liturgy, Percy Dearmer