Remember You Are Dust
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
What would it be like to attend your own funeral? Many people in South Korea are “dying” to find out. Back in 2016, when I was living in Korea, I read with some amusement and fascination an article in The New York Times that profiled an organization that was offering a program that allowed people to experience their own mock funeral.
After exchanging their street clothes for a burial shroud, participants are led into a large room filled with neatly arranged rows of identical, nondescript wooden caskets. Beside each casket is a small desk. On the desk is a lone candle and a photo of the “deceased” as they would like to be remembered, along with a pad of paper for writing their last testament, which some manage to do only through tears.
The atmosphere becomes even more solemn as the lights are turned off, indicating that it’s time to die. Amid the flickering light of the desk candles, the dead lie down in their caskets, which are real caskets used for cremation. Workers clad in traditional clothing pass through the rows closing the lids and snuffing out the candles. The room goes completely dark and silent for 10 minutes, which I imagine feels more like an eternity.
Who would put themselves through such a morbid experience, and why? According to the director of the program, some are people with terminal illnesses who want to prepare themselves for dying. Others have struggled with suicidal thoughts that they would like to dispel (South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world). And, believe it or not, some employers even send their employees as part of a motivational and team-building program.
As to why someone would want to experience their own funeral, many participants report experiencing a new outlook on life after having had a taste of death.
We all put on a performance because we think that if people knew what we were really like, then no one would respect us, love us, or want to be with us.
I don’t know whether the organization that runs this program has any religious affiliation, but in any case, Christians have our own version of this: It’s called Ash Wednesday. Each year on Ash Wednesday we are reminded of, and compelled to reckon with, our own mortality, a topic that we spend the other 364 days doing our best to ignore. But on Ash Wednesday we are told, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Not only does Ash Wednesday invite us to ponder our mortality, it also allows us to see ourselves as we truly are, and not as we present ourselves to others. This is the gist of the Gospel reading from Matthew. We hear Jesus warn against making a show of our piety, of performing so as to win the approval of others.
“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do…so that they may be praised by others.”
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.”
“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting.”
The Greek word for “hypocrite” that Matthew uses repeatedly refers to a stage actor, someone who is literally putting on a show. The hypocrite wants to be recognized for their performance while hiding the fact that it is a performance. They want so badly to be perceived as better than they are so that they might win the approval of others.
It’s tempting to think of hypocrites as a people set apart from us. Those people over there. But the underlying motivation of the hypocrite—the desire to be perceived as better than they are, so as to earn approval and recognition—is a universal human tendency. We all put on a performance because we think that if people knew what we were really like, then no one would respect us, love us, or want to be with us. And so we store up for ourselves treasures on earth in our preferred currency—the approval of others.
But Ash Wednesday invites us to stop pretending and to be honest with ourselves. In the ash with which we mark our mortal bodies we see the two forces to which all human life is subject: sin and death. The ash marks us as a people who are already dead in sin.
But that’s not all we see. In the ash we also see the mark of the cross, a cross that marks us as God’s own. It’s a mark that says, “Remember you are dust…but remember also that you are loved. Remember that you are forgiven. Remember that you are free to be honest about who you actually are because that is the person whom Jesus loved unto death.
I joked earlier that Ash Wednesday is a kind of collective funeral service. Therefore it’s only appropriate that I close with a prayer that we often hear at funerals. It’s a prayer that reminds us that through Christ’s death and resurrection, Christians are able to see not only death in life but also life in death. Let us pray.
O God, who gave us birth,
you are ever more ready to hear than we are to pray.
You know our needs before we ask,
and our ignorance in asking.
Show us now your grace,
that as we face the mystery of death
we may see the light of eternity.
Speak to us once more your solemn message of life and of death.
And when our days here are ended,
enable us to die as those who go forth to live,
so that living or dying,
our life may be in Jesus Christ our risen Lord. Amen.