Pancakes & Ashes
There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. (Ecclesiastes 2:24, KJV)
One will have to give account in the judgment day of every good thing which one might have enjoyed and did not. (The Talmud)
Therefore last night pancakes were served at churches throughout Christendom.
In our years at Trinity, Apalachicola, Jimmie Nichols always took great pride and joy in making a ticket selling contest of the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. He liked to issue everyone in the parish a stack of tickets to sell to family, friends and neighbors. If you didn’t sell your tickets, Jimmie expected you to buy them yourself. Jimmie always sold dozens of tickets, and promoted the event such that on Shrove Tuesday evening, Benedict Hall, the parish house, was jammed with townsfolk, coming and going, visiting and eating. The kitchen was crowded with cooks and servers. It was the social event of the season, enormous fun in a town that itself was for us a joyful place to live.
My custom those fourteen years was to enjoy the camaraderie, eat my pancakes, then go outside while the noisy festivities were still going on, and burn leftover and returned palm crosses from last year’s Palm Sunday, to make my ashes for the next day’s Ash Wednesday service.
During my Cove School and Bay High years, the Catholic kids showed up at school one day a year with a smudge on their foreheads. What?! They explained that it was Ash Wednesday and they had just come from church and had been bidden to wear the ashes all day. It was a form of Christian witness for them. Worked its way into the Episcopal Church, and probably other churches too.
My theology of Ash Wednesday is a little different, comes from the gospel for today.
1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. 2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: 4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; 18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6. KJV)
Sure enough, let your forehead be marked with the ashes as the sign that “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But then wash thy face before going out in public lest, in displaying your piety for the world to see, you are found to be in disobedience to Jesus’ teaching.
TW+
Is that really in the Talmud? Don't know. It showed up on the internet this morning during my search about pancake suppers.