Gordon E. Ellis
Ash Wednesday
March 1, 2006
KILL THE CYCLOPS
I’m sure you’ve all HEARD of the CYCLOPS, that strange MONSTER with one big EYE in the middle of its forehead! And when we LOOK at a picture of a CYCLOPS, we think: What a STRANGE and bizarre creature a Cyclops IS, with its one big EYE right here in them middle of its forehead. And what an UGLY creature too!
Well, I hate to tell you, but for 325 days of EVERY year (and for SOME of us, 365 days of every year) we are ALL Cyclops! THINK about it! What’s the FIRST thing you THINK about EACH and every morning when you wake up? Well, we ALL think to ourselves first: What am I going to DO today, and HOW will I do it? What will happen to ME today? And how will I feel today? You see: it’s I, I, I! And ALL day long, we think about OURSELVES first. What do we SAY to people during the day? We say things like: I think this! or I think that! I agree! or I disagree! I like THIS! and I DON’T like THAT. And I just want to say this.... You see: it’s I, I, I ALL day long! And what’s the LAST thing that you think about at NIGHT? YOURSELF, of COURSE! And we say things like: I wish that so-and-so would stop doing this or that to me. Or, I really did a good job today! I wonder how I will do tomorrow? Yes, even the LAST thing at night, it’s I, I, I! WHO is Number One in MY life? I am, of COURSE! WHO wants to FIRST in line all the time? I do, of COURSE! WHO is the most important person in the WORLD? I am, of COURSE! And WHAT is at the forefront of my thoughts most of the time? ME, of COURSE! If someone were to open my BRAIN, pull out my FRONTAL lobe and extract the ONE biggest concept in that gray matter, WHAT would it be? Well, of COURSE, it would be: I, I, I! There is ONE great big “I” right here in the MIDDLE of our foreheads! And that’s TRUE for EACH and every ONE of us! WE are ALL Cyclops!
However, the PROBLEM is that, IF you’re a CYCLOPS, you can’t SEE very well when you only have ONE eye. You’re half BLIND. Everything looks FLAT and two-dimensional. You have no DEPTH perception. And SO, the real BEAUTY of this world is LOST on you. And I’m SURE that you’ve SEEN it happen to people around you. Every day we see people walking around, who are totally BLIND to the beautiful things around them, because they are just too busy THINKING. And WHAT are they thinking about? They’re thinking about I, I, I! In fact, I’ll bet MOST of you here today in this BEAUTIFUL church haven’t even SEEN most of the beauty here, because you’ve been too busy FOCUSING on your one big I: WHAT am I going to have for lunch (breakfast, dinner) today? What am I going to do when I LEAVE here today? What am I going to say at work, or to my spouse, or to my CHILDREN? Yes, it’s I, I, I! And all this FOCUSING on your one BIG I leaves you no energy for focusing with your TWO eyes! And SO, you become BLIND to the REAL world around you. So, HOW do we change?
Well, in Greek MYTHOLOGY, the CYCLOPS is KILLED when they take his OWN sword and RUN it through his ONE big EYE: *chxchxchx!*. And, guess what? In a few moments, your PASTORS are going to ATTEMPT to do the SAME thing to you, right here in this church. In a few moments, we will invite you to come forward, and one of us will write a big “I” on your forehead, a big letter I, which stands for that one big I that ALL of us have at the FOREFRONT of our minds ALL day long, that one big I that makes us all CYCLOPS.
And THEN, like the brutal stroke of the SWORD, the pastor will CROSS that “I”, just like this: *chxchxchx!*, to symbolize that, at LEAST for these 40 days of Lent, WE will strive NOT to be Cyclops, NOT to focus on our one big I, on our own ME-NESS, but will TRY to look OUTWARD with our two REAL eyes! And for a CHANGE, we will try to see OTHER people FIRST, as well as the BEAUTY of God’s CREATION. Yes, we need to take that big “I” at the forefront of our minds, and CROSS it out! They USED to call this self-denial or self-mortification. But, it’s just trying very hard NOT to be SELF-centered, which is DIFFICULT in a self-centered CULTURE like ours. It’s HARD to KILL your CYCLOPS! But I would challenge ALL of us to TRY doing it for LENT. And THEN, maybe we’ll be able to carry it forward BEYOND Lent. To HELP us, we have our traditional Lenten DISCIPLINES of fasting and prayer, study and works of love. And I would urge ALL of us to USE them, and use them regularly, especially the works of LOVE, because we have to START looking OUTWARD to others instead of INWARD to ourselves.
Yes, TODAY is a GREAT day to START trying harder to LOVE others. You see: ALL day long today, we’ll be seeing people with black crosses on their foreheads. We do EVERY Ash Wednesday. BUT, be sure to LOOK at them more CLOSELY this year. And IF you DO, you will see that it’s really a crossed-out “I”. And after you SEE that, look BENEATH that crossed out “I” and see two BRIGHT eyes, two INTELLIGENT eyes, and look INTO THEM. SEE in THEM a beautiful creature that God CREATED, and CARE about that creature. CARE about how THEY feel, and ask THEM how they’re DOING. And friends, AS we begin focusing on OTHERS, we end up REPLACING our one big I with a big You. And THAT’S what JESUS asks EACH of us to DO. And the MORE we can DO it, the MORE we will CEASE to be a CYCLOPS, a big I, and become what we’re MEANT to become: more like CHRIST, who lives WITHIN us. As St. Paul SAID: I live… no, not I, but Christ lives IN me.
Friends, TODAY as we put ashes on your foreheads, we will NOT use the TRADITIONAL words: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. INSTEAD, we HOPE that you will remember that we are ALL to try to KILL our CYCLOPS as we say: I? No, not I, but Christ who lives IN me. Let’s take a moment in silence to ponder this thought. Amen.
(With thanks to Fr. Joseph K. Horn)
