March 2, 2022 – Ash Wednesday
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21[1]
We’ve all made New Year’s resolutions, right? We promise to quit
smoking, to lose weight, to get better grades, to make the team, to spend more
time with our families. How’d that work out for you? For me, it usually lasts
for a few days, but then I slip, skip, or fail. Try again next year, I guess.
Often, it seems as if Lent is “New Year’s resolutions part 2.” Only this time
there’s more guilt because you’re not just failing yourself, you’re failing
God! “What are you giving up for
Lent?” is the question I heard as a kid. Was I a bad Christian because, at
first, I didn’t understand the question? My answer was “Um, nothing”? I felt
like I was missing out on something, something important.
What is Lent really about,
anyway? “The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer —
through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual
commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus.”[2]
Prayer serves to direct our attention to God. Penitence is “the condition of
being sorrowful and remorseful for sins one has committed.”[3]
Almsgiving is charity, giving to those in need and thus showing love for our
neighbor. And self-denial is the giving-something-up which is meant to redirect
our thoughts and energy from bodily or earthly things to spiritual or divine
things. Lent was originally the time when candidates prepared for baptism,
which took place during the Easter vigil, the Saturday night before Easter
Sunday morning. It was an intense period of fasting and prayer.
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the forty-day period leading up
to Easter Sunday. (Sundays are not counted as part of Lent since every Sunday
is a celebration of the resurrection.) The forty days symbolize the forty days
Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness before he began his public ministry. Ash
Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of
the faithful as a sign of repentance. The act echoes the ancient Near Eastern
tradition of throwing ashes over one’s head to signify repentance before God.[4]
You may recall that Job, after arguing his case before God and being humbled,
repented in sack-cloth and ashes. The ashes are also a reminder of our
mortality, as we read in Genesis 3:19, “You are dust, and to dust you shall
return.”
Of course, all of this tradition seems to be just the opposite of what
the biblical texts we just read tell us. Isaiah, speaking for God, asks: “Is
such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself… and to lie in sackcloth
and ashes?” (58:5) Matthew, quoting Jesus, says: “And whenever you fast, do not
look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show
others that they are fasting.” (6:16) Hypocrisy, making a show of faith without
any substance, without action to back up the words, is bad religion. Don’t just
talk the talk, walk the walk. Actions speak louder than words. The words from
Isaiah and Matthew remind us that God knows when we’re faking it.
So why should we celebrate Lent, and why, especially, should we put
ashes on our faces? Well, for starters, showy religiosity is not really
something we get accused of a lot. We tend to be quite humble in our piety,
anonymous in our charity; we never pray in public and we put on a happy face
even when we feel miserable, depressed, or hungry for something we cannot find.
If anything, we’re not showy enough. But I’m not suggesting the opposite
extreme. Please, go home and wash your face tonight, if you like. No, I don’t
know where you can find sack-cloth. And, don’t go stand on the street and start
shouting prayers; you’re likely to get arrested.
We should receive the ashes and celebrate Lent because we need help
keeping our focus on God. It’s okay if we stumble, if we fail, if we fall
short. God knows that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Lent will
come again, and we can give it another try. But we should try, because when we
do, we store up treasures in heaven, and that
treasure can’t be taken from us.
There is value in ritual. There is something powerful in the act of
repentance, here before one another, and that power can make a difference in
the way we live our lives. If this year we give Lent another try, really take
it seriously, maybe something in us can change for good. Maybe something in the
world around us can change for good.
Rather than a fast of self-denial as expressed by going without food, or
sweets, or indulgences, let us choose the fast of other-sustaining. We
know this by the phrase “love your neighbor.” It’s something we already do, but
we can take this moment, these forty days, to give our other-sustaining efforts
a new intensity.
Share your bread with the hungry, and the Food Pantry customers will be
grateful. Bring the homeless poor into your house; they may be angels in
disguise. Give clothing and household items to people in need; you may turn a
house into a home. We have already done good work to help others through our
offerings and donations. But this is just treating the symptoms, not curing the
disease. We can do so much more. We can do more to loose the bonds of injustice,
to let the oppressed go free, and to satisfy the needs of the afflicted.
This Lenten season let us really try to be constant in prayer, to seek
God in every moment, prepared to answer when we hear the call. This Lenten
season, let us repent; not merely feeling sorry for the wrong things we have
said and done, but really making an effort to correct our mistakes. This Lenten
season, let us be generous with our money, with our time, and with our love. This
Lenten season, let us deny ourselves what we don’t need, and sustain others
with all that we can. This Lenten season, may our light rise in the darkness
and raise up the foundations of many generations.
There is a spiritual I learned in seminary that speaks to the spirit of
Lent, and how I can best direct my thoughts and my actions this season, and
every day. It goes like this:
Woke up this mornin’ with my mind, stayed on Jesus
Woke up this mornin’ with my mind, stayed on Jesus
Woke up this mornin’ with my mind, stayed on Jesus
Hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah.
Amen.
[1] The
scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[3]
Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary
of Theological Terms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996).
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