Ash Wednesday
6:1"Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
6:2"So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
6:4so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:5"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. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:6But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:16"And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,
6:18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,
6:20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
6:21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
It is an amazing thing that we human beings can twist even our religious practices to our own selfish ends. Religious practices that are designed to help us acknowledge our own brokenness can even be used to brag about how ‘spiritual’ we are. Wearing ashes to mark a time of repentance is an ancient symbol, and we have been able to twist it, so that instead of humbling us, it can become an expression of spiritual pride to show how ‘spiritual’ we are. …
That’s what Jesus is warning about in our reading.
Our Matthew reading creates a tension for us. We wear ashes as an ancient biblical way of marking our season of repentance and fasting. … But Jesus tells us not to. So, perhaps we should wipe the ashes off our foreheads so we aren’t tempted to show off our ashes as a badge of honour.
However, are we wiping the ashes off for the right reason?
Do we wipe them off to avoid spiritual pride, … or do we wipe them off out of the embarrassment of walking around with an ashen cross on our foreheads in a culture that is less and less Christian- where people are likely to look at us funny, or to see us as naïve and superstitious religious fanatics?
We are forced to make a decision tonight by looking at our motivations- whatever we decide. Which one is your temptation- are you tempted towards showing off how spiritual you are, or are you tempted to hide your faith?
Lent is a time to reflect on our motivations. It is a time to be aware of the subtle movements within our soul.
Jesus tells us that when we do “spiritual” acts for any reason besides our love of God, then our reward will not come from God. If we desire to be well thought of, to be acknowledged as a generous or spiritual person, then that human acknowledgement is the only reward we will get. … But, if our motivation is to serve God, to worship God, to place ourselves into God’s hands, then our reward will come from God.
Why do we use ashes today? Ashes remind us of our death. God says to Adam when he is exiled from the Garden, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). … When Abraham is talking with God about the coming judgement on the city of Sodom, Abraham says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes” (18:27). Dust and ashes are what is left of us when death and decay has had its way with us. Dust and ashes are what’s left after the fire of judgement.
So, wearing ashes is a way of remembering that our life will end, and our bodies will return to the dust. It is a way of remembering that we are not God. James writes, "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14). We can avoid the thought of our death a lot of the time, but Lent is a time to be reminded that we have a limited amount of time on this planet. With that in mind, we ask ourselves, ‘how are we spending the hours and days we have?’ Will we reach the day of our death and be comfortable with how we spent our time?
My friend Andrew says that putting on ashes isn’t like putting on other things. It’s not like putting on a jacket. In a way, putting on ashes is putting on nakedness. It is putting on vulnerability. We expose what we are without God. He says that the Ashes we put on today are a kind of reverse sacrament. A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The Ashes are an outward and visible sign of our inward and spiritual need.
During Lent, and especially on Ash Wednesday, we remember that to be human without God is to be dust. We come before God as creatures doomed to the dust apart from the grace of God. We have no rights we can call on to demand that God extends our consciousness beyond this life. We come to God as beggars. We come to God as prodigal children, who have taken for granted the inheritance we have been given. We come as lost sheep, who have explored the dark wilderness too far from our shepherd. We throw ourselves on God as those doomed to become dust unless God does something to save us. … And this is our position until we follow Christ through his Passion.
AMEN
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