Ash Wednesday
As you know, Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent. Lent was originally a time for people to prepare for baptism at Easter. In the early Church, these were people who were leaving Paganism. We tend to think of Pagans as a bunch of nature worshipping hippies. But when you look into it, there was some pretty dark stuff happening there. (There’s stuff that just isn’t even right for me to repeat here.) So, those who were coming to be baptized had to be prepared. They were going to be washed outwardly, but they also need to be washed inwardly, and part of that was learning a new way to be in the world. This is sometimes called a Phronema- this means something like “mindset”. When Paul talks about having the “mind of Christ” in Philippians 2, this is what he is talking about. It is a new way of seeing the world. It means replacing old patterns of thinking with new ways of thinking. It means replacing old assumptions with new assumptions. … It takes time to move from a Pagan worldview into a Christian worldview. Lent was a time to prepare to make that transition.
Eventually, Christians joined these new converts in their time of preparation. So now, it isn’t just about preparation for baptism, it is a time of return and reorientation. It is a spiritual “reset”. Lent is a season for honest confession, courageous self-examination, and renewed identity in Christ. It is a time to renew our mindset- our Phronema.
What kind of a renewal- what kind of a reset- are our readings saying we need? Joel tells us, “rend your hearts and not your garments”. … Tearing your clothing was a way of expressing deep emotional pain. You might tear your clothing when you heard about the death of someone you love. You might tear your clothing if you heard someone speak a deeply offensive blasphemy. You might tear your clothing when you are confronted by the depth of your own sin. … It was about your world being shattered. It is an outward action that expresses the inward state of the heart. …
But, it is possible for an outward action like that to not reflect the heart. You can tear your clothes without feeling it. A sacrifice was meant to be a meal of hospitality to help you to draw close to God. But you can also offer your sacrifice to “fit in” with the community, or to show off the extravagance of your sacrifice. To show how generous you are, or how spiritual you are. … You can offer your sacrifice without God ever entering your mind.
Jesus in Matthew 6 is warning about a similar problem. He says, “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.” We can give to the poor, merely for the tax benefit. We can give so that we are recognized as a generous person- for the recognition. Jesus says, if that’s why we did it, then we receive that reward and we shouldn’t expect any recognition from God for it.
We can pray in a way that we want people to look at us and how spiritual we are. We can show of our insightful and elegant words, mindful of those overhearing, and never really allowing it to enter our mind that we are talking to God- a real Person- Who is really listening to us.
We can fast in such a way that everyone around us knows it. It can become an athletic feat of the will, a badge of honour. And Jesus says, if that is what we are doing, then we have received our reward.
What do we treasure more, impressing others, looking holy in the eyes of others, or connecting with God? What do we treasure more. Jesus says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”
Sin is sneaky. We can even do holy things with bad motivations. We need our mindset healed. We need our hearts healed. We need our desires healed so that we can want the right things.
The ashes we are about to receive are an outward expression of our inward need. We are ashes. We were made from the dust of the ground and we will return there. Apart from God, that’s how we all end up. And that is meant to wake us up to the seriousness of our situation. …
But we know we can even wear these ashes wrongfully, so we cry out to God to heal our convoluted desires, and our muddled motivations. Maybe I don’t even want to be healed, but I ‘want to’ want to be healed. … So we come, as muddled as we are, hoping that God can set us right, and trusting the Jesus knows how.
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