A time to get personal
Commentary
Ash Wednesday services are well-rooted in some traditions and absent in others though an increasing number of congregations in these traditions are starting to recognize the day in a variety of ways. Some offer brief services of prayer and reflection at times when people can stop to participate on their way to or from work. Some have fuller services of Word and Sacrament. Some sort of Ash Wednesday gathering is an appropriate way to signal the congregation that Lent is a time for inward journeys.
My own preference for sermon style on Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday is to prepare a brief but pointed meditation and deliver it without either notes or manuscript directly before the congregation for maximum face-to-face contact. Lent is a time to get personal. Jesus does just that in today's gospel reading. His commands are addressed to all of us, but can only be obeyed by each of us individually. The Lord's words here raise our discomfort index. But then, coming to terms with him is in the end a personal encounter and struggle.
The traditional actions of Ash Wednesday have been prayers and litanies of confession and contrition. This alone makes the emerging rediscovery of the day worthwhile. We live in a no-fault culture where the sense of accountability to a transcendent God has gone into eclipse. It is through the confiteor that the praying church bears witness in the culture around us that there is a God who cares for us and calls us to live responsibly before him.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
My personal preference for an Old Testament reading would be from another source such as the first chapter of Isaiah. I am bothered by Joel's vision of a punishing God who dispatches swarms of locusts to plague the already drought-scorched earth. The thought of God as a punitive authority figure lingers in our world, a "God will get you for that" Archie Bunker kind of theology. John H. Snow in The Gospel In A Broken World, a book he wrote when he was Professor of Pastoral Theology at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reports the comments made to him by a house painter. "Reverend, I don't believe in God. But I just wish there was a God." "Why is that?" Snow asked. "Because I'd like to see even a few people get what's coming to them!"
The reading from Joel perpetuates this idea of a punitive God and can provide theological justification for ecclesiastical or civil authoritarianism. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans speaks about the wrath of God which is something quite different. The human arrogance that denies accountability, love, and justice causes social chaos, not as punishment but as consequence.
2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10
Verses 5:20b--6:2 proclaim the reconciling God who takes the initiative in the rebellious human community. I understand Paul in verse 20 to be saying in effect that Jesus identified with those excluded from the pale of respectability and labeled as sinners by the ruling piety and was so labeled himself. He reached out because God is a redeeming and reconciling God.
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Jesus is the speaker and we are the hearers. The commands in the form of a triptych concern the practice of piety via almsgiving, prayer, and fasting (6:6, 16-18). The threefold command to secrecy invalidates three practices that were at that time revered by the public and held to be external signs of godliness and virtue. Jesus announces that religious prestige and social adulation were not signs of conformity to God's will. The cultural situation around us has changed. In terms of our secular culture the commands negate the things that are held to constitute success: wealth, celebrity status, position.
The opulence of Herod's court set a standard of ostentation on the part of the wealthy. Having wealth was held to be a sign of God's favor and those who had it flaunted it. Since almsgiving was highly regarded, acting the part of generosity was socially advantageous. Almsgiving time for many was show and tell time (Mark 12:41). In the temple there was a place to leave anonymous gifts. It was called the chamber of secrets. But then, who among us does not enjoy social recognition? Even religious institutions and seminaries which raise funds artfully play to this desire by setting up by designated amount prestigiously named categories of giving and then publishing the names of the donors. So much for the command of Jesus!
Do the commands to secret prayer and fasting have anything to say to the use of pious rhetoric in public life or the way a self-serving agenda can be cloaked in the robes of piety? Shakespeare's Richard III was a master of deception who cloaked his villainy with "odd ends stole out of holy writ."
But then I sigh; and with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odds old ends stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
-- King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3
Matthew's gospel contains the miracle story of the coin in the fish's mouth (Matthew 17:24-28). It is an odd story that is generally ignored, but quite appropriately related to today's gospel reading. The background is the issue of paying the temple tax and Peter appears a bit miffed as if there should be some special recognition of the church via an exemption. This may in fact reflect an issue in the early church. Jesus tells Peter he will find a coin with which to pay the tax in the mouth of a fish. This is a private and secret miracle. Peter is given a secret sign of the Lordship of Jesus, he does not need public recognition or special status. Does the name of God have to be emblazoned on our coins and prayers said in public? Do we need social recognition as a sign to us?
There is a polemic note in the words of Jesus, but the command is directed to the practice of his followers, us. He is speaking to that universal instinct within us that the late Halford Luccock called "the drum major instinct." Verses 19-21 call us to check our values lest valuing the things money can buy we are bankrupt of the things money cannot buy. Certainly celebrity status and social praise are among the perishable values. The Lenten journey to the cross will involve one in struggle with the dominant values of our own culture.
My own preference for sermon style on Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday is to prepare a brief but pointed meditation and deliver it without either notes or manuscript directly before the congregation for maximum face-to-face contact. Lent is a time to get personal. Jesus does just that in today's gospel reading. His commands are addressed to all of us, but can only be obeyed by each of us individually. The Lord's words here raise our discomfort index. But then, coming to terms with him is in the end a personal encounter and struggle.
The traditional actions of Ash Wednesday have been prayers and litanies of confession and contrition. This alone makes the emerging rediscovery of the day worthwhile. We live in a no-fault culture where the sense of accountability to a transcendent God has gone into eclipse. It is through the confiteor that the praying church bears witness in the culture around us that there is a God who cares for us and calls us to live responsibly before him.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
My personal preference for an Old Testament reading would be from another source such as the first chapter of Isaiah. I am bothered by Joel's vision of a punishing God who dispatches swarms of locusts to plague the already drought-scorched earth. The thought of God as a punitive authority figure lingers in our world, a "God will get you for that" Archie Bunker kind of theology. John H. Snow in The Gospel In A Broken World, a book he wrote when he was Professor of Pastoral Theology at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reports the comments made to him by a house painter. "Reverend, I don't believe in God. But I just wish there was a God." "Why is that?" Snow asked. "Because I'd like to see even a few people get what's coming to them!"
The reading from Joel perpetuates this idea of a punitive God and can provide theological justification for ecclesiastical or civil authoritarianism. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans speaks about the wrath of God which is something quite different. The human arrogance that denies accountability, love, and justice causes social chaos, not as punishment but as consequence.
2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10
Verses 5:20b--6:2 proclaim the reconciling God who takes the initiative in the rebellious human community. I understand Paul in verse 20 to be saying in effect that Jesus identified with those excluded from the pale of respectability and labeled as sinners by the ruling piety and was so labeled himself. He reached out because God is a redeeming and reconciling God.
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Jesus is the speaker and we are the hearers. The commands in the form of a triptych concern the practice of piety via almsgiving, prayer, and fasting (6:6, 16-18). The threefold command to secrecy invalidates three practices that were at that time revered by the public and held to be external signs of godliness and virtue. Jesus announces that religious prestige and social adulation were not signs of conformity to God's will. The cultural situation around us has changed. In terms of our secular culture the commands negate the things that are held to constitute success: wealth, celebrity status, position.
The opulence of Herod's court set a standard of ostentation on the part of the wealthy. Having wealth was held to be a sign of God's favor and those who had it flaunted it. Since almsgiving was highly regarded, acting the part of generosity was socially advantageous. Almsgiving time for many was show and tell time (Mark 12:41). In the temple there was a place to leave anonymous gifts. It was called the chamber of secrets. But then, who among us does not enjoy social recognition? Even religious institutions and seminaries which raise funds artfully play to this desire by setting up by designated amount prestigiously named categories of giving and then publishing the names of the donors. So much for the command of Jesus!
Do the commands to secret prayer and fasting have anything to say to the use of pious rhetoric in public life or the way a self-serving agenda can be cloaked in the robes of piety? Shakespeare's Richard III was a master of deception who cloaked his villainy with "odd ends stole out of holy writ."
But then I sigh; and with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odds old ends stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
-- King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3
Matthew's gospel contains the miracle story of the coin in the fish's mouth (Matthew 17:24-28). It is an odd story that is generally ignored, but quite appropriately related to today's gospel reading. The background is the issue of paying the temple tax and Peter appears a bit miffed as if there should be some special recognition of the church via an exemption. This may in fact reflect an issue in the early church. Jesus tells Peter he will find a coin with which to pay the tax in the mouth of a fish. This is a private and secret miracle. Peter is given a secret sign of the Lordship of Jesus, he does not need public recognition or special status. Does the name of God have to be emblazoned on our coins and prayers said in public? Do we need social recognition as a sign to us?
There is a polemic note in the words of Jesus, but the command is directed to the practice of his followers, us. He is speaking to that universal instinct within us that the late Halford Luccock called "the drum major instinct." Verses 19-21 call us to check our values lest valuing the things money can buy we are bankrupt of the things money cannot buy. Certainly celebrity status and social praise are among the perishable values. The Lenten journey to the cross will involve one in struggle with the dominant values of our own culture.
