Late entry: Ash Wednesday Sermon
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Well, here it is once again Ash Wednesday. You’ve all gone through this strange Lenten ritual of having these ashes put on your forehead in the shape of a cross. Have you ever really thought about what that means?? Have you ever really thought about why we put these ashes on our forehead on Ash Wednesday? Or do you just do it every year because that’s how it’s been your whole life and that’s just what you do on Ash Wednesday?
Do you do it so you’ll look pious?? Do you do it because you’re afraid of what others might think if you don’t do it? I mean really, that is kind of one of the results of this ritual. On Ash Wednesday, some Christians are easy to identify because they will have the ashes put on their foreheads. Christians can identify each other on Ash Wednesday, and we can look pious and holy in front of the non-Christians.
So is that why you do it?? If it is then it flies in the face of what Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson for this evening. Our Gospel lesson begins with Jesus giving a warning against practicing piety in front of others so that you will be seen by them. He says that when you give alms you are not to sound a trumpet as the hypocrites do so that they may be praised by others.
Does that go on today? When someone gives to the church or a charitable organization do they sound a trumpet so that they will be praised? When you see a building that is named after a person, like say the Phil Jackson fieldhouse in Williston, why do you think the building bears that person’s name? More than likely it has a lot to do with the fact that the person whose name the building bears, probably donated most of the funds that were needed to finance the building.
But you say, oh that’s a high school, that’s a public building, that doesn’t go on in faith-based organizations. Well, next time you go to the Bethel Lutheran nursing home, take a look at what you see on the wall in first hallway to your left as you enter the building. You will see a display that acknowledges the different groups and individuals who have given to the nursing home. The more the person or the individual gave, the more space their name is given on the wall.
But you say, oh well that’s a nursing home, sure it’s faith-based but it’s not the church. That type of thing doesn’t go on in the church. Open up a hymnal to the very front. There’s a pretty good chance that it might have one of these which acknowledges who bought the hymnal and in whose memory the funds were given.
Now, I am not suggesting in any of these scenarios that the only reason the money was given was so someone could be praised and recognized. But these scenarios do speak to an inherent need and desire that we all have, to have our good deeds and our acts of piety recognized.
But Jesus’ warnings about proper piety are not about how visible we are when we do our good deeds or acts of piety. He isn’t saying that we need to hide our acts of devotion to Him so that nobody knows about them. He isn’t saying that we need to keep them a secret.
It’s about remembering why we do them and for whom we do them. It’s about remembering the only reason why we have alms or money to give, or food to fast from in the first place is because God has entrusted us with it.
There is a scene from a movie that I really enjoy called Rudy that I think really kind of gets to the heart of proper piety. Rudy is a movie about a young man who dreams of one day being able to play on the football team for the University of Notre Dame. In this one scene Rudy seeks out the counsel of the campus priest after receiving yet another letter of rejection from the admissions department of Notre Dame. Rudy is at his wit’s end and is beginning to think that he may never even attend Notre Dame, let alone play on their football team.
The priest can see that this experience is actually beginning to effect Rudy’s faith. In light of this he says to Rudy “In all my years of ministry, I have come across two hard and incontrovertible facts; there is a God, and I am not Him.”
Recognition of that is at the heart of proper piety and devotion. God is real and you are not Him, but you are His. You are His because He sent His Son to die for your sin, to bear the burden that you couldn’t bear, and to pay the price that you couldn’t pay. God sent His son whom Paul describes in the lesson from 2nd Corinthians as Him “..who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
And that is why we wear the cross on our forehead. It’s not about showing off our personal piety and devotion. It’s not about looking good in front of people. It’s not about showing who we are, it’s about remembering whose we are. We have been claimed by Christ and marked with the cross and we are ambassadors for Christ.
Paul spells out what it means to be an ambassador of Christ in verse 15 and16 of this chapter from 2nd Corinthians where he writes of the love of Christ urging us on because Christ Jesus died for us. He writes those of us who live in Christ, no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and was raised for us, and that in that freedom we are to regard nobody from a human point of view, which in the Greek is translated as according to the flesh.
What this basically means is that all of our relationships are to be governed by the fact that Christ has died for all. The value that we place on people is not to be based on what church they go to, or even whether or not they go to church. How we relate to any people should be based on the fact that Christ died for all, and in baptism we have been made His ambassadors; ambassadors of His love of His grace and of His promise of redemption and eternal life through His death and resurrection. And that is why we wear the ashes on our forehead on Ash Wednesday.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Well, here it is once again Ash Wednesday. You’ve all gone through this strange Lenten ritual of having these ashes put on your forehead in the shape of a cross. Have you ever really thought about what that means?? Have you ever really thought about why we put these ashes on our forehead on Ash Wednesday? Or do you just do it every year because that’s how it’s been your whole life and that’s just what you do on Ash Wednesday?
Do you do it so you’ll look pious?? Do you do it because you’re afraid of what others might think if you don’t do it? I mean really, that is kind of one of the results of this ritual. On Ash Wednesday, some Christians are easy to identify because they will have the ashes put on their foreheads. Christians can identify each other on Ash Wednesday, and we can look pious and holy in front of the non-Christians.
So is that why you do it?? If it is then it flies in the face of what Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson for this evening. Our Gospel lesson begins with Jesus giving a warning against practicing piety in front of others so that you will be seen by them. He says that when you give alms you are not to sound a trumpet as the hypocrites do so that they may be praised by others.
Does that go on today? When someone gives to the church or a charitable organization do they sound a trumpet so that they will be praised? When you see a building that is named after a person, like say the Phil Jackson fieldhouse in Williston, why do you think the building bears that person’s name? More than likely it has a lot to do with the fact that the person whose name the building bears, probably donated most of the funds that were needed to finance the building.
But you say, oh that’s a high school, that’s a public building, that doesn’t go on in faith-based organizations. Well, next time you go to the Bethel Lutheran nursing home, take a look at what you see on the wall in first hallway to your left as you enter the building. You will see a display that acknowledges the different groups and individuals who have given to the nursing home. The more the person or the individual gave, the more space their name is given on the wall.
But you say, oh well that’s a nursing home, sure it’s faith-based but it’s not the church. That type of thing doesn’t go on in the church. Open up a hymnal to the very front. There’s a pretty good chance that it might have one of these which acknowledges who bought the hymnal and in whose memory the funds were given.
Now, I am not suggesting in any of these scenarios that the only reason the money was given was so someone could be praised and recognized. But these scenarios do speak to an inherent need and desire that we all have, to have our good deeds and our acts of piety recognized.
But Jesus’ warnings about proper piety are not about how visible we are when we do our good deeds or acts of piety. He isn’t saying that we need to hide our acts of devotion to Him so that nobody knows about them. He isn’t saying that we need to keep them a secret.
It’s about remembering why we do them and for whom we do them. It’s about remembering the only reason why we have alms or money to give, or food to fast from in the first place is because God has entrusted us with it.
There is a scene from a movie that I really enjoy called Rudy that I think really kind of gets to the heart of proper piety. Rudy is a movie about a young man who dreams of one day being able to play on the football team for the University of Notre Dame. In this one scene Rudy seeks out the counsel of the campus priest after receiving yet another letter of rejection from the admissions department of Notre Dame. Rudy is at his wit’s end and is beginning to think that he may never even attend Notre Dame, let alone play on their football team.
The priest can see that this experience is actually beginning to effect Rudy’s faith. In light of this he says to Rudy “In all my years of ministry, I have come across two hard and incontrovertible facts; there is a God, and I am not Him.”
Recognition of that is at the heart of proper piety and devotion. God is real and you are not Him, but you are His. You are His because He sent His Son to die for your sin, to bear the burden that you couldn’t bear, and to pay the price that you couldn’t pay. God sent His son whom Paul describes in the lesson from 2nd Corinthians as Him “..who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
And that is why we wear the cross on our forehead. It’s not about showing off our personal piety and devotion. It’s not about looking good in front of people. It’s not about showing who we are, it’s about remembering whose we are. We have been claimed by Christ and marked with the cross and we are ambassadors for Christ.
Paul spells out what it means to be an ambassador of Christ in verse 15 and16 of this chapter from 2nd Corinthians where he writes of the love of Christ urging us on because Christ Jesus died for us. He writes those of us who live in Christ, no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and was raised for us, and that in that freedom we are to regard nobody from a human point of view, which in the Greek is translated as according to the flesh.
What this basically means is that all of our relationships are to be governed by the fact that Christ has died for all. The value that we place on people is not to be based on what church they go to, or even whether or not they go to church. How we relate to any people should be based on the fact that Christ died for all, and in baptism we have been made His ambassadors; ambassadors of His love of His grace and of His promise of redemption and eternal life through His death and resurrection. And that is why we wear the ashes on our forehead on Ash Wednesday.
Amen
posted by Steve at 10:56 AM
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