Words for Ash Wednesday: Mark That Place
I’ve been gifted the trust of the pulpit and leadership of an Ash Wednesday service for a congregation this year. The scripture readings for the homily are: Isaiah 58:1-12 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.
Here are the words I will offer.
From the first notes of O Come, O Come Emmanuel, through the baptismal waters of the Jordan, past temptation, a first miracle, and straight on through to the empty tomb, we Christians seem to race from Silent Night, Holy Night to Christ the Lord is Risen Today. Tonight, we pause to recognize the beginning of Lent. The forty days between the end of Epiphany and Easter. The words of Isaiah are trying to shake us from our comfortable fasting routine. The words of Jesus are trying to wake us from the daydream that public piety is righteous living or even life-giving.
We live in a GPS (global positioning system) world. Our inclination in this busy, fast-paced, FOMO culture is to punch Jerusalem into the GPS and take a straight line, the quickest path to Hosanna, and the stone rolled away from the tomb. Lent is a reminder that a journey with Jesus meanders. We want the certainty of a straight and quick trip, even if that includes a toll road called “giving something up.” Lent is a choice.
Lent is a journey. The map has marked trails, arrows, landmarks, bridges, and few written directions. Places are marked on the map: wells where strangers meet and draw water for one another, waterfront property can become teaching space for pesky parables, and dusty roads are places where Samaritans live the commandments better than I do.
There are stories about the journey scribbled around the edges of this incomplete map: how to avoid sinkholes, dangerous passages, thieves, and persons selling “authorized” directions to a promise land and privilege. There are stories about hospitable, safe spaces and the helpers.
Christians think of ourselves as an Easter people, as if Easter is a destination. For some, it is simply a tourist attraction to sell and buy all the appropriate painted trinkets, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and jewelry for sale. For others, it is an oasis on the journey, but eventually, we all must decide what to do after Easter vacation. The journey through Lent is an invitation. You have to choose to accept it.
This may be your first journey, and you may not know where the path begins. Look for the helpers. You may have walked this way before but forgotten where the path is. Isaiah is a good marker of the path. Speaking to those returning from Babylonian exile, Isaiah reminds the people that the rituals they observe are self-serving rather than illuminating. Isaiah’s words are for anyone returning from exile, thinking that the old ways were the good old days.
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. (Isaiah 58:3-4)
Rev. Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners magazine, once lived in a neighborhood where children go to sleep to the sounds of gunshots. His hope for our nation’s future and what religious faith can mean to people is highlighted in the stories he tells about talking to young people all over the world who are volunteering their time to tutor and mentor younger children. At an event several years ago, I heard him talk about the young adults and college students he meets who are tutoring inner-city kids in Washington, D.C. He said, “They volunteer many more hours than are needed to balance a resume.” A question from the audience asked why he thought they did that. He responded, “The two most common words I hear are meaning and connection. They are looking for meaning and looking for connection.”(1). In a sermon, Wallis said:
The prophet’s call is as contemporary as if it were written yesterday. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless into your house, when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? And this is the key: “Then will your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily.” (Isaiah 58:8). Isaiah understands that it’s not the healing of those poor inner-city kids that’s at issue here; it’s our healing. And the college students are finding that the way to get your life together is to do something for somebody else. This is two people being changed. It’s a transformation. Everybody gets “different” in the process. Everybody gets healed.
Jim Wallis, “We All Get Healed”, 30 Good Minutes, Program #4416, November 21, 2000.
What one does on the journey through Lent can bring transformation. What are you willing to do with someone else or for someone else that might transform their lives, and maybe yours? When that happens, mark that place on the map.
The Gospel of Matthew casts an image of an edgy Jesus. Sometimes, his words sound more like “John the Baptist” than Pascal Lamb. More flame thrower than humble table host. Matthew’s edgy Jesus reminds us:
Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your God in heaven. (Matt. 6:1)
This is where Christians have gotten into trouble throughout the centuries. It is rare these days not to hear a nod to God or Jesus following a victory in a sporting event, accepting a Grammy or an Oscar, winning an election, or escaping tragedy when others do not. That may be one’s belief, and gratitude is important, but the implication of that piety. Does God take sides? No doubt there are times we hope and pray that God does. There have been times in my life life that it felt like God chose a side. What about you? Some expressions of modern Christianity like making a spectacle of their outreach, worship, evangelism, morality, or political reach. As we meander with Jesus is he asking us to reconsider that piety? Is Jesus asking us to reconsider the cross as a public religious statement or as fashionable pop culture?(2)
Matthew’s edgy Jesus might sound like this today.
Whenever you give alms, just put your gift into the tray or bucket quietly. Whenever you pray, go into your room and pray. And when you are fasting, do not look dismal to show others that you are fasting. God in heaven knows why you give, pray, and fast. (paraphrase of verses in Matt. 6:5-7)
I can hear Jesus asking, “Why, why, why?”
Are we seeking approval?
Are we measuring ourselves next to other believers, trying to attain their portion of the spirit, or trying to prove a superior understanding of scripture or God?
Are we seeking capital “T” truth or reassurance or influence or hoping to become influencers?
Along the journey, you might reflect on your motivation for practicing Christian faith. Yes, I mean practice. No one becomes a musician, artist, athlete, performer, or preacher without practice. It might not make you perfect, but it could make you proficient. It will help you improvise in the challenging times. So, “give, pray, and fast. Sing, forgive, do justice. Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, keep Sabbath. Offer hospitality, serve the poor, care for the planet.”(3)
Diana Butler Bass suggests that “By practicing our faith, we actually become all the things we promise to be in our baptism vows, we become citizens of the Kingdom of God, the radical followers who embody the beloved community that Jesus proclaimed.”(4)
Treasure can be many things. It may be dollars and cents, stocks, bonds, real estate, family, friendships, or even eternal life.
Treasure may be transforming your heart to see the image of God in other people. The journey may help you discover meaning and connection. Meaning and connection may bring illumination about what you treasure most. The journey through Lent may help you discover that, contrary to conventional wisdom and traditional Christian interpretation, you are originally blessed, and there, there, your heart will be also. When you experience it, mark that place.
Someday, you may pass by this way again and need the reminder.
Someday, another person may pass by and need a marker to know the way; and you can be a helper.
God’s grace doesn’t require reciprocity.
You have to choose to accept it.
You have to be willing to be changed by it. Again and again and again. And when you do, when you experience it, mark that place.
Notes
1. Paraphrase of Wallis, speaking to a session at the Society of Biblical Literature conference, November 2006.
2. This is why I do not wear my religious symbols in public. The fish neckless I wear is my reminder of my call to ministry, my discipleship as a follower of Jesus, and the obligations of my belief in God.
3. Diana Butler Bass, “Practicing Lent.” 2014. The Cottage Substack, February 14, 2024. https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/practice-the-cross.
4. Bass, “Practicing Lent.” 2014.