Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 Psalm 51:1-17 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 In the play of life, what role are you playing? What character do you act out for the world? Perhaps it’s the role of dutiful worker that you bring to life or enthusiastic student or maybe you’re trying to play that fictional character the one who can do everything effortlessly and to perfection. You have multiple roles in life, facades that you put on and take off like masks and you’ve been doing it for so long that it seems to be a part of who you are, you’ve become so good at playing these characters that you have trouble distinguishing where the character stops and you begin we all do it, we get so caught up in the expectations and fantasies of a society that tells us we have to act a certain way and buy certain products so that our lives will be better, we’ll feel younger, live longer, be one of the attractive people without worries, that if we make smart decisions or vote for this party or that party that everything will be okay and if we don’t everything will be horrible. Into this whirlwind steps Ash Wednesday and says ‘Stop. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ and with those words and a smear of ash on our foreheads, we are brought back to the fundamental truth of life that we all started as dust and will end as dust and nothing we do, no role we play will change that fact. It’s a sobering moment and it serves as an invitation, an invitation to return to God, who molded us at the beginning, who breathed life into us and who knows exactly who we are, no matter what we tell ourselves or others, and who loves us as we are. The invitation of Lent is an invitation to return to authenticity, it’s an invitation to see ourselves as we are without the masks and characters because that is who God loves, that is who God goes to the cross for. Jesus teaching his disciples tonight points out the hypocrites, I think our general definition of hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another and that’s relatively easy to disassociate ourselves from, we generally see ourselves as consistent in what we say and do, it’s easier to see hypocrisy in someone else than in our own lives, but what Jesus is pointing to has more to do with the intent behind actions than the consistency of word and deed, In the Greek language, a hypocrite is one who plays a part, especially on the stage, a hypocrite is an actor who changes masks with the change of a character. The flaw that Jesus points out in the hypocrites is not their actions, giving alms, praying and fasting are all good honorable actions in and of themselves, what Jesus is critiquing is the reason the hypocrites are giving alms and praying and fasting, they want to be seen by others. They are playing the role of a pious person, it’s a character acted out on a stage so that others will honor them as a pious person, rather than actions that are intended to care for the poor, build a genuine relationship with God and heighten spiritual awareness. Rend your hearts and not your clothing says the Lord in our first reading and when we look at it this way we begin to see ourselves in the people Jesus is pointing to, we think of the time when we went to church because we wanted people to see that we went to church, or the time when we smiled and said ‘I’ll pray for you’ and then did no such thing, or when we went and did a service project and made sure that pictures of us working were pasted all over social media. Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; Stop. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. In the end it doesn’t matter what other people think. What matters is your relationship with God who formed you from dust, who loves you so much that Jesus, the Son of God died on the cross, for you, who in the waters of baptism joined you to the death and resurrection of Jesus, marking you as God’s own in the shape of the cross on your forehead claiming you so that death will not have the last say, so that freed from the fear of death we no longer need to try to escape from it by playing a variety of characters but instead we turn around, look death in the eye we mark it on our foreheads and then we walk through it to the new life on the other side because with God death is always followed by new life. Amen
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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