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SERMONS

Ash Wednesday
February 21, 2007

By The Rev. Alston Johnson

The writer Samuel Johnson was a keen observer of human behavior. He once said to his friend James Boswell, “Boswell, no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.” What Johnson is saying is that people might be hypocrites in a variety of other places in their lives - but that their pleasures and their passions tell the true story of their soul’s.

Ash Wednesday is a day when we openly admit that Samuel Johnson was more than a little bit right. We admit that in the midst of pursuing the holiness and righteousness of God, we are perhaps not as single-minded, as when we are pursuing our pleasures. The heart divides as it moves from pursuing pleasure to pursuing holiness; and today we call that division what it is - wretchedness.

Each of our lessons points to the reality of the divided heart in the service of God. Isaiah illustrates the Hebrew word - “hata - to sin,” to strike and miss, to miss the mark, to miss the right turning in your heart and mind, to miss the right road. And in this case, “to miss” the appropriate worship of God; to fast more in the imagination, than in the heart and the life.

“Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?”

Get real, says the Lord. You are playing games, little religious games, to entertain yourselves. Let me show you what fasting is . . . break the yokes, share your bread with the hungry . . . give the homeless a bed, cover the naked . . . that is how you will come to know me, that is how I will come to be honored by you.

That is how you will “shuv,” return, turn around, return to the right road. That is how you will “SHUV - repent.”

Paul is saying something similar to the Corinthian Church - “we urge you not to accept the grace of God in vain.” Do not waste your time. More importantly, as the Church, do not waste the time of others, do not become impediments of salvation for others.

Do not simply prolong your conflicts and your insincere teaching. Do not simply seek to avoid the truth of the Gospel. Do not simply choose an easy way.

Be ready to endure hardship for the truth of the Gospel . . . be ready for afflictions, beatings, calamities, riots, imprisonments, sleepless nights, be ready for all of these rather than accept the grace of God in vain . . . rather than make the grace of God and the Gospel something empty, vapid, vain, and useless.

Because THIS is the day of salvation . . . it is not floating somewhere in your own religious imagination and personal consciousness and self-awareness, those may not be the most reliable compass . . . no, this day, this day, is the day to make good on the promises of God.

Jesus points his finger in the same direction to the heart of our divided conscience; where we either seek to please God, or to please others and ourselves.

Essentially Jesus tells us that we should not give in order to get. In our prayers, in our doing good for others, in our fasting and repentance, in our storing up of treasures, do not be one who gives in order to get something for yourselves; whether it be self-congratulations to shore up your pride, congratulations from others to shore up your reputation for goodness and holiness, congratulations from the world to shore up your reputation for success, all of these are illusions and a kind of play-acting and posturing in the eyes of God.

Remember, Jesus is saying, your motivations are transparent in the eyes of God; don’t be a fool and fool yourself.

You would think that monasteries and convents would be places where individuals would most certainly be able to avoid the mendacity inherit in the human heart. Places where individuals who have taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience would have healed the divisions of a divided heart.

However, Benedict of Nursia, the founder of Western monasticism, was not so confident. One of the provisions of his early Rule of Life, written about the year 530, was that old clothing should be returned when new clothes were given, and no one was allowed to wear old and frayed robes. At some point in the year old garments were gathered up and burned.

The idea was that nothing should be used to the point of becoming a badge of personal piety and holiness; lest a very devout brother or sister begin to harbor sentimental and prideful thoughts about the extreme austerity they had undertaken for the sake of personal devotion.

“Just look at the torn and frayed patches over brother so and so knees. He is always on his knees in prayer - so devout, so holy, so otherworldly.” There were to be no merit badges for personal holiness.

Today we put the ash of this world on our foreheads as a sign, as a reminder to ourselves, to one another, that we know where our treasures ultimately live - whether they be gold and silver, whether they be a good reputation and the esteem of others, or whether they be like the frayed and worn knees of a monastic robe, a sentimental and prideful attachment to personal piety.

Ultimately they are all dust and God will be owned by none of them.

If it is true that no one is a hypocrite in their pleasures, we seek today to make it also true that we are not hypocrites in our religion and our devotion to God. Let us be true, let us be transparent, let us see ourselves as God sees us.

“For he himself knows whereof we are made . . . he remembers that we are but dust.”