Tuesday, March 5, 2019

What's My Motivation? (Reflections on Ash Wednesday)


Image result for images for Ash Wednesday
“Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2:13)

I used to have this old guy in my congregation—a fellow who has now, alas, gone home to the Lord—who would send me angry letters and emails whenever I referenced American politics, current events, or popular culture in my Sunday homily. “I’m not interested in your opinion, Pastor,” he’d write. “I came to church to hear about Jesus!”

I can’t say that I disagree with him. If we are thirsty for the Word, we want to hear it from Jesus. But nevertheless, I think it’s not such a bad idea at times to consider our own situation in history and how the words of Jesus relate to who we are. If all we care about is our own relationship with God and our personal salvation, and we have no interest in the world around us, I think we just might be missing the point.

The Ash Wednesday Gospel is the same every year. We hear the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount (specifically, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21). It’s pretty unambiguous stuff. Jesus is warning us about practicing our piety in public. I could probably just read this and sit down as I don’t think there’s anything too complicated in what the Lord is telling us here. He means what he says. No parables, no allegories. Simple.

BUT (and there’s always a “but”), implicit in Jesus’ exhortation about practicing piety publically is the expectation that we should always be practicing piety. We just want to be really, really clear about what our motives are in doing so. If we’re looking for praise or a sense of self-congratulation, or if we want to show that we’re “right” so we can sneer smugly at those who are “wrong,” our actions might not be that pleasing to our Heavenly Father. Under those circumstances it’s not really piety. It’s hypocrisy.

Yeah, it’s all about motive. Want an object lesson? You don’t have to look much further than the testimony given last week by Michael Cohen before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Mr. Cohen, for over a decade the personal attorney of Donald Trump, rolled over on his old boss calling Trump a racist, a con-man, and a cheat. My question to him would be, “Why did you work for him? What motivated you to be his toady?”

Why do any of us do the things we do?

Here’s one possible answer: Sin.

Yeah. Sin. Sure, every stupid decision we made looked like a good idea at the time. It’s only when we, like poor Mr. Cohen who is going to jail for three years, face the “day of clouds and thick darkness”[i] that we start to recognize that our motives weren’t very pure. We realize that we’ve been lazy, and we’ve avoided facing the truth. We suddenly find out that we were okay accepting simplistic answers to complex problems. We’ve looked the other way, blamed other people, washed our hands of responsibilities, and chased after short-term pleasures at the risk of long-term problems. We’ve stood aloof to the suffering of others as long as we ourselves feel comfortable and not threatened. But the threat is still there. The day of the Lord is coming.

Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, is the time we force ourselves to confront our apathy and hypocrisy. It’s the day we remember that our life won’t last forever. Dust we are, and to dust we will return—and we don’t know when.

We can, however, read the writing on the wall. Our planet’s climate is changing. Our healthcare costs are still going up. Our government gives tax breaks to billionaires, and it’s anyone’s guess how those breaks will be paid for—very likely with cuts to social programs. The pundits are already predicting another recession by the end of next year.[ii] We are also being told that church attendance in America is dropping like a rock. Lutheran congregations in Northeast Philly have been folding up like last year’s Arizona Cardinals.[iii]

All the above begs the question of what we are motivated to do. Do we choose comfort or sacrifice? Ourselves or a cause greater than ourselves? Do we hope for the best or take the time really to understand what the best is? Jesus is asking us to seek him in prayer, be generous and merciful givers, and to weigh our priorities. The Lenten traditions of fasting, sacrifice, and abstinence are, after all, means by which we distinguish our desires from our needs.

If ever there was a time to get our act together as Christians, this is that time. Since the US Congress has chosen, in its wisdom, to give us all a tax cut, I’m planning on taking the extra five bucks a week which that cut has put in my paycheck and returning it to my congregation so we can go on providing a healing space for the addicted, a shelter for the homeless, and a garden and food collection site for the hungry. I am encouraging everyone to be faithful in their prayers, in their giving, and in their worship so the mission of Christ’s church may continue.

This is the time to repent of any apathy and be prepared to sacrifice. If our motives are for the glory and goodness of Christ’s witness, I don’t think he’d mind a little public piety.



[i] See Joel 2:2, part of the Hebrew scripture lesson for Ash Wednesday.
[iii] My apologies to Cardinals fans, but your team DID suck last year.

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