“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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