These verses from Matthew’s Gospel that we hear each year on Ash Wednesday are from a section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the first of five discourses Jesus makes in Matthew. This is the sermon that gives us the beatitudes and later the Lord’s prayer. Jesus is teaching the disciples about the promise of God's blessing and a new kind of kingdom righteousness that looks different from the Roman occupation they have known.[i] And in this part of his sermon, Jesus warns his followers against performing their faith “like the hypocrites” who were the stage actors of the day.
It’s hard to ignore the irony that here on Ash Wednesday we listen to Jesus teach about giving and praying in secret and yet, in a few minutes I will mark an ashen cross on your forehead and you will walk back out into the world with the ashes visible for all to see.
With his warnings about practicing piety in public though, Jesus was contrasting the public displays that were part of Roman patronage designed to bring special attention to those in power.
Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage and all men and women merely players.” But the kingdom of heaven is not a stage.
There is more to following Jesus than playing a part. Discipleship isn’t about wearing the right clothing, costume or mask, and it isn’t about remembering the right words or following a script. Ash Wednesday invites us to stop role playing, or pretending, and move from performance to relationship, where we find our identity as followers of Jesus.
Wearing the ashes marked into a cross on our own skin is not a prideful or vainglorious action. Instead it is an act of humility. With these ashes, we acknowledge our own human frailty and mortality. We recognize that our identity is not found in ourselves, our achievements or our abilities, but in Christ alone.
It may be the person you next see will try to wipe away the smudge on your forehead, not understanding its significance. But others will see the cross and know that it marks you as a Christian entering the season of Lent.
The trumpet that Matthew bans becomes the trumpet calling us together to worship in the prophet Joel’s words. Ushering us into Lent, Joel calls the whole community together, from the infant in arms to the elderly, and tells us what the Lord commands:
return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.[ii]Like Matthew, the prophet’s concern is not on outward appearances or performances but what is happening within us in our hearts.
The prophet’s call is communal and it is personal. It is not private.
And while often the Hebrew word in this text shuv suggests repentance — turning around and changing direction —Hebrew professor and Episcopal priest The Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney suggests on this day, in this text, it can be read as “a call to draw closer to God.”[iii]
At the beginning of this forty days we are being called to rededicate ourselves to a life following Jesus.
The prophet promises forgiveness from our tender God, who “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”[iv]
And forgiven, we come to the Table to receive the wine and bread, to be fed and nourished with the gifts of God that will sustain us in the desert wilderness of Lent.
Let us pray…
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.[v]
[i] “Matthew.” Enterthebible.org, Luther Seminary. https://www.enterthebible.org/newtestament.aspx?rid=2, accessed 2/25/2020.
[ii] Joel 2:12-13a
[iii] The Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney. “Commentary on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.” Workingpreacher.org, Luther Seminary. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3564, , accessed 2/25/2020.
[iv] Joel 2:13b
[v] Book of Common Prayer. The Episcopal Church.
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