Ash Wednesday March 6, 2019
Isaiah 58:1-12 Ps.103
1 Cor. 5:20b-6:10 Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21
For those of us who might be crassly literal about our Gospel reading for tonight, we might think that the words of Jesus falsify my ministry, and the ministries of all clergy who are the visible leaders of their flocks. We want as many people as possible to be seen praying on on the streets where our houses of faith are located. And we won't even judge your motives for being seen at our places of worship; unless you're only there to sell us Amway products.
The words of Jesus paint a target on us as religious leaders since we are one's seen in holy haberdashery and how can we avoid being seen wearing such colorful vestments. We have the "uniforms" which announce that we are "religious."
I really don't think the words of Jesus are about the only authentic prayer and piety being done in one's private rooms or closets. If Jesus only wanted private prayer, we'd all be bedside Baptists or pillow Presbyterians, lonely Lutherans, marooned Methodists or erstwhile Episcopalians. Is Jesus implying that only private piety is valid? Is Jesus discouraging any public display of piety? No PDA's, no public displays of affection for God. Is Jesus saying this about public displays of public affection for God, "Get a room, a very private room?"
What Jesus is highlighting is that we can have pious public behaviors for all of the wrong reasons. What Jesus highlights is the issue of letting good motives of the heart be expressed in the outer lives where we live in the main location of our lives. We don't mainly live in private rooms or on street corners, but we live in our bodies and our bodies can have many locations and our bodies can be in private rooms or on street corners.
So what is the issue? The issue is the motive of our hearts in our piety and practice of our religious faith. Having a right heart is the issue. Having a clean heart is the issue. One of the Psalms for Ash Wednesday is the cry, "Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me." Isn't having a clean heart the main issue in how we express our piety?
Lent is a season when we ask God over and over again to do some spring cleaning in our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah wrote the heart of each person is, above all things, exceeding deceitful. Jesus said out of the heart comes all manner of evil. Sigmund Freud said, the unconscious mind is polymorphously perverse. Martin Luther indicated that we are continuously depraved even as our depravity co-exists with God's grace whose Holy Spirit within us becomes the only clean heart we can ever have; but we have to learn to get out of the way so the Holy Spirit as a pure heart can be expressed within us.
Having the expression of public piety without the social and communal ethical and just results is what seems to driving many Americans to the religious category of "nones." Not catholic monastic sisters but persons who have deny membership in any religious group, church, synagogue, mosques. Social researchers who ask the "nones" about why they refuse identity with religious groups, often respond that religious people behave and think badly. The "nones" believe that they can be spiritual or ethical without being religious.
This situation is a challenge for us who are not "nones." We are threatened with our irrelevance and obsolescence of our public piety.
But this is hardly a new issue for any community of faith. The issue was raised by the prophets and by Jesus and by many other writers of the New Testament. It has to do with pretending to keep the first great commandment without keeping the second great commandment. It is pretending that we can love God without loving our neighbor.
I can put on a good show of my love of God as a I participate in pleasing liturgies, even as I walk out of worship and ignore the crying needs of so many people who live close to me. Jesus shocked the law abiding young rich man when he told him to sell what his possessions give to the poor. Ratify your love of God by loving your neighbor as yourself.
The writer of the Epistle of James noted the hypocrisy of gathering for prayers while one's brothers and sisters were living in poverty. The writer of the Epistle of John wrote that we cannot say that we love God whom we can't see if we don't love our brothers and sisters whom we can see.
So what is the clean heart issue in making our piety both privately and publicly valid? The issue is love. St. Paul wrote that we can all of the religious gifts and look very religious, but if we don't have love, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.
What do we have to say to the "nones" today? Public religious piety in the history of churches has gone on while ignoring or supporting slavery, while living with the subjugation of women, while refusing the protection of children, and while refusing the just inclusion of LGBTQ persons in our faith communities. If public religious piety does not result in the comprehensive care of the people in our world and the wise stewardship of the earth's resources, then we are guilty of being noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. The "nones" are saying to us, "Who needs you?" Even our secular constitution and our democratic ideals are making the law of love known as justice extend to more people than our religious communities are reaching.
We begin this season of Lent convicted by our need to sew together continually the first great commandment and the second great commandment. This is always the challenge for us to live authentic private and public lives of piety. We can only validate our love of God by loving our neighbors; all of our neighbors.
Tonight, let us not despair because of our failures. Let us be thankful for when love has prevailed; when our private and public pieties have been made valid by God's grace. But let us not be hypocrites to the "nones" of the world; let us not display our religious piety if we are not rigorous in our attempts to love our neighbors as ourselves as we seek to care for them with the very same care and acceptance which we want for ourselves.
May God help us during this Lenten Season to hold together the first and second great commandments, and if we are successful at love, we can know that our public and private prayers and religious ministries have been valid. Amen.
The words of Jesus paint a target on us as religious leaders since we are one's seen in holy haberdashery and how can we avoid being seen wearing such colorful vestments. We have the "uniforms" which announce that we are "religious."
I really don't think the words of Jesus are about the only authentic prayer and piety being done in one's private rooms or closets. If Jesus only wanted private prayer, we'd all be bedside Baptists or pillow Presbyterians, lonely Lutherans, marooned Methodists or erstwhile Episcopalians. Is Jesus implying that only private piety is valid? Is Jesus discouraging any public display of piety? No PDA's, no public displays of affection for God. Is Jesus saying this about public displays of public affection for God, "Get a room, a very private room?"
What Jesus is highlighting is that we can have pious public behaviors for all of the wrong reasons. What Jesus highlights is the issue of letting good motives of the heart be expressed in the outer lives where we live in the main location of our lives. We don't mainly live in private rooms or on street corners, but we live in our bodies and our bodies can have many locations and our bodies can be in private rooms or on street corners.
So what is the issue? The issue is the motive of our hearts in our piety and practice of our religious faith. Having a right heart is the issue. Having a clean heart is the issue. One of the Psalms for Ash Wednesday is the cry, "Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me." Isn't having a clean heart the main issue in how we express our piety?
Lent is a season when we ask God over and over again to do some spring cleaning in our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah wrote the heart of each person is, above all things, exceeding deceitful. Jesus said out of the heart comes all manner of evil. Sigmund Freud said, the unconscious mind is polymorphously perverse. Martin Luther indicated that we are continuously depraved even as our depravity co-exists with God's grace whose Holy Spirit within us becomes the only clean heart we can ever have; but we have to learn to get out of the way so the Holy Spirit as a pure heart can be expressed within us.
Having the expression of public piety without the social and communal ethical and just results is what seems to driving many Americans to the religious category of "nones." Not catholic monastic sisters but persons who have deny membership in any religious group, church, synagogue, mosques. Social researchers who ask the "nones" about why they refuse identity with religious groups, often respond that religious people behave and think badly. The "nones" believe that they can be spiritual or ethical without being religious.
This situation is a challenge for us who are not "nones." We are threatened with our irrelevance and obsolescence of our public piety.
But this is hardly a new issue for any community of faith. The issue was raised by the prophets and by Jesus and by many other writers of the New Testament. It has to do with pretending to keep the first great commandment without keeping the second great commandment. It is pretending that we can love God without loving our neighbor.
I can put on a good show of my love of God as a I participate in pleasing liturgies, even as I walk out of worship and ignore the crying needs of so many people who live close to me. Jesus shocked the law abiding young rich man when he told him to sell what his possessions give to the poor. Ratify your love of God by loving your neighbor as yourself.
The writer of the Epistle of James noted the hypocrisy of gathering for prayers while one's brothers and sisters were living in poverty. The writer of the Epistle of John wrote that we cannot say that we love God whom we can't see if we don't love our brothers and sisters whom we can see.
So what is the clean heart issue in making our piety both privately and publicly valid? The issue is love. St. Paul wrote that we can all of the religious gifts and look very religious, but if we don't have love, we are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.
What do we have to say to the "nones" today? Public religious piety in the history of churches has gone on while ignoring or supporting slavery, while living with the subjugation of women, while refusing the protection of children, and while refusing the just inclusion of LGBTQ persons in our faith communities. If public religious piety does not result in the comprehensive care of the people in our world and the wise stewardship of the earth's resources, then we are guilty of being noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. The "nones" are saying to us, "Who needs you?" Even our secular constitution and our democratic ideals are making the law of love known as justice extend to more people than our religious communities are reaching.
We begin this season of Lent convicted by our need to sew together continually the first great commandment and the second great commandment. This is always the challenge for us to live authentic private and public lives of piety. We can only validate our love of God by loving our neighbors; all of our neighbors.
Tonight, let us not despair because of our failures. Let us be thankful for when love has prevailed; when our private and public pieties have been made valid by God's grace. But let us not be hypocrites to the "nones" of the world; let us not display our religious piety if we are not rigorous in our attempts to love our neighbors as ourselves as we seek to care for them with the very same care and acceptance which we want for ourselves.
May God help us during this Lenten Season to hold together the first and second great commandments, and if we are successful at love, we can know that our public and private prayers and religious ministries have been valid. Amen.
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