B Ash
Wednesday 2021
Matthew
6:1-6, 16-21
February 17, 2021
Our culture sends out a
message that would enslave us to a gospel of prosperity, competition, violence,
warfare, and death. We are ultimately
defeated when we have no hope of another way.
Not only do we find ourselves anxiously worrying what will happen to
ourselves if we do not swallow the cultural gospel, we find ourselves possessed
by it. We lose hope in the way God has
set before us, that Christ’s gospel will bring us the things we ultimately
need, and we begin practicing prosperity, competition, violence, warfare, and
death ourselves. We know we need
transformation, some radical change, we just do not know how to get there.
In Henri Nouwen’s book, With Open
Hands, the story is told of an old woman brought to a psychiatric
center. She was wild, swinging at
everything in sight, and scaring everyone so much that the doctors had to take
everything from her. But there was one,
small coin she gripped in her fist and would not give up. In fact, it took two men to pry open that
squeezed hand. It was as though she
would lose her very self along with the coin.
If they deprived her of that last possession, she would have nothing
more and be nothing more. That was her
fear.
That is very often our fear. We are forever invited by God to open our
tightly clenched fist and to give up the thing that possesses us. But who really wants to do that? We hold fast to what is familiar, even if we
aren’t proud of it. We clutch onto
prosperity, competition, violence, warfare, and death so tightly that it
becomes all we know, the only spiritual practice we have learned.
In Jewish faith and tradition, three
spiritual practices were considered the standard for making a way for God’s
work in the world—almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Christ outlines their character and content
in our gospel passage for today. He
makes it clear that they are not to be outward shows but about inward
commitments. Spirituality is about that
inward commitment to do something over and over again as a way of transforming
our character which ripples out to transform the character of our systems and
structures.
We do not have to do something huge. We just have to do it over and over
again. The popular rock band U2 has a
song entitled “Beautiful Day.” The
opening lyric to that song is “The heart is a bloom”; “Shoots up through the
stony ground.” In the middle of the
song, the songwriter asks us to believe that there is still hope for them, the
songwriter is not beyond the pale. And
throughout the song, the songwriter knows they can be that bloom in stony
ground as their eyes begin to see not so much the truth of beauty within
themselves but the beauty they see of God working throughout the world—the
world in green and blue, canyons broken by a cloud, a Bedouin fire in night, a
bird with a leaf in her mouth. And yes,
such beauty that you see being accomplished out in the world is also breaking
out within you. God at work in the
beauty around you confirms God at work in the beauty inside of you. See that in you now, the greens and the
blues, the canyon broken by a cloud, the Bedouin fire at night, the bird with a
leaf in her mouth. It’s a beautiful day,
inside of you. God is at work.
In effect, that is the role of spirituality within
our culture. Not alone, but as a
community we are called to be a bloom that shoots up through the stony ground
by practicing almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.
The beauty is happening, God is at work, within you.
We can start from where we are. God forever offers an amazing grace to
begin. Begin small and begin
practicing. Almsgiving, prayer, and
fasting are all about reminding us that we are not alone. Indeed, almsgiving suggests that we are
willing to recognize the world as bigger than ourselves. In a culture which seeks to divide and
conquer, almsgiving suggests that we will reach across the division to
give. Almsgiving asks, “Where will you
put your resources?”
Prayer expresses solidarity with our God and
neighbor. Prayer expresses our
willingness to work with God to create green and blue, to share beauty and love
for all. Prayer asks, “With whom or what
will you stand?”
And finally, fasting is detaching ourselves from a
culture that seeks to destroy beauty and life and love. In the book of Joel, fasting was the way the
community was called together in repentance.
It shows hope in another way.
Fasting asks, “To what will you refuse to give your energy, your
presence, your resources so that you may be free to give that energy, presence,
and resource to beauty, life, and love?”
So today we recognize our need to reenter our
tradition and claim almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. We begin small. We are like water dripping on concrete. Those who are not in the struggle for the
long haul would never guess that water could change the concrete. But we know, we know as we look out at water
that has carved mountains over time and by snow that has broken pavement in a
season, by a bloom of a rose that has been fed in stony ground—the slow drip of
water will change the concrete.
So on this Ash Wednesday, I encourage all of us to
receive the amazing grace of God to begin again and begin small with practices
of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.
Let us now spend time in silent meditation, thinking
to what practice of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting we will give ourselves this
Lenten season—at least once a week, every week.
You will be like water on concrete, slowly and surely dripping,
transforming yourself . . . drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .then rippling out,
joining others, to transform your world.
You become a mighty river, an everflowing stream. May it be so.
Amen.
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