by Fr. Rick Morley
St. Mark's Episcopal Church
One of the interesting features of Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary, is that Ash Wednesday's traditional year-after-year Gospel lesson comes after five Sundays in Epiphanytide of Gospel lessons from The Sermon on the Mount.
Unlike years B and C, we get to see the Ash Wednesday Gospel after hearing from the Great Sermon for over a month. We've been well-steeped in the Sermon this year, and it provides an interesting vantage point.
The entirety of the Sermon is about authentic faithful living as the cornerstone of the Kingdom of God. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 is no different.
1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ... 16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Portions of the Sermon on the Mount are Jesus telling his audience, and us, to "do something," and other times he tells us "not to do as others do." In the Ash Wednesday Gospel, Jesus is contrasting an optimal faith (maybe a "true" faith) with the faith of the Pharisees.
Jesus portrays these poor Pharisaical slobs as going through all the motions of religious living, but falling short in grafting faithfulness in their hearts.
For Jesus, faith is meant to be a matter of the heart.
Historically, Lent was a period of time spend catechizing the soon-to-be-batptized. Functionally, today, it's a season where we a meant to 'up our game.'
Some of us, and some of our fellow church-goers will take on a spiritual discipline or two. Some will give up chocolate. Some will give up soda. Some will take on something they don't usually do.
Whatever we do though, we have to make sure that it's a matter of the heart. Not a weight-loss technique, not a way to beat ourselves up, and not something to impress the priest.
Whatever we do with our Lent, let us make it about bringing our heart more in-line with the Kingdom of God. As we saw early on in the Sermon on the Mount, let us try on 'purity of heart,' so that we 'may see God.' Let us try on poverty of spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and peacemaking. Let us pray, let us fast, let us make our needed repenting.
And let us analyze our spiritual echo-cardiograms. So that our hearts are set squarely in the Kingdom for the Day of Resurrection.
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