Who do you work for?
Commentary
The following story begins the first chapter of Jeffrey K. Salkin's book, Being God's Partner (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994)
While walking in a neighboring village late at night, a Hasidic rebbe met a man who was also walking alone. For a while, the two walked in silence. Finally, the rebbe turned to the man and asked, "So, who do you work for?"
"I work for the village," the man answered. "I'm the night watchman."
They walked in silence again. Finally, the night watchman asked the rebbe, "And who do you work for?"
The rebbe answered, "I'm not always sure. But this I will tell you. Name your present salary and I will double it. All you have to do is walk with me and ask me, from time to time, 'Who do you work for?' "
On this Ash Wednesday it is perhaps good for us to pause and ask the question, "Who do we work for?" This time of penitence reminds us that we have competing and oftentimes contradictory loyalties. The demands of the workplace, the marketplace, the school, the community, the home pull us away from our commitments to God. The voices of others hold our attention more firmly than the voice of God. We know that this should not be so, but we feel powerless to live any other way.
Ash Wednesday calls us to acknowledge our failure to remember the one for whom we truly work. It calls us to imagine a different way of being -- a life organized differently. It offers us the assurance of forgiveness and the hopefulness of a deeper commitment. Ash Wednesday invites us to engage in a journey of reflection -- a journey that ends at an empty tomb where we exchange our shawls of mourning for towels of service.
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
The prophet, Joel, says to the people, "I have good news and I have bad news." The people respond, "Oh yeah? What's the good news?" "The Day of the Lord is coming," Joel replies. "Great," say the people. "So what's the bad news?" "The Day of the Lord is coming," answers Joel.
As alluded to in the First Lesson Focus, Joel engages in metaphorical language to describe a devastating invasion of locust (1:4) followed by a severe drought (1:17, 20), which in turn produces conditions favorable for wildfires (1:19). All of this Joel understands to be a visitation from God -- The Day of the Lord.
When the people of Israel thought about the Day of the Lord, a smile would stretch across their faces. The Day of the Lord bespoke that much-anticipated moment when God would intervene in history to restore the fortunes of his people. But for prophets like Joel, the Day of the Lord meant judgment -- not for the enemies of God's people, but for God's people themselves. What they thought would be good news was, in fact, bad news. It was bad news because the vertical and horizontal axes of their lives were tumbling out of control and either they did not know it or did not care.
Still, as bad as things were (and they were bad) the flame of hope had not been extinguished. The rains could fall again. The rivers could flow again. The trees and the crops could leaf again. The flocks and the herd could bellow with satisfaction again. But more important than all of that -- the hearts of the people could yearn for the Divine again. All that is required is a turning, or more correctly a returning, to God -- a returning marked by seriousness, contrition, confession and commitment.
The Day of the Lord is coming. What sort of day will that be for you?
2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10
Reading the epistles of Paul one often gets the sense of sitting in a lecture hall listening to a professor as he unravels deep theological mysteries. At times fascinating, at times maddening, Professor Paul engages in passion-filled orations as he attempts to connect the theological dots for the student. In spite of his deep passion, it is always Paul the professor more than Paul the person on display. Even the introductory greetings to his letters, while no doubt genuine, come across somewhat formally. So it is a treat when the professor steps away from the lectern and speaks personally, almost one-on-one, with his listeners.
In today's text we meet Paul the person more than Paul the professor. One can almost see the glistening tear formations in the corners of his eyes. His voice lowers, his words are imploring. That of which he speaks now is not doctrine or theory or exam fodder, but pure love and compassion. "We entreat you," he says, "as representatives of Christ we beg of you, be reconciled to God." Even though Paul speaks these words with the evangelist's heart, we would do well not to over-evangelize his plea. It is not just those who are without Christ that need reconciliation. Believers also need reconciling. Our actions bespeak a heart not yet transformed by the righteousness of God. Our words reflect a mind not yet conformed to the righteousness of God. Our attitudes betray a spirit not yet reformed by the righteousness of God. Paul's plea for reconciliation is, in the first instance, a plea to the body of Christ to embrace fully the reconciling grace of God in Jesus Christ.
The heart of Paul admits no excuse or reason for delay. Now is the day for wholeness; now is the time to experience God's shalom. The excuses and non-reasons by which we have convinced ourselves that life as we now live it is adequate cannot withstand the scrutiny of God. Prayers prayed only half seriously that God would grant us a deeper commitment have been heard and now God stands ready to answer our prayers (v. 2). The time to heal our spiritually-fractured lives has arrived. Paul pleads with his readers not to allow the grace of God to devolve into nothingness (v. 1).
Other attempts by Paul to avoid boasting while speaking of his experiences come across boastfully, nevertheless. In this text, however, the trials of Paul take on an almost poetic character. One senses not so much bravado as pathos in his recitation of discipleship's cost. Given what Paul has experienced, one might expect words of caution, but instead we hear words of invitation -- be reconciled to God!
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Matthew has a way of stating his case in "us" and "them" categories. In Chapter 5 it was "you have heard it said" vs. "but I say unto you." In Chapter 6 it takes the form of "do not be like the hypocrites." Given the tenor of Matthew's time and the issues confronting his community, such rigid contrasts might be understandable. Matthew's audience is composed primarily of Jewish Christians who are engaged in a post-70 A.D. debate with the Pharisee sect of Judaism. The subject of their debate is this: Now that Temple Judaism lies in ruins as a result of the destruction of Jerusalem, who best represents the future of the Jewish faith, the Pharisees or the followers of Jesus? In his polemical attempt to promote the cause of the Jesus movement, Matthew paints his Pharisee opponents with a broad and unflattering brush. This is not to say that Jesus did not have his own family quarrels with the Jewish religious leaders, but clearly Matthew is using the teachings of Jesus as an apologetic. Although the "hypocrites" are not identified, there is little doubt what group Matthew has in mind.
The challenge this presents to the interpreter is how to appropriate Matthew's central message without succumbing to the "us-them" attitude in which that message is clothed. So as we come to the text, let us put aside for the moment any consideration of the other, Matthew's "hypocrites," and ask, "What does the text have to do with me?"
It seems evident that there are certain character traits a follower of Jesus is expected to possess. One of those character traits is piety. Note that Matthew did not say that there should be an absence of piety, but merely that one should be careful what one did with one's piety. In the minds of many folk the term piety conjures up ideas like pious (in its most negative sense) and supercilious. But true piety is a reverence before God -- a quiet faithfulness to one's sense of God's calling. Piety is, to borrow a phrase, practicing the presence of God. Matthew is not warning against the practice of piety, but the parading of piety. He then introduces the three expressions of piety that his Jewish audience would recognize as being foundational -- alms, prayer and fasting.
For Matthew, a follower of Jesus demonstrates generosity -- a desire and willingness to share the bounty of one's life with those whose needs exceed their resources. Both desire and willingness are important. One may have willingness toward generosity, but no deep desire. The result is a grudging gift. Another may have a desire to be benevolent, but be unwilling to give practical expression to that desire. The result is a divided heart. Matthew encourages generosity, but a generosity that focuses on the need, not the P.R.
A follower of Jesus is also one who engages in serious prayer. Some might argue that all prayer is serious, but I am not sure that Matthew would be among their number. Serious prayer focuses more on feelings than thoughts, more on genuine expression than a well-turned phrase, more on immediate concerns than formulaic repetitions, more on seeking God's presence than seeking the approval of others. For Matthew, prayer is essentially a private communication between the believer and God carried out in the intimacy of one's relationship with the Divine.
A follower of Jesus is one whose fast is a joy. The reason for fasting is not primarily or even essentially deprivation. The deprivation is a means to an end and that end is a deeper fellowship with God. Therefore, the external affect of fasting is not the long face of hunger, but rather the joyful countenance of being filled.
The final paragraph of today's text concerning laying up treasures in heaven (vv. 19-21) is related to what has gone before, in spite of its frequent use apart from this context. Treasure is a metaphor for God's approval. Matthew seems to be saying, "Do what you do in order to hear the 'well done' from God, not the 'well done' from those around you." The acclaim (treasure) you seek from others is susceptible to the vagaries of human nature, but the acts of piety done for their own sake are secured within the heart of God.
Application
Why do individuals make their way to worship on Ash Wednesday? What do they hope to say by their presence? For how long are they willing to wear the mark of the ashes on their forehead? These questions tie the lectionary texts to the events of this day.
For some this is a day to stand in judgment before God (Joel's Day of the Lord). Perhaps the worshiper arrived at the place of worship with different expectations in mind -- to meet God's presence in joy or to gain a private satisfaction for fulfilling a religious requirement. But having entered the worship space, the worshiper meets a different God. The God encountered this day reminds the worshiper that the vertical and horizontal dimensions of his life are out of kilter; that her spiritual life has not continued on toward maturity, but had stalled out somewhere between childhood and adolescence. This awareness brings a contrite heart to the worshiper and the hope of new beginnings.
For some this is a day of deep piety, but what kind of piety? Does one receive the ashes in order to be seen by others as religiously obedient? Does one wear the ashes as a badge of pride? Is this the piety of which Matthew spoke? More important than the feelings of piety engendered within the worshiper are the actions the worshiper chooses to undertake growing out of that piety. The season of Lent that begins with this day is not so much about giving something up for its own sake, but putting something aside in order that one might focus more fully on the presence of God. Will the piety of the ashes lead us toward more generous living? Will the piety of the ashes lead us to a deeper prayer experience? Will the piety of the ashes create within us a more profound sense of God's presence whose by-product can only be joy?
For some this day is a day of reconciliation with a God long ignored. The house of cards that was one's life has now collapsed upon itself. The mask that one has worn for so many years to hide one's real self has grown too heavy to hold up, too fragile to risk exposure to the elements and now, at long last, must be put away. The spiritual emptiness that has gnawed at one's soul, an emptiness that one dared not to admit existed, has rendered one devoid of energy, of purpose, of meaning. But today -- today is different. Today is the day of salvation. Today reconciliation with God takes front and center stage. No more excuses. No more delays. On this day of penitence one's entire life will be laid bare before God in the confidence that this act of vulnerability will be met by the warm embrace of God's forgiving love.
Ash Wednesday is the day we answer the question, "Whom do you work for?" Who is your master? From whom do you derive the provisions of life? To whom is your heart committed? For whom are your life and energy and time and love poured out? If it is not God through Jesus Christ then know, today is the day of the Lord; today the emptiness of piety can be filled with the purposes of God; today is the day of reconciliation. Thanks be to God!
Alternative Applications
1) Joel 2:1-2, 12-17: Joel clearly recognized that the natural disaster that had befallen his country was a consequence of the direct action of God. This is in keeping with the worldview of the Hebrew Scriptures that nothing happens apart from the activity and involvement of God. A contemporary worldview does not operate along those direct causal lines, but neither is God understood as distant and aloof from the tragedies of life. This text offers an opportunity to explore how it is that God is connected to life's events. Though not causing tragedy, God is present in tragedy. Though not the source of evil, God can work through evil to bring about good. Though not the agent of pain and suffering, God experiences pain and suffering with us and through that sharing brings healing and wholeness. All of this is to demonstrate God's deep desire that we turn to God with all of our heart.
2) 2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10: For whom do we work? What is the cost to us for following Jesus Christ? Are the hardships Paul mentions applicable only for areas where Christianity is a minority faith? Or is it that our risk-free faith is the result of Christianity that has so conformed to its society that the difference between the religious and the secular is not a difference worth fighting over? What sort of life would one need to live to have one's culture respond to one the way Paul's culture responded to him? Should one of the sources of our penitence today be our disfigurement of the Christian faith to such a degree that it would no longer be recognizable to Paul?
3) Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21: In Matthew's day acts of piety were understood to be fasting, prayer and the giving of alms. Although these and other spiritual disciplines have gone out of favor in much of contemporary Christian practice, they are nevertheless still valuable disciplines. The question, however, is with what have we replaced them? What would be considered appropriate spiritual disciplines for the 21st century Christian? Also, apart from what we may think we should do, what disciplines do we actually do? In Matthew's day these acts were acts of piety because people performed them. If today's acts of piety were defined solely by actions and not by oughts, what would those acts of piety look like?
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
This same passage from Joel is the stated text for Ash Wednesday in all three cycles of the Revised Common Lectionary.
"Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me...." I wonder if we realize the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness that are involved in those words of our God. He is telling us that we can make our way back into his companionship and love -- even now! Even now, when our lives are marred by a hundred little infidelities toward him and our fellows, by a dozen important but stupid choices and decisions, by countless secret concerns for ourselves and our own welfare instead of concern for others. Even now each one of us can return to be embraced by the love of God, no matter what our status or situation. We may be weak and anxious. We may be confused and hurting. Or we may even feel that we've got the world on a string and couldn't be getting along better. But no matter what the condition of our lives and souls, our Lord is telling us, we can find him near to us and have fellowship with him -- perhaps for the first time, perhaps once again.
But there is another part to that gracious invitation. "Return to me with all your heart." God wants our hearts. That is evident throughout the scriptures, not only here in our text in Joel, but from the very beginning of the sacred story. In the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis, the scripture reads, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).
And that's an accurate description of our difficulty, isn't it, for it is always in our hearts that our sinfulness lies. We hold a grudge against our neighbor or family member, and we nurse it over and over in our hearts. We have an argument with a friend and on the way home, we think in our heart, "If only I had said such and such." As our Lord Jesus told us, "From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness" (Mark 7:21-22). And so over and over again, we are told, "Get yourselves a new heart ..." (Ezekiel 18:31); "remove the foreskin of your hearts" (Jeremiah 4:4); "rend your hearts and not your garments" (Joel 2:13), for "a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17). God wants our hearts. Not our lip service, not our piety learned by rote (cf. Isaiah 29:13), not our theoretical agreements with staid doctrines, but our hearts. In short, God wants our personhood, because he is Person. He wants us to love him, person to Person, with all our hearts (Deuteronomy 6:4).
I wonder if we realize what an urgent plea to us that is on the part of our God. You see, in the first verses of our text from Joel 2, that fifth century B.C. prophet announces to Israel and to us that "the day of the Lord is coming, it is near" (v. 1). And do you know what day that is? It is the day of the last judgment. It is the day when God will bring to an end the history of this weary, wayward world, and settle his accounts. It is the day, teaches our Lord Jesus, when he will say to us one of two things, either "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you," or "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:34, 41). In short, that Day of the Lord that both Old Testament and New tell us is coming is the day when God will decide for each one of us either eternal life or death.
And you see, God issues that urgent plea to us in our text from Joel because he does not want one single one of us, or one church congregation, or one society, or one nation to die. "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God" (Ezekiel 18:32). God's desire is not that we die, but that we live abundantly (John 10:10), and he even gave the life of his own Son upon the cross that we might have that life. So his open, gracious invitation to us all on this Ash Wednesday is, "Return to me with all your heart."
That invitation in the prophecies of Joel is followed by a call to a fast of repentance (vv. 15-17). Everyone participated in such a solemn assembly, from the oldest to the youngest, from the most preoccupied to the idle. Normal activities were abandoned for the day -- work, sleep, eating, drinking, even marital relations. The people sometimes rent their clothing, or put on rough sackcloth. Often they sprinkled ashes on their heads, a sign of repentance from which we take the title "Ash Wednesday." Some prostrated themselves in the dust. All called out to God for mercy and for release from whatever peril they were facing, while a priest offered prayers to God on behalf of the whole congregation. And though in the time of Joel the immediate peril that the people faced was lack of food caused by a locust plague and by a following drought (cf. v. 14), the worst peril faced by Israel, and indeed now by us, was that coming day of judgment, that coming Day of the Lord.
We all, or at least some of us, undergo such rites of penitence during this season of Lent. Some of us give up quite frivolous things like chocolate, because we are on a perpetual diet to lose weight anyway. Others forego the use of alcohol or cigarettes in gestures of sacrifice. A few engage in serious day-by-day reading or study of the Bible, or in daily devotions and prayer. In any congregation, there are some souls truly committed to God. But the invitation of our text for the day is not just to a few, fellow worshipers. It is an invitation to all of us, an invitation to return to our God with all our heart -- a summons to dig deep within ourselves and to point our minds and souls, the works of our bodies and the yearnings of our hearts toward the Lord.
We do not enter such a Lenten discipline out of fear of the last judgment, however. Certainly the thought of how we will stand before the Lord at the last is of concern to us all, or should be. After all, it's a concern of God's and we owe him our lives and all our good. But finally we give our hearts to God out of love and gratitude -- love in return for all of the love he has constantly showered upon us, gratitude for his patient, merciful yearning to offer us his fellowship once again. Is there any greater love than that which says to us, "Yet even now?" -- than that which wants us back with himself despite everything we have done and left undone? I know of no greater love than that, which was finally incarnated on the cross of Jesus Christ. And I certainly know of no greater joy than to accept and to participate in that love. So that's the invitation. "Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart." And the answer is, "I come, Lord. Yes, I come."
THE POLITICAL PULPIT
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season as a whole are times for confessing sin, for recognizing the fallibility of human undertakings. Martin Luther saw in Jesus' admonitions in the assigned gospel significant insights about how we deceive ourselves about our politics and about the way we do business. His advice is particularly sound for evaluating current business practices and for deliberating about the sort of political views we want to see prevail in this fall's mid-term congressional elections.
Luther was especially taken with Jesus' warning that when giving alms you dare not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing (v. 3). Concerning these words, the Reformer wrote:
Worldly people make their contributions in order to have a glory that is immensely greater than all the money and property in the world. They want to buy you for a trifle and to hold you as their perpetual prisoner -- your body and life and everything you have -- along with God himself. For that reason Christ says: "When you are giving alms with your right hand, be careful that you do not try to make more with your left hand ... Then you may be said to 'contributing with singleness,' not to be taking or to be giving in such a way as to make the other person owe you 10 times as much as you gave him, or to make him celebrate and adore you." (Luther's Works, Vol. 21, 135)
The Reformer would have us use a sermon on this subject in order to urge our hearers to come to terms with the fact that most of our views on business and politics are reducible to rationalizations for our self-interest at the expense of others. This insight is in line with the views of social analysts like Ellen Willis who tell us how we have become unwittingly conditioned to think about our lives and politics in accord with the agenda of what helps our businesses (and so our pocketbooks) the most (Don't Think, Smile: Notes on a Decade of Denial).
It will not be difficult for you to make the case for how present government policies owe their origins to business interests. For instance, it should be noted that in preparation for last summer's congressional debate on a patients' rights bill, federal office-holders received $8 million in election contributions from HMOs, $40 million from the insurance industry, and $45 million from doctors. Big business and its elite friends do not want too much protection for patients. That we wound up with a compromise on the bill in the House of Representatives will be no surprise when it is also noted that the proponents of patient rights had their share of campaign support from big donors. Lawyers contributed $1 billion to federal candidates and labor $90 million.
Not just with regard to this one issue do we observe the influence of big-money, special-interest contributors on government policy. Oil and gas companies would be the recipients of $15 billion in tax cuts if proposed legislation passes Congress. Such largess is not surprising when we note that these interests donated $26 million to Republican candidates in the 2000 election. While in 1981-1982 special-interest political action committees only contributed $83.7 million to Congressional candidates, the amount swelled to $206.8 million in 1997-1998. Is it any wonder that while we cut welfare costs, shrink government, and borrow from Social Security taxes in order to balance the budget, the federal government still had enough left over to fund $125 billion per year to businesses, either through lucrative government contracts or by offering a tax annuity if a business locates in certain areas or sells its products overseas? The Bush tax cut also provides some relief to the "heavy-laden" CEOs of such companies. But we still need to tighten government benefits to the elderly and abolish a safety-net for the poor, we are told.
Jesus had a point. Much political and social common sense is the result of the left hand taking back what the right hand gives. Jesus wants followers who are critically minded citizens, people who know how inclined even they are to manipulate systems and people to their own benefit.
The Ash Wednesday sermon can be a good time to point out these sins, confess them, and to suggest remedies (ways of leveling the influence big business political contributions so that the interests of the poor and aged have a chance to be heard). When you do, though, remember to highlight that Christians have a special motivation for advocating such remedies, gratitude for the forgiving love of God. Such a Word is necessary in order to relate the Political Pulpit to the meaning of Lent.
While walking in a neighboring village late at night, a Hasidic rebbe met a man who was also walking alone. For a while, the two walked in silence. Finally, the rebbe turned to the man and asked, "So, who do you work for?"
"I work for the village," the man answered. "I'm the night watchman."
They walked in silence again. Finally, the night watchman asked the rebbe, "And who do you work for?"
The rebbe answered, "I'm not always sure. But this I will tell you. Name your present salary and I will double it. All you have to do is walk with me and ask me, from time to time, 'Who do you work for?' "
On this Ash Wednesday it is perhaps good for us to pause and ask the question, "Who do we work for?" This time of penitence reminds us that we have competing and oftentimes contradictory loyalties. The demands of the workplace, the marketplace, the school, the community, the home pull us away from our commitments to God. The voices of others hold our attention more firmly than the voice of God. We know that this should not be so, but we feel powerless to live any other way.
Ash Wednesday calls us to acknowledge our failure to remember the one for whom we truly work. It calls us to imagine a different way of being -- a life organized differently. It offers us the assurance of forgiveness and the hopefulness of a deeper commitment. Ash Wednesday invites us to engage in a journey of reflection -- a journey that ends at an empty tomb where we exchange our shawls of mourning for towels of service.
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
The prophet, Joel, says to the people, "I have good news and I have bad news." The people respond, "Oh yeah? What's the good news?" "The Day of the Lord is coming," Joel replies. "Great," say the people. "So what's the bad news?" "The Day of the Lord is coming," answers Joel.
As alluded to in the First Lesson Focus, Joel engages in metaphorical language to describe a devastating invasion of locust (1:4) followed by a severe drought (1:17, 20), which in turn produces conditions favorable for wildfires (1:19). All of this Joel understands to be a visitation from God -- The Day of the Lord.
When the people of Israel thought about the Day of the Lord, a smile would stretch across their faces. The Day of the Lord bespoke that much-anticipated moment when God would intervene in history to restore the fortunes of his people. But for prophets like Joel, the Day of the Lord meant judgment -- not for the enemies of God's people, but for God's people themselves. What they thought would be good news was, in fact, bad news. It was bad news because the vertical and horizontal axes of their lives were tumbling out of control and either they did not know it or did not care.
Still, as bad as things were (and they were bad) the flame of hope had not been extinguished. The rains could fall again. The rivers could flow again. The trees and the crops could leaf again. The flocks and the herd could bellow with satisfaction again. But more important than all of that -- the hearts of the people could yearn for the Divine again. All that is required is a turning, or more correctly a returning, to God -- a returning marked by seriousness, contrition, confession and commitment.
The Day of the Lord is coming. What sort of day will that be for you?
2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10
Reading the epistles of Paul one often gets the sense of sitting in a lecture hall listening to a professor as he unravels deep theological mysteries. At times fascinating, at times maddening, Professor Paul engages in passion-filled orations as he attempts to connect the theological dots for the student. In spite of his deep passion, it is always Paul the professor more than Paul the person on display. Even the introductory greetings to his letters, while no doubt genuine, come across somewhat formally. So it is a treat when the professor steps away from the lectern and speaks personally, almost one-on-one, with his listeners.
In today's text we meet Paul the person more than Paul the professor. One can almost see the glistening tear formations in the corners of his eyes. His voice lowers, his words are imploring. That of which he speaks now is not doctrine or theory or exam fodder, but pure love and compassion. "We entreat you," he says, "as representatives of Christ we beg of you, be reconciled to God." Even though Paul speaks these words with the evangelist's heart, we would do well not to over-evangelize his plea. It is not just those who are without Christ that need reconciliation. Believers also need reconciling. Our actions bespeak a heart not yet transformed by the righteousness of God. Our words reflect a mind not yet conformed to the righteousness of God. Our attitudes betray a spirit not yet reformed by the righteousness of God. Paul's plea for reconciliation is, in the first instance, a plea to the body of Christ to embrace fully the reconciling grace of God in Jesus Christ.
The heart of Paul admits no excuse or reason for delay. Now is the day for wholeness; now is the time to experience God's shalom. The excuses and non-reasons by which we have convinced ourselves that life as we now live it is adequate cannot withstand the scrutiny of God. Prayers prayed only half seriously that God would grant us a deeper commitment have been heard and now God stands ready to answer our prayers (v. 2). The time to heal our spiritually-fractured lives has arrived. Paul pleads with his readers not to allow the grace of God to devolve into nothingness (v. 1).
Other attempts by Paul to avoid boasting while speaking of his experiences come across boastfully, nevertheless. In this text, however, the trials of Paul take on an almost poetic character. One senses not so much bravado as pathos in his recitation of discipleship's cost. Given what Paul has experienced, one might expect words of caution, but instead we hear words of invitation -- be reconciled to God!
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Matthew has a way of stating his case in "us" and "them" categories. In Chapter 5 it was "you have heard it said" vs. "but I say unto you." In Chapter 6 it takes the form of "do not be like the hypocrites." Given the tenor of Matthew's time and the issues confronting his community, such rigid contrasts might be understandable. Matthew's audience is composed primarily of Jewish Christians who are engaged in a post-70 A.D. debate with the Pharisee sect of Judaism. The subject of their debate is this: Now that Temple Judaism lies in ruins as a result of the destruction of Jerusalem, who best represents the future of the Jewish faith, the Pharisees or the followers of Jesus? In his polemical attempt to promote the cause of the Jesus movement, Matthew paints his Pharisee opponents with a broad and unflattering brush. This is not to say that Jesus did not have his own family quarrels with the Jewish religious leaders, but clearly Matthew is using the teachings of Jesus as an apologetic. Although the "hypocrites" are not identified, there is little doubt what group Matthew has in mind.
The challenge this presents to the interpreter is how to appropriate Matthew's central message without succumbing to the "us-them" attitude in which that message is clothed. So as we come to the text, let us put aside for the moment any consideration of the other, Matthew's "hypocrites," and ask, "What does the text have to do with me?"
It seems evident that there are certain character traits a follower of Jesus is expected to possess. One of those character traits is piety. Note that Matthew did not say that there should be an absence of piety, but merely that one should be careful what one did with one's piety. In the minds of many folk the term piety conjures up ideas like pious (in its most negative sense) and supercilious. But true piety is a reverence before God -- a quiet faithfulness to one's sense of God's calling. Piety is, to borrow a phrase, practicing the presence of God. Matthew is not warning against the practice of piety, but the parading of piety. He then introduces the three expressions of piety that his Jewish audience would recognize as being foundational -- alms, prayer and fasting.
For Matthew, a follower of Jesus demonstrates generosity -- a desire and willingness to share the bounty of one's life with those whose needs exceed their resources. Both desire and willingness are important. One may have willingness toward generosity, but no deep desire. The result is a grudging gift. Another may have a desire to be benevolent, but be unwilling to give practical expression to that desire. The result is a divided heart. Matthew encourages generosity, but a generosity that focuses on the need, not the P.R.
A follower of Jesus is also one who engages in serious prayer. Some might argue that all prayer is serious, but I am not sure that Matthew would be among their number. Serious prayer focuses more on feelings than thoughts, more on genuine expression than a well-turned phrase, more on immediate concerns than formulaic repetitions, more on seeking God's presence than seeking the approval of others. For Matthew, prayer is essentially a private communication between the believer and God carried out in the intimacy of one's relationship with the Divine.
A follower of Jesus is one whose fast is a joy. The reason for fasting is not primarily or even essentially deprivation. The deprivation is a means to an end and that end is a deeper fellowship with God. Therefore, the external affect of fasting is not the long face of hunger, but rather the joyful countenance of being filled.
The final paragraph of today's text concerning laying up treasures in heaven (vv. 19-21) is related to what has gone before, in spite of its frequent use apart from this context. Treasure is a metaphor for God's approval. Matthew seems to be saying, "Do what you do in order to hear the 'well done' from God, not the 'well done' from those around you." The acclaim (treasure) you seek from others is susceptible to the vagaries of human nature, but the acts of piety done for their own sake are secured within the heart of God.
Application
Why do individuals make their way to worship on Ash Wednesday? What do they hope to say by their presence? For how long are they willing to wear the mark of the ashes on their forehead? These questions tie the lectionary texts to the events of this day.
For some this is a day to stand in judgment before God (Joel's Day of the Lord). Perhaps the worshiper arrived at the place of worship with different expectations in mind -- to meet God's presence in joy or to gain a private satisfaction for fulfilling a religious requirement. But having entered the worship space, the worshiper meets a different God. The God encountered this day reminds the worshiper that the vertical and horizontal dimensions of his life are out of kilter; that her spiritual life has not continued on toward maturity, but had stalled out somewhere between childhood and adolescence. This awareness brings a contrite heart to the worshiper and the hope of new beginnings.
For some this is a day of deep piety, but what kind of piety? Does one receive the ashes in order to be seen by others as religiously obedient? Does one wear the ashes as a badge of pride? Is this the piety of which Matthew spoke? More important than the feelings of piety engendered within the worshiper are the actions the worshiper chooses to undertake growing out of that piety. The season of Lent that begins with this day is not so much about giving something up for its own sake, but putting something aside in order that one might focus more fully on the presence of God. Will the piety of the ashes lead us toward more generous living? Will the piety of the ashes lead us to a deeper prayer experience? Will the piety of the ashes create within us a more profound sense of God's presence whose by-product can only be joy?
For some this day is a day of reconciliation with a God long ignored. The house of cards that was one's life has now collapsed upon itself. The mask that one has worn for so many years to hide one's real self has grown too heavy to hold up, too fragile to risk exposure to the elements and now, at long last, must be put away. The spiritual emptiness that has gnawed at one's soul, an emptiness that one dared not to admit existed, has rendered one devoid of energy, of purpose, of meaning. But today -- today is different. Today is the day of salvation. Today reconciliation with God takes front and center stage. No more excuses. No more delays. On this day of penitence one's entire life will be laid bare before God in the confidence that this act of vulnerability will be met by the warm embrace of God's forgiving love.
Ash Wednesday is the day we answer the question, "Whom do you work for?" Who is your master? From whom do you derive the provisions of life? To whom is your heart committed? For whom are your life and energy and time and love poured out? If it is not God through Jesus Christ then know, today is the day of the Lord; today the emptiness of piety can be filled with the purposes of God; today is the day of reconciliation. Thanks be to God!
Alternative Applications
1) Joel 2:1-2, 12-17: Joel clearly recognized that the natural disaster that had befallen his country was a consequence of the direct action of God. This is in keeping with the worldview of the Hebrew Scriptures that nothing happens apart from the activity and involvement of God. A contemporary worldview does not operate along those direct causal lines, but neither is God understood as distant and aloof from the tragedies of life. This text offers an opportunity to explore how it is that God is connected to life's events. Though not causing tragedy, God is present in tragedy. Though not the source of evil, God can work through evil to bring about good. Though not the agent of pain and suffering, God experiences pain and suffering with us and through that sharing brings healing and wholeness. All of this is to demonstrate God's deep desire that we turn to God with all of our heart.
2) 2 Corinthians 5:20b--6:10: For whom do we work? What is the cost to us for following Jesus Christ? Are the hardships Paul mentions applicable only for areas where Christianity is a minority faith? Or is it that our risk-free faith is the result of Christianity that has so conformed to its society that the difference between the religious and the secular is not a difference worth fighting over? What sort of life would one need to live to have one's culture respond to one the way Paul's culture responded to him? Should one of the sources of our penitence today be our disfigurement of the Christian faith to such a degree that it would no longer be recognizable to Paul?
3) Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21: In Matthew's day acts of piety were understood to be fasting, prayer and the giving of alms. Although these and other spiritual disciplines have gone out of favor in much of contemporary Christian practice, they are nevertheless still valuable disciplines. The question, however, is with what have we replaced them? What would be considered appropriate spiritual disciplines for the 21st century Christian? Also, apart from what we may think we should do, what disciplines do we actually do? In Matthew's day these acts were acts of piety because people performed them. If today's acts of piety were defined solely by actions and not by oughts, what would those acts of piety look like?
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
This same passage from Joel is the stated text for Ash Wednesday in all three cycles of the Revised Common Lectionary.
"Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me...." I wonder if we realize the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness that are involved in those words of our God. He is telling us that we can make our way back into his companionship and love -- even now! Even now, when our lives are marred by a hundred little infidelities toward him and our fellows, by a dozen important but stupid choices and decisions, by countless secret concerns for ourselves and our own welfare instead of concern for others. Even now each one of us can return to be embraced by the love of God, no matter what our status or situation. We may be weak and anxious. We may be confused and hurting. Or we may even feel that we've got the world on a string and couldn't be getting along better. But no matter what the condition of our lives and souls, our Lord is telling us, we can find him near to us and have fellowship with him -- perhaps for the first time, perhaps once again.
But there is another part to that gracious invitation. "Return to me with all your heart." God wants our hearts. That is evident throughout the scriptures, not only here in our text in Joel, but from the very beginning of the sacred story. In the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis, the scripture reads, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).
And that's an accurate description of our difficulty, isn't it, for it is always in our hearts that our sinfulness lies. We hold a grudge against our neighbor or family member, and we nurse it over and over in our hearts. We have an argument with a friend and on the way home, we think in our heart, "If only I had said such and such." As our Lord Jesus told us, "From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness" (Mark 7:21-22). And so over and over again, we are told, "Get yourselves a new heart ..." (Ezekiel 18:31); "remove the foreskin of your hearts" (Jeremiah 4:4); "rend your hearts and not your garments" (Joel 2:13), for "a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17). God wants our hearts. Not our lip service, not our piety learned by rote (cf. Isaiah 29:13), not our theoretical agreements with staid doctrines, but our hearts. In short, God wants our personhood, because he is Person. He wants us to love him, person to Person, with all our hearts (Deuteronomy 6:4).
I wonder if we realize what an urgent plea to us that is on the part of our God. You see, in the first verses of our text from Joel 2, that fifth century B.C. prophet announces to Israel and to us that "the day of the Lord is coming, it is near" (v. 1). And do you know what day that is? It is the day of the last judgment. It is the day when God will bring to an end the history of this weary, wayward world, and settle his accounts. It is the day, teaches our Lord Jesus, when he will say to us one of two things, either "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you," or "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:34, 41). In short, that Day of the Lord that both Old Testament and New tell us is coming is the day when God will decide for each one of us either eternal life or death.
And you see, God issues that urgent plea to us in our text from Joel because he does not want one single one of us, or one church congregation, or one society, or one nation to die. "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God" (Ezekiel 18:32). God's desire is not that we die, but that we live abundantly (John 10:10), and he even gave the life of his own Son upon the cross that we might have that life. So his open, gracious invitation to us all on this Ash Wednesday is, "Return to me with all your heart."
That invitation in the prophecies of Joel is followed by a call to a fast of repentance (vv. 15-17). Everyone participated in such a solemn assembly, from the oldest to the youngest, from the most preoccupied to the idle. Normal activities were abandoned for the day -- work, sleep, eating, drinking, even marital relations. The people sometimes rent their clothing, or put on rough sackcloth. Often they sprinkled ashes on their heads, a sign of repentance from which we take the title "Ash Wednesday." Some prostrated themselves in the dust. All called out to God for mercy and for release from whatever peril they were facing, while a priest offered prayers to God on behalf of the whole congregation. And though in the time of Joel the immediate peril that the people faced was lack of food caused by a locust plague and by a following drought (cf. v. 14), the worst peril faced by Israel, and indeed now by us, was that coming day of judgment, that coming Day of the Lord.
We all, or at least some of us, undergo such rites of penitence during this season of Lent. Some of us give up quite frivolous things like chocolate, because we are on a perpetual diet to lose weight anyway. Others forego the use of alcohol or cigarettes in gestures of sacrifice. A few engage in serious day-by-day reading or study of the Bible, or in daily devotions and prayer. In any congregation, there are some souls truly committed to God. But the invitation of our text for the day is not just to a few, fellow worshipers. It is an invitation to all of us, an invitation to return to our God with all our heart -- a summons to dig deep within ourselves and to point our minds and souls, the works of our bodies and the yearnings of our hearts toward the Lord.
We do not enter such a Lenten discipline out of fear of the last judgment, however. Certainly the thought of how we will stand before the Lord at the last is of concern to us all, or should be. After all, it's a concern of God's and we owe him our lives and all our good. But finally we give our hearts to God out of love and gratitude -- love in return for all of the love he has constantly showered upon us, gratitude for his patient, merciful yearning to offer us his fellowship once again. Is there any greater love than that which says to us, "Yet even now?" -- than that which wants us back with himself despite everything we have done and left undone? I know of no greater love than that, which was finally incarnated on the cross of Jesus Christ. And I certainly know of no greater joy than to accept and to participate in that love. So that's the invitation. "Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart." And the answer is, "I come, Lord. Yes, I come."
THE POLITICAL PULPIT
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season as a whole are times for confessing sin, for recognizing the fallibility of human undertakings. Martin Luther saw in Jesus' admonitions in the assigned gospel significant insights about how we deceive ourselves about our politics and about the way we do business. His advice is particularly sound for evaluating current business practices and for deliberating about the sort of political views we want to see prevail in this fall's mid-term congressional elections.
Luther was especially taken with Jesus' warning that when giving alms you dare not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing (v. 3). Concerning these words, the Reformer wrote:
Worldly people make their contributions in order to have a glory that is immensely greater than all the money and property in the world. They want to buy you for a trifle and to hold you as their perpetual prisoner -- your body and life and everything you have -- along with God himself. For that reason Christ says: "When you are giving alms with your right hand, be careful that you do not try to make more with your left hand ... Then you may be said to 'contributing with singleness,' not to be taking or to be giving in such a way as to make the other person owe you 10 times as much as you gave him, or to make him celebrate and adore you." (Luther's Works, Vol. 21, 135)
The Reformer would have us use a sermon on this subject in order to urge our hearers to come to terms with the fact that most of our views on business and politics are reducible to rationalizations for our self-interest at the expense of others. This insight is in line with the views of social analysts like Ellen Willis who tell us how we have become unwittingly conditioned to think about our lives and politics in accord with the agenda of what helps our businesses (and so our pocketbooks) the most (Don't Think, Smile: Notes on a Decade of Denial).
It will not be difficult for you to make the case for how present government policies owe their origins to business interests. For instance, it should be noted that in preparation for last summer's congressional debate on a patients' rights bill, federal office-holders received $8 million in election contributions from HMOs, $40 million from the insurance industry, and $45 million from doctors. Big business and its elite friends do not want too much protection for patients. That we wound up with a compromise on the bill in the House of Representatives will be no surprise when it is also noted that the proponents of patient rights had their share of campaign support from big donors. Lawyers contributed $1 billion to federal candidates and labor $90 million.
Not just with regard to this one issue do we observe the influence of big-money, special-interest contributors on government policy. Oil and gas companies would be the recipients of $15 billion in tax cuts if proposed legislation passes Congress. Such largess is not surprising when we note that these interests donated $26 million to Republican candidates in the 2000 election. While in 1981-1982 special-interest political action committees only contributed $83.7 million to Congressional candidates, the amount swelled to $206.8 million in 1997-1998. Is it any wonder that while we cut welfare costs, shrink government, and borrow from Social Security taxes in order to balance the budget, the federal government still had enough left over to fund $125 billion per year to businesses, either through lucrative government contracts or by offering a tax annuity if a business locates in certain areas or sells its products overseas? The Bush tax cut also provides some relief to the "heavy-laden" CEOs of such companies. But we still need to tighten government benefits to the elderly and abolish a safety-net for the poor, we are told.
Jesus had a point. Much political and social common sense is the result of the left hand taking back what the right hand gives. Jesus wants followers who are critically minded citizens, people who know how inclined even they are to manipulate systems and people to their own benefit.
The Ash Wednesday sermon can be a good time to point out these sins, confess them, and to suggest remedies (ways of leveling the influence big business political contributions so that the interests of the poor and aged have a chance to be heard). When you do, though, remember to highlight that Christians have a special motivation for advocating such remedies, gratitude for the forgiving love of God. Such a Word is necessary in order to relate the Political Pulpit to the meaning of Lent.
