Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA; Ash Wednesday, 18
Feb. 2015
Year
A RCL: Joel
2:1-2,12-17; Psalm
103; 2
Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew
6:1-6,16-21
Beware
of practicing your piety before others.
Rend
your hearts & not your clothing,
Joel
tells us in our first reading, bringing
to mind our reading Sunday about Elisha tearing apart his clothes as
Elijah is taken up into heaven by that fiery chariot.
Jesus tells us God wants us to change what's inside: that's more
important than to make a dramatic show of our sorrow by tearing our
clothes.
Jesus
tells us
Beware
of practicing your piety before others.
How
do we reconcile what Jesus says with what we do on Ash Wednesday when
we have our foreheads marked with ashes to start Lent?
Lent
is compared to an athlete's spring training, a time to tone our
spiritual muscles. As we take on spiritual practices & give up
something for Lent, we discipline ourselves in our walk with Christ.
Discipline often calls to mind punishment.
he Greek word for discipline means “to learn”, “to
apprentice,”
(It) means to learn a way of life or a skill by entering into a
relationship with a master. The apprentice imitates the master.”3
As
we learn to imitate our Master, Jesus, we learn how to handle
ourselves inside – within our hearts. So when we leave here with
ashes on our foreheads, especially if we have errands to run &
see people other than family, we can speak from a place of confidence
to share God's love with people who may look at us quizzically,
helpfully point out we have a smudge, or ask outright about it.
We
can speak boldly about God's love because, unlike Joel & the
people in his day, we know the rest of the story: Jesus dies for us
on that cross to blot out all our sins.
Are
we perfect? Far from it. Are we sinless? No. But we have an advocate
with God the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. Through the power of
the Holy Spirit, we have the grace to confess our sins & come to
this table week after week to ask for pardon & renewal, for
solace & strength to do the work God gives us to do – such as
bravely interacting with someone in a store who asks about that
smudge on your forehead.
Lent
is a time to take a new look at your life,
including your spiritual
life.
Lent gives us time for internal spring cleaning,
which may
include the work of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.
“Forgiveness is about our
conversion...not...conversion of the person who wronged us. To
forgive...we have to change [convert] the way we see them.”5
This
may lead to a sense of needing something more than you receive week
by week as we say The Confession together. The longing for a deeper
sense of forgiveness is why the Prayer Book offers us the Rite of
Reconciliation of a Penitent.
It
offers you two forms to select from for this sacrament.
Details
start on BCP page 446.
I
encourage you to review the pages. If you feel it would benefit you,
I will be hear your private confession. I have gained great peace &
renewed strength from receiving this sacrament myself.
Like
the outward sign of ashes on our foreheads, the sacrament of
reconciliation is a strong reminder that, although we are dust, God's
great love & creative power heals our brokenness.
May
the ashes we receive remind us of our need for God
&
God’s love
for us.
May we remember that God is slow to anger & quick to
forgive. May we remember that Jesus tells us to do more than practice
our religion for the right reason. Jesus tells us to be joyful about
it.
Ashes
are black like the darkness & gloom that Joel speaks of: “Like
the blackness spread upon the mountains...”
This verse in The
Jewish Study Bible
says: “Spread
like soot over the hills.”6
This
“soot” from burned palms from Palm Sunday helps us mark a new
Liturgical season. Much of what we do in this season developed from
St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, whom we remember in March on the date
of his death in 386.7
Like
St. Cyril, you know that you are dust & to dust you will return.
Like the newest saints in heaven, the 21 Coptic Christians killed,
you also know that you are you are Beloved Dust8.
Knowing how profoundly Jesus
loves us, gives martyrs, such as the 21 newest saints, the strength
to
declare their faith in their last breath.
Each said: “Jesus, save
me.”9
Bibliography
Christ
Our Hope: Daily Lenten Devotions of Henri J. Nouwen.
Ed: Paul Pennick. Creative Communications for the Parish.
www.creativecommunications.com.
The
Book of Common Prayer.
New York: Church Publishing, Inc. 1986.
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary.
General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers. 1985.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press,
1989.
Hughes,
Robert Davis III. Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian
Life. New York:
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. 2008.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Lesser
Feasts and Fasts: 2003.
New York: Church Publishing. 2003.
New
Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.
Eds: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New
York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977.
Taylor,
Porter. From
Anger to Zion: An Alphabet of Faith.
Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing: A Continuum imprint. 2004.
Words
of Our Worshop: A Liturgical Dictionary.
Compiled by: Charles Mortimet Guilbert. New York: The Church Hymnal
Corp. 1988.
1
Taylor,
Porter. From
Anger to Zion: An Alphabet of Faith.
P. 37.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid. P. 52.
5
Ibid.
6
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
P. 1169.
7
Lesser
Feasts and Fasts: 2003.
P. 190-191.
8 Concept from Hughes,
Robert Davis III. Beloved
Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life.
9 Quotation Source: Various news reports.
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