Some years ago, a writer identified the ten reasons why Ash Wednesday is better than Christmas. What, you don’t believe me? Listen. [Read Tens Reasons.] Do you think I’m being blasphemous? Here we are at the beginning of a holy and solemn season. The service began in silence. We’ve changed all the hangings from green to purple. We’re beginning that slow and certain journey deeper into the great mystery of our Lord’s resurrection. “So, Mother Leslie,” you might ask, “Why are you cracking a joke?”
Well, to begin with, you may be the only ones who care. Those who don’t believe couldn’t care less about what we’re doing this evening. They’re just going about their life as usual, whatever they normally do on Wednesday evening. Those who are only concerned about themselves just continue chasing whatever will give them the next high. But we religious people, we face a great temptation on this evening, and most days in this church: we are tempted to substitute religious performance for relationship with God. This is an especially great temptation for Episcopalians, since we value liturgy so much, and, of course for priests in particular, since we have to lead it and always want to get everything just right. We are tempted, all of us, to think that when we have executed the required ceremonies, preferably with elegance and grace, that we have done what God wants us to do.
Is elaborate ceremony what God wants of us? “No, no, no,” shout the prophets. Don’t we hear that “no” clearly in our reading from Isaiah this evening? We hear in no uncertain terms that mere fasting, if it is not accompanied by a change in the way we treat others, is worthless. “Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high,” God thunders. More to the point, the true fast, the fast that God really wants is not ceremonial, but, in Isaiah’s words, is “to loose the bonds of injustice” and “to share your bread with the hungry.” No, my friends, fasting or any other well-executed religious performance is not what God wants of us.
We hear the same message from Jesus in tonight’s Gospel reading. Actually, I don’t feel so bad about having begun with a joke, because our Lord also has used humor, or more accurately, exaggeration to get his point across. With great humor he offers an elaborate parody of the key religious practices of his day, alms-giving, prayer, and fasting. Jesus was originally speaking to his disciples. In his recounting of this speech for his community Matthew has couched it in terms that they can understand. But we can easily imagine Jesus saying something similar to us. “Look,” he might say, “that person over there is making a great show of putting a hundred-dollar bill in the collection plate, while the people next to hin want all their neighbors to know that not only do they tithe, they give twenty percent of their income to the church. Meanwhile, the folks over there are praying so hard, I can hardly hear myself preach. They may mean well, but really! And the folks up here must surely have been fasting all day. They’re certainly making sure that everyone knows how miserable they are.”
Yes, Jesus has parodied religious performance in this speech, but he does so in order to teach us a deeper lesson. Before we consider that deeper lesson, let’s consider what Jesus is not saying here. Alms-giving, prayer, and fasting were and still are key elements of Jewish religious practice, as they of our practice. In fact, alms-giving, prayer, and fasting are practiced in just about every religious tradition. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and many others regularly give to the poor, pray, and fast. Jesus is not saying that we are not to do these things. Indeed, the church specifically recommends that we pay extra attention to these areas of religious discipline during Lent. Nor is Jesus saying that these disciplines should be pursued only in private. Jesus was as well aware as anyone of the importance of corporate worship, observance of communal fasts, and efforts to alleviate poverty and injustice.
The question that Jesus poses to his disciples, his first-century followers, and us is “Why are you doing these things?” What is our motivation? What do we hope to get out of taking on these practices? What reward are we expecting? Are we looking for the approval of others? I suppose that could have been motivation in the first century, but surely not for us. We know that most people on the other side of the red doors couldn’t care less about our prayer, fasting, or alms-giving. Although one writer does suggest that we ought to be more public rather than less public about what we do, so that others may know that there are still some people of faith around. Well, then, are we motivated to engage in spiritual disciplines out of a desire for the satisfaction of thinking that we did what’s expected, fulfilled all our obligations? Perhaps so, although, again, in the twenty-first century there surely is little social pressure on anyone to do anything remotely spiritual. Whatever the source of that motivation, it’s probably internal.
No, says Jesus, our motivation for doing anything in the way of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving should be to obtain God’s reward. Ah, here is the question I’ve been wrestling with. What is the reward of my “Father who sees in secret?” There’s a future-oriented answer to this question, which is that the Father’s reward is acceptance into the kingdom of heaven and the grant of eternal life. But is my reward for faithfulness only pie in the sky when I die? I don’t think so. As I’ve been wrestling with this question, I’ve come to realize that there’s a much deeper reward for engaging in our three-fold practices. And not only in Lent, but at least in Lent, our tithe of the year so to speak. As they were and are for Jews, ourselves, and everyone else, our traditional Lenten observances, as well as other spiritual disciplines, are signs and aids to inner growth and transformation. And so our reward for keeping them, in a word, is deeper friendship with God, deeper participation in the community of love that is at the heart of God. Through prayer we gain a deeper sense of God’s great love for us. Through fasting, we gain a deeper sense of how dependent we are on God for all that we have in this life, and through alms-giving we gain a deeper sense of the needs of God’s other children, our sisters and brothers in the world. As we reach out to others, and especially to the “neighbors we have from you,” as we have been singing this Epiphany tide, we are strengthened in our ability to fulfill the promises we made to God at our baptisms and which we reaffirm with every baptism we witness. Through prayer, fasting, and alms-giving ultimately we are rewarded with more complete growth into Christ, more complete transformation into the people we were truly created to be.
Lent is a solemn and penitential season. During these forty days we are asked to consider our sins and shortcomings, all the ways in which we have missed God’s mark. But Lent is not a sad season. Lent is a gift from God. It is a time when we may begin drawing closer to God. Most especially it is a time when we may, through prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, begin to know the depth of God’s love for us, made known to us in Christ Jesus, and the yearning of God to draw us into that blessed community of love. I wish you a holy and most blessed Lent.
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