Habits of Holiness

 

PROPERS:          ASH WEDNESDAY, YEAR A        

TEXT:                MATTHEW 6:1-6,16-21

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The concept of Lent is to move toward holiness and not to take a meaningless or minor step in life.

 

            The admonition from Jesus has, for many years, seemed at odds with our Ash Wednesday practice. Hear his words:

 

"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. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 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.”

 

            We will have ashes imposed on us as a sign of piety and devotion on this Ash Wednesday.  And then many of us will proceed with our normal course of life, with the dark marks on our foreheads remaining. People we encounter may stare strangely at us, wondering what the mark is.

 

            I have even seen President Biden, a devout Roman Catholic, engage media following his Ash Wednesday service, with the sign of the cross on his forehead testifying to where he has been.  Many of us, unconsciously, do the same.

 

            How do our actions compare with Jesus’ admonition?  How do our inner lives fit into the call of Lent toward holiness and piety?

 

            As a child and young Methodist who did not practice Lent, I was always mystified and curious about my friends who observed Lent.  They would freely talk of what they had “given up” during the forty days and nights of Lent. They would avoid chocolate, or caffeine, or soda (in Mississippi we just said “Coke” – and that covered it all).

 

            But I wondered how that made any difference to their inner life.  And I must say the same about myself and today’s sacrifices.  What are you giving up?  How does it impact your journey toward holiness that is supposed to go beyond the next six weeks? How is your life changed, in the words of the collect from this past Sunday, from glory to glory?

 

            A friend of mine from Mississippi, the Reverend Stephen Kidd, penned a response recently:

 

“If we give up anything this Lent, I suggest our grudges, malice, and hatred. We won’t miss them. If we take on something, I hope it is prayer for those hurting around us and generosity for those needs we hold up in our prayers.”

 

            That would be a beginning – a beginning of something which was a focus of this past Sunday’s gospel, transformation. We can take the first tentative steps toward personal transformation – from a people who carry grudges, bitterness, resentment, jealousies, and other feelings around like burdens.  The irony is that those feelings are not burdens for the others toward which we aim them, but burdens which we must bear.

 

            A first-step might be to wash the ashes off our faces and begin to find common ground with those from whom we differ – politically, economically, socially.  Speaks a kind word to someone. Open a door. Lend a hand. Shake a hand. Pat a back.

 

            Soon, those and other will become habits – habits of holiness. And those habits will become a pattern for your new, transformed life.