Ash Wednesday
February 6, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
Renewed in Practicing Your Righteousness (Matt.
6:1-6, 16-21)
Every year the church has a season of renewal, and
its called Lent. Today, Ash Wednesday, is the first
day of Lent, the first of forty days. During this
time of year, the sun is getting stronger, the days
are getting longer. Thats how Lent got its name, by
the way. This is when the days lengthen, and so
its called the Lenten season. And just as Lent
begins in the dead of winter and presses forward into
spring, so the Lord will bring his people from
deadness to life, from coldness to warmth, from night
into light. The new day is coming! Easter is on its
way! And so we pray that God would renew our zeal in
faith and life. In this way, Lent is a season of
renewal, a time of renewed and increased devotion in
our lives as Christs disciples.
Today that season begins. It begins with a call to
repentance. Ash Wednesday sets the tone, and the
whole season of Lent can be heard as one long call to
repentance. For repentance--true
repentance--inevitably leads to renewal. It is the
only place where renewal can begin. For without
repentance, without a deep recognition of our own
sinfulness, we will feel no need for Gods renewal.
So God must first speak his word of Law to us to show
us our sin and bring us to repentance, in order for us
then to seek and desire his renewing power.
Repentance leads to renewal. Or looking at it from
the other side, as we seek to live more devoted lives
as Christians, which we know were supposed to do, we
come face to face with the ugly, resistant, old man in
us that does not want to live for God, or who will
twist that service of God into a form of self-service
by doing it to look good in front of others. And when
we confront that Inner Pharisee inside all of us, we
must cry out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner!
Coming to grips with your Inner Pharisee--this is what
Jesus is getting at in our Gospel reading for tonight
from the Sermon on the Mount. He warns us against
self-righteousness and exposes our hypocrisy. He
says: Beware of practicing your righteousness before
other people in order to be seen by them.
Now in Pharisaic Judaism, practicing your
righteousness often became a matter of
self-righteousness, doing pious acts in order to look
good in front of other people. The practice of
righteousness traditionally consisted of several main
activities, such as giving alms, saying your prayers,
and fasting, which is going without food for a time.
These three--giving to the needy, praying, and
fasting--these were considered the pillars of personal
piety. But in each of these activities, Jesus shows
the sinful motive that can lie behind an apparent
good work. Jesus pulls the mask off our hypocrisy,
so we can see the sin that lurks in our heart.
He first deals with the matter of giving: When you
give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may be praised by others. Giving is an
area where our love for honor can easily emerge.
Especially if we have been blessed with a degree of
wealth, the temptation is there to use our offerings
to gain prestige. Why, hes a big contributor to the
church, dont you know! The word gets out, people
find out, and our chest puffs out. On the other hand,
if we dont have so much money to begin with, maybe we
take pride in how sacrificially we give. Why, I bet
I give a bigger percentage of my income than those
other guys do! But really, this is just the same
kind of hypocrisy--only the arithmetic is different.
Like giving, prayer is another religious activity
where hypocrisy can creep in. Jesus addresses it:
And when you pray, you must not be like the
hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the
synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be
seen by others. Prayer, worship, personal
devotions--these are seen as really pious practices.
The really spiritual Christians have a strong prayer
life. So this then becomes an obvious place where we
can put on a show and impress people, in order to gain
respect and admiration. Religious showmanship, so as
to look good in the eyes of others. But if thats all
it is, then its nothing more than hollow hypocrisy.
Giving. Praying. Fasting--a third religious
activity: And when you fast, do not look gloomy like
the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that
their fasting may be seen by others. Literally, it
says, they make their faces unsightly in order to
make a sight. And so, human hypocrisy being what it
is, we see how an act of righteousness can really be
just that--an act.
Now about this time, you and I may be saying to
ourselves: God, I thank you that I am not like those
Pharisees. You dont see me giving to gain prestige.
You dont see me praying in order to be seen. You
dont see me fasting to make a show. But maybe
theres another sentence we could add to that list:
God, you dont see me doing those things . . . at
all!
You see, theres an opposite danger here. Instead of
doing these religious activities for show, we end up
simply not doing them at all. Its like we think that
Jesus said, Beware of practicing your righteousness .
. . period. But thats not what he said. He said,
Beware of practicing your righteousness . . . before
other people in order to be seen by them. Jesus
assumes you will be practicing your righteousness,
that is, doing these religious activities on a regular
basis. The point is how and why you are doing them,
not that you are doing them.
Neglect is not much better than hypocrisy. Notice
that Jesus does not say, I know theres a danger of
hypocrisy, so dont even bother giving, praying, or
fasting. No, Jesus assumes that his disciples will
be doing these things. He says, when you give,
when you pray, when you fast. But do we? Do we
give much to the needy? Do we pray regularly? Do we
fast, even at all? And this is just the tip of the
iceberg. There other practices of righteousness that
we may have been neglecting: Regular worship every
Lords Day. Frequent Communion. Diligent study of
Gods word in Sunday School and Bible class. Acts of
kindness toward family members, church members, and
neighbors. The list could go on and on.
Whether ours is the sin of hypocrisy or the sin of
neglect, either way our sinfulness is plainly and
painfully evident. Which brings us back to
repentance. Its Psalm 51 time, time to pray: Have
mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.
. . . Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse
me from my sin! . . . Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me.
My friends, God our heavenly Father has had mercy on
you! He gave his only Son to die for you! And for
his sake, he does forgive you all your sins. The
blood of Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
Whats more, God has made you his new creation in
Christ. In Baptism, you were given the gift of the
Holy Spirit, who day by day purifies your heart and
renews your zeal. Empowered by the Spirit, then, this
Lent will indeed be for you a season of renewal.
Let this Lent be a season of renewal in doing those
very acts of righteousness. Renewal in your giving:
Giving to the needy, through the churchs works of
mercy. Giving for the churchs work of spreading the
gospel. Renewal in your praying: Setting aside time
every day for meditating on Gods word and for prayer,
prayer for this congregation, for the church at large,
and for the nations of the world. Renewal in your
fasting--or maybe I should say, newal, rather than
re-newal, if you havent done any fasting before.
Fasting is voluntarily going without food for a time,
as an accompaniment to prayer, as a discipline over
your desires, as a reminder of your mortality, or as
an expression of sorrow over sin. Fasting is
commended in our catechism as a fine outward
discipline. Notice I said, commended, not
commanded.
Disciples of Jesus, practicing your righteousness in
the form of giving, praying, and fasting--when these
activities are done humbly as expressions of faith,
they are received as good works in Gods sight and, by
his grace, they will be rewarded at the Last Day.
Of course, any act of righteousness is bad if its
only an act. And its bad if your source of
righteousness is bad: Self-righteousness is no
righteousness at all. But the beautiful thing is, you
have been given a righteousness far greater than that
of the scribes and the Pharisees. The righteousness
of Christ has been given to you, and that, as a free
gift. Christ kept the holy law of God, purely and
perfectly, in your place. And he paid the price for
all your unrighteousness, all your hypocrisy, all your
neglect--he covered it all by his death on the cross.
Now your sin is taken away, and his righteousness is
transferred to your account.
The Holy Spirit has been given to you, as well. You
are a new being in Christ, created for righteousness.
So now be who you are in Christ. Live in the power of
the Spirit. Put your faith to work by practicing your
righteousness. Not for show, certainly. But simply
as the fruit of faith, out of love for God and love
for others, the love that springs forth from those who
have received Gods love for them. Then men will see
your good works and give glory--not to you, but to
where it belongs, to your Father in heaven.
When you give, when you pray, when you fast. Not
if, but when. Now when you go ahead and seek to
put your righteousness into practice in these ways,
and you find yourself bothered by guilt because you
missed a day--neglect, or the opposite problem,
hypocrisy--you sense that Inner Pharisee trying to get
out and be noticed . . . at those times, remember that
you are always covered by the righteousness of Christ.
The righteousness he won for you by his mighty acts.
He kept the fast for you, for forty days in the
desert. Jesus prayed for you, in agony in Gethsemane.
Jesus gave himself for you--gave the full amount, not
skimping anything--giving himself into death, on the
cross. And now he gives himself to you in this Holy
Supper, for the forgiveness of your sins. This
forgiveness will cover and cleanse both creeping
hypocrisy and complacent neglect.
Forgiven for Christs sake, energized by the Spirit,
and safe under the Fathers care, Gods purpose now is
that you go from here renewed and refreshed for
practicing your righteousness.
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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