Christian Weirdness

Sermon for SMHP—Ash Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

          “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. ²“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

          ³But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ⁵“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

           ⁶But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.¹⁶“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.

          ¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸so 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.

               ¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

          So let’s talk about peer pressure.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past few weeks, ever since I agreed to participate with Salem Lutheran in a noontime “Glitter Ash Wednesday” service.  I initially said no, but when I talked to Dave and Emily from Salem, they made a good case, and I relented and said yes. 

          And I’m really glad we did it, but it’s making me think about peer pressure just a bit more.  The service happened in a way because of peer pressure, but there was, of course, an equal and opposite bunch of pressure to not do the service, and it turns out that there were lots of people who had opinions about the service and why we were doing it and how we were doing it wrong.

          There are, you might know, lots of people who have lots of opinions about everything these days.  And social media and other similar platforms give the illusion that every opinion is worth sharing.

          And I raise this today because for us as Christians, this is not true any other time as much as it is on Ash Wednesday and during the holy season of Lent.

          I mean, is it just me, or is everybody invested in your Lenten fasting?  If you want to hear from people all over the country, just mention that you are giving something up for Lent.  You will get opinions and more opinions.

          Or go out in public with ashes on your head.  And look around.  See how many other people have ashes on their heads.  Not so many any more. 

          We are weird.

          And if we’re concerned about peer pressure, we might be bothered by that.  You probably know that people think some of the stuff we do is weird.  Especially this time of year, when we do extra weird stuff.  We put these ashes on our heads to symbolize dust and repentance and sorrow, and then we go out into a world that just thinks that’s weird.

          And we fast.  We give stuff up.  And a lot of people think that’s just odd, right?  Anybody had this conversation this week?

          We no longer live in a world in which this sort of behavior is considered normal.  Not too long ago, people just went to church on Sunday morning, or Ash Wednesday night.  A lot of them didn’t think about why.  They just did it.

          But it is not so with us.  We think about it.  Raise your hand if you came to church because it was what everyone else was doing tonight.

          Nope.  You are here because you wanted to be out on a cold night, sitting in a warm sanctuary with ashes on your head, talking about repentance.  You are set apart from a lot of the people you know by this behavior—set apart by your actions and your beliefs.

          Just as Jesus wanted it.  Jesus wanted his people to be a set apart people.  A people who lived and loved in a new way, a way that would stand out.  Jesus knew that his set apart people would be subject to reactions ranging from a raised eyebrow to a raised fist.

          Our text for this evening comes from the Sermon on the Mount, which begins with Jesus blessing the sorts of people who never get blessed—the poor, the meek, the mourning.  Those beatitudes conclude with this one:  ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

          Then he goes on to tell them to be people who give alms, who say prayers, and who engage in fasting, but not in the way so many others did.  Not as a display of piety meant to satisfy the pressures of our peers.  But as a way of drawing nearer to the God who called us, gathered us, sanctified us, and is now sending us out, with ashes on our heads and prayers on our lips, so that we might witness to the sort of God that would inspire such devotion.

          My beloved, ash-covered friends…we are blessed.  We are the people of a God who loves us beyond measure.  God has loved us into being fools for Christ—willing to set ourselves apart by living and loving like Jesus, even if it makes us stand out in a crowd…which it will.

          You are set apart by those ashes, sure.  You are set apart by your willingness to pray and fast and give alms, all behaviors that look odd in America in 2019.  And most of all, you are set apart by a knowledge so sweet your peers can only dream of it:  the knowledge that this world, in all its complexity and silliness and judgment, will never have the last word for us. 

          This cross made of dust reminds us that even death cannot have the last word for us, because the last word for us will come at the end of this season of almsgiving and prayer and fasting.  It will be a word of hope and joy so sweet you will sing out and not care what anyone thinks about it.

          On the way to that moment, we will pray, and fast, and give alms.  We will meet on Wednesday evenings and practice incarnation, and we will gather on Sunday mornings to imagine how we can testify to the hope within us and we will be weird and wonderful and we won’t care a bit what anyone else thinks about it.

          Welcome to the season of Lent, you weird, wonderful, ash-covered Lutherans.  May it be all that you need, and more.