Why these Ashes?

Here is my Ash Wednesday sermon a few days late. The sermon was based on the Gospel lesson which was Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21


I find this gospel text that was chosen for Ash Wednesday so odd. Each Ash Wednesday we read about how we should not be like those hypocrites who give money, pray and fast in such a way that others see them and praise them for the good things that they have done. Yet every Ash Wednesday a cross of ashes is put on our forehead and we then walk around with a black smudge on our head for the rest of the day. Are we not doing an act so that others may notice what we are doing?

In the text people are giving money, praying and fasting not to give glory to God, not so that others may see God’s good works but they do these things so that they may be praised by others for their own good works. People are much the same today both as individuals and as corporations.

I think the example that is most striking and annoys me the most is the food companies that will donate to a certain charity 5 cents for every one of their labels that you mail into them up to 10 thousand dollars. The company could just donate the money; you know more than likely they will donate the full amount. Or they could donate a certain percentage of their profits with no limit on the amount that will finally be donated. But instead they use their donation as a marketing tool as a way to get people to buy their product. Many people will buy that yogurt or candy or boxed good instead of the competitors’ because they support the charity.

Or a corporation or individual will donate a large sum of money to a charity or school with the arrangement that their logo will appear in a pamphlet or the back of a t-shirt or that their name will grace a new building or room.

On a more individual level there are still people who give, pray and even fast for personal praise. People who fast or abstain from a certain food during Lent not as a spiritual discipline but as a diet tool. People who pray long elaborate prayers or stand on the street corners asking people if they have been saved not in order to spread Christ’s gospel but to let others know how great they are to do such things. And then there is money, a touchy subject if there ever was one. There are the people who give lots of money to churches and/or charities and therefore feel that they are able to control how things are done, not willing to listen to the Holy Spirit or even the whole of the group. And there are the people who donate their trivial amount to a church each year yet they claim to give much more, or they give in order to stay on the church roles in order to warn off the satan. Not a whole lot has changed since Jesus’ time, there are still hypocrites doing godly things for personal gain.

So what about the ashes? Aren’t we kinda like those hypocrites doing a godly thing, worshiping, so that others might see and think better of us. Well my guess is that most of you will leave here and go straight home. I mean it is already about 8 o’clock and well really there are not a whole lot of places open around here much later. If anything you might stop at Ancona’s or Carluzi’s on your way home and your smudge, your cross, might open a conversation about why you have it after the check out clerks mentions that you have something on your forehead. Most of us, in fact most everyone who is participating in Ash Wednesday services today, are not going to go parading up and down busy streets with our black smudged foreheads in order to make other people either feel bad about not going to church today or are going to want praise from others about what great Christians they are for going to church when it isn’t even Sunday. Granted there are a few exceptions to that, but most of us will receive those ashes for a different reason.

So why the ashes? When the ashes are placed on our forehead we are told “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Those are not the most uplifting words, the most grace-filled words, that will ever be said to us. Those are harsh words, filled with death and despair. But today on Ash Wednesday, we are beginning our Lenten journey, we are beginning to travel with Christ towards the cross, towards Jesus’ death. And at the beginning of this journey we are remembering our baptisms. When we were baptized a cross of oil was placed on our foreheads and the pastor said “_____ child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

Those ashes, that black smudge is a reminder of our baptism. For in baptism we were given the gift of eternal life, but first we died. We each have been drowned in the waters of baptism, we each have been baptized into a life with and like Christ but also have been baptized into his death as well. So today on Ash Wednesday, at the start of this Lenten journey, we are marked with a cross of ashes to remind us of our baptismal death.

But our journey does not end here. On Maundy Thursday our feet will be blessed so that we may walk in the ways of Christ, and on Good Friday our hands will be blessed so that we may do God’s work in this world. And at Easter Vigil we will be marked with a cross of water, those ashes will be washed clean as we remember the new life that is given to us in baptism. Even on this Ash Wednesday, this start to Lent, there is still the Easter promise.