Ash Wednesday

 

March 2, 2022

 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6.1-6,16-21

+ Of course, I came back from vacation yesterday.

 For the most part I gotta say my vacation was a bust.

 I wasn’t able to travel anywhere.

 This was the first time in fourteen years that I wasn’t able to go to Florida, which is always one of the major highlights of my year.

 The weather here was miserable.

 Every time I tried to get away, there was a blizzard or bad weather.

 It was not fun.

 But it did give me an opportunity to watch lots of movie and read lots of books.

 I did some quite a few of the Oscar-nominated films.

 And I read some incredible books.

 One of the books I read was a amazing book recommended to me by my cousin Renaye called Burial Rites, about the last execution in Iceland in 1830, telling the story of the poor young woman who was beheaded.

 I highly recommend that book.

 Another book I read was an amazing book called The Art of Disruption: Improvisation and the Book of Common Prayer by Fr. Paul Fromberg.

 Fr. Paul, as some of you may know, is the Rector of one of my dream parishes in the Episcopal Church—St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.

 St. Gregory of Nyssa is a very progressive, very cutting-edge, unique, Anglo-Byzantine parish.

 It is filled with icons and incense and murals and amazing unique liturgies.

 In fact, if you are following Lent Madness this year, or any year, you will see those dancing saints on the cover.

 That illustration comes from the interior of St. Gregory of Nyssa.

 The book was a no holds barred book.

 It takes a look at new ways of doing our Episcopal worship,

 And it definitely takes a hard look at what Fr. Paul thinks may be failings in our Episcopal liturgy.

 One of those areas is in this liturgy. This Ash Wednesday liturgy.

 Paul Fromberg writes this in his book:

 “The Ash Wednesday service in the Book of Common Prayer needs to be hacked in order to unleash its full potential.”

 Fr. Paul goes on to reference our Gospel reading for today, this scripture in which we hear Jesus say emphatically:

 "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.

"…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.

 Fromberg writes: “The reading is quite clear about what we are to do when we fast: act as if what we’re doing is no big deal. But the prayer book instructs us to do exactly the opposite. Instead of clean faces, we mar them with ash. Instead of private penitence, we recite a list of generic sins that sound like a list of fraternity demerits.  It’s quite jumbled and respectable.”

 And, I’m going to add, it’s true.

 If you’re on social media like I’m social media, let me tell you: people are doing the exact opposite of what Jesus is saying to us in tonight’s Gospel.

 I saw one photo after another on Facebook of people showing off the ashen crosses on their foreheads.

 And I certainly have done it as well.

 Now, to be clear, most of us to do it not to “show off” at all.

 We do it to do exactly what this liturgy tells us to do:

 We do it to remind ourselves and others that we are sinners, that we are mortal, that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

 And so I’m not calling anyone out about this, nor do I think Paul Fromberg is either.

 Rather, it’s just a matter of looking at the heart of our liturgy and what we do on this day.

 Because, as Fromberg goes on, we have to remember one important thing on Ash Wednesday. He writes:

 “…through the lens of hope, we can see something about the Ash Wednesday service that is easily forgotten in our socially neurotic culture: even without our penance, God forgives us.”

 I’m going to repeat that because it is definitely something we need to hear today:

 “Even without our penance, God forgives us.”

 And it’s true.

 You or I don’t get to control God and God’s forgiveness of us.

 And that is hard for many of us to accept.

 But it is a good Lenten realization!

 Fromberg goes on:

 “Every act of penance we take on is infused with hope, not just God’s forgiveness, but of new connection with God and all of God’s beloved children.”

 And here comes the truly radical part of all of this. He says,

“An important hack of the prayer book is to turn the penitential formula around: instead of saying ‘I must be forgiven before I can do anything else,’ recognize that we are forgiven already and ask, ‘what shall I do with my forgiveness?’”

 And that is our challenge tonight and throughout this season of Lent:

 What shall I do with my forgiveness?

 I am already forgiven.

 You and I were already forgiven tonight before we ever entered this building.

 This God who loves us so fully and completely has already forgiven us.

 Because God knows us.

 God knows us better than we know ourselves.

 We are already forgiven.

 And that is our challenge.

 And not just recognizing that in ourselves, but to share that reality with others.

 Paul Fromberg adds this:

 “The hard work is to believe what God has done for us is real. God’s love and God’s forgiveness are big interuptions in our lives. When we might be perfectly happy to walk around with ashes on our foreheads, feeling worthless and guilty and ashamed, God just isn’t impressed.”

 God is not impressed by our self-loathing and self-hatred.

 God is not impressed at how bad we treat ourselves our abuse ourselves.

 God has never required us to beat ourselves to make right the wrongs we have done in this life.

 Fromberg then goes on to talk about how he hacked the Book of Common Prayer liturgy at St. Gregory of Nyssa.

 At St. Gregory’s, each person is invited to turn to the person next to them and say: “Forgive me a sinner.” The other person in response says, “God forgives you, forgive me a sinner.”

 Now, we’re not going to do that tonight in this liturgy.

 But it’s important that this is essentially what we are called to do not just on Ash Wednesday but every day of our Christian journey of following Jesus.

 This is what Lent’s all about.

 Yes, we fail.

 Yes, we mess up.

 Yes, we really fail terribly.

 Yes, something we do not love God as we should.

 Or not at all.

 And sometimes we do not love others as we long to be loved.

 We mistreat people.

 We say terrible things about people behind their backs.

 We fail to see in other people—even those people who drive us nuts—that God is present within that person, that God truly, deeply loves that person just as much as God truly, deeply loves us.

 We fail—and we fail miserably.

 And we need to recognize that fact in our life.

 We need to acknowledge that.

 And we need to strive—no, we need to work hard—at not doing those things again.

 And we need to understand that we will be struggling in this way until we breathe our last on this earth.

 But we also need to remember what have heard tonight.

 When we do those things, we are already forgiven.

 Now, I want to stress this: that does not give us carte blanche.

 That does not mean we do whatever.

 Rather, knowing that we are forgiven already by our God, we should go forward not wanting to mess up again.

 And it also means that when fail, we need to acknowledge our failure, before God and before each other.

 Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading for tonight, do not make a show of any of this.

 But go aside quietly, and acknowledge your failure before your God who knows you and who loves you, and try to make right the wrongs you have done, as someone already forgiven.

 By doing so, it is then that we truly become loved Children of our loving God in this world.

 It is then that we live in love.

 It is that we do truly something with our forgiveness.

 Let us pray.

 Holy and loving God, you are not impressed with our outward signs of penitence and repentance. You are not impressed when we make a show of our efforts of making right what we have done. Help us to do something with the fact that you have forgiven us before we even thought to ask for your forgiveness. Help us to live as truly forgiven people in this world. And help us to forgive others as you have forgiven us.   In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.