Time to Take Stock – 2 March 2022 – Ash Wednesday
This Lent is serious business. In the Old Testament lectionary passages for Ash Wednesday, God arrives and commands Israel to “Sound the trumpet in Zion,” and “Lift up your voice like a trumpet.” The Psalmist pleads, ‘‘Create in me a clean heart, O God.’’ Paul exclaims that “now is the day of salvation,” and Jesus advises his disciples to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
The imposition of ashes is an outward acknowledgment of our own frailty. It is a sign to all that I, no matter how hard I try to convince you otherwise, am weak and prone to selfishness; I am a sinner in need of grace. Ashes declare that I need help; that repentance is a necessary part of the Christian life. . . Ashes signal the presence of a new season that declares that God is present and has placed the demands of love, truth, justice, and humility upon our lives. Or, as Sister Joan Chittister puts it. . . “Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord we have the stamina to say yes to its twists and turns with faith and hope.... Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be” (The Rule of Benedict: Insight for the Ages [Crossroad, 1992], 136). –– Adam Hearlson
Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21
In OT Israel, fasting expressed distress to God and the community through behaviors of weeping, lament, tearing one’s clothing, wearing sackcloth, and putting ashes on one’s head. In postbiblical Israel, fasting became an act of penance for individuals to gain merit with God. In this passage, Jesus insists that the disciples disregard any human approbation gained through public display and think only of merit in God’s eyes. –– Fritz West
Joel 2:1–2, 12–17
As shown by the word “return” (v 12) and the importance of corporate intercession (vv 15–18), this passage envisions repentance as a communal change of direction to travel steadfastly along God’s way. This is a double turning. Joel implored Judah to turn to God in the hope that God (v 14) would choose to turn to Judah. –– Fritz West
2 Corinthians 5:20b––6:10
Paul provides Christological context for all of the above. Although verse 20 is unusual in stating that we are to reconcile ourselves with God, verse 21 makes Paul’s position clear. Just as in Philippians 2:5–11 (in which Christ, who is exalted, becomes human as one of us, that we may be exalted like him), so here in this passage God made Christ “who knew no sin,” “to be sin,” “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v 21). This victory allows us to do penance with the sure hope of God’s forgiveness, made known already in Christ Jesus. –– Fritz West
Adam Hearlson, pastor of Overbrook Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also serves as affiliate faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary in homiletics and the intersection of popular culture and ministerial practice.
Fritz West, a liturgical author and retired pastor of the United Church of Christ living in Minnesota, serves as the Presiding Member of the Association for Reformed & Liturgical Worship Steering Committee.
Homily Service 43, no. 2 (2009): 3–10