March 2: Ash Wednesday

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for Ash Wednesday, 2022, was preached in response to the proper texts for the day using the manuscript below.

Memto mori.
Remember that you die.
The four last things:
Death, judgment, hell, heaven.
Remember that you are dust,
and to dust you will return.
Throughout the year,
at All Saints and All Souls,
historically in Advent,
and today on Ash Wednesday
the Church will not let us forget our mortality.

Today the Psalmist says,
“Our days are like the grass; *
we flourish like a flower of the field;
When the wind goes over it, it is gone, *
and its place shall know it no more.
We’ve gotten well acquainted with death
these last two years,
two years since we gathered in the rotunda for heat
and Topher slept on Amy Randolph.
People we know have died
from within and without the congregation
and yet the church wants us to remember
that we are dust,
and to dust we will return
Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
When the wind goes over it, it is gone, *
and its place shall know it no more.

Throughout this service today,
we’re called to repent and return to the Lord.
The collect bids God
“Create and make in us new and contrite hearts.”
God speaks through Joel calling to us
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.”
Paul pleads with the Corinthiains,
“be reconciled to God.”
The psalmist reminds us of the brevity of our lives,
and we have quite the litany of apologizing to go through in a few moments.
In Matthew Jesus encourages us,
“store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes
and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

If you want,
particularly if you’re trying to make other people feel bad
so that you can control them,
it’s easy to push Lent as a gloomy, depressing season,
dreary (the daily office psalms definitely are),
and kind of a drag.
That’s before we bring in fasting or abstinence
or trying to take up a discipline
or give to the vicar’s discretionary fund
or the sock box
or the Little Free Pantry.
When we focus on ourselves like this,
rather than as I said Sunday
asking what the texts tell us about God
you can think that “woe is me a worm”
is the Lenten mindset.
It’s easy to understand
why you may want to give up Lent for Lent
or skip out on it all together.
That’s especially true when we’re surrounded
by so much death and uncertainty,
having more demands and stressed placed on us by others
or by ourselves
doesn’t sound optimum or ideal.

None of the reminders of death and sinfulness
are the last word from anywhere in today’s service, though.
The collect assures us that
Gods hates nothing God has made
and forgives the sins of all who are penitent
then asks that we may obtain God’s mercy through Jesus.
After calling us to rend our hearts,
Joel says that God
is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
The psalmist points out the brevity of our lives but continues
the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever on those who fear him, *
and his righteousness on children’s children,
having already said
God forgives all our sins *
and heals all our infirmities;

God redeems our life from the grave *
and crowns us with mercy and loving-kindness;
Paul wants us to be reconciled to God because
For our sake God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus warns against practicing our piety in public
so that we don’t get big heads here on earth
telling us to store treasure in heaven
so that there too our hearts may be.

Memto mori.
Remember that you die.
The four last things:
Death, judgment, hell, heaven.
Remember that you are dust,
and to dust you will return.
Throughout the year,
at All Saints and All Souls,
historically in Advent,
and today on Ash Wednesday
the Church will not let us forget our mortality.

We don’t take Jesus’ cross on our foreheads
to disfigure ourselves and look dismal,
showing others that we’re fasting.
We take Jesus’ cross on our foreheads
because we will die,
and Jesus and the Church call us to embrace that reality.
We are called to embrace that reality,
because as Christians we proclaim that that reality
is not the end of reality,
that in Easter which we’ll celebrate in 40-some odd days
death itself is defeated.
by the one whose cross we wear
as we are reminded that we will die.

Our whole service today reminds us that we will die,
and that even in that frailty
God loves us and redeems us in Jesus.
We should repent.
We may fast or abstain.
We may take on a spiritual discipline.
We may give more.
None of those things, though
earns us salvation.
None of them earns us God’s love.
Through nothing we’ve done
As far as the east is from the west, *
so far has God removed our sins from us.
As a father cares for his children, *
so does God care for those who fear Them.
God has loved us such to send Jesus to redeem us
that is God’s care
and it is Jesus to whom we look
throughout these 40 days.

Mother Brit Frazier, from St. Mark’s in Philadelphia sums Lent, these 40 days, up nicely,
“For all of its call to repentance, fasting, prayer, & almsgiving,
Lent is fundamentally about growing closer to Jesus Christ.
It is about remembering that our mortality and sin
are redeemed in the Resurrection.
It is about clearing away that which prevents us from knowing Christ.[1]
“So whatever you do or do not do for Lent,
make sure it turns your heart toward Jesus.
For some of us, this means giving something up
or taking upon a discipline.
For others of us, it means hoping to just rest
in the knowledge that we are loved.” [2]

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