Göttinger Predigten
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
Ash Wednesday, 02/22/2012
Sermon on Matthew 6:1-6,15-21, by David Zersen
One of the things I remember about family tradition in my homelife is spring cleaning. Not knowing where this tradition came from, I checked some online references only to find some rather unusual reflections. One answer was that before the days of the vacuum cleaner, people needed a season when they could finally open the windows wide to let flow out all the dust and dirt that would be banged from rugs and drapes. Another observation remembers that prior to Passover (April 6-14 this year), the house had to be cleaned thoroughly to remove any traces of leaven. Probably more related to Christian culture is the Orthodox tradition of cleaning house thoroughly prior to the observation of Great Lent. All of these observations do not coincide chronologically, but all are post-winter.
In our own case, none of us children asked why, but we were always drafted into service which usually lasted about a week. We polished the wooden doors, we washed the windows, and we shook out the rugs or beat them with rug beaters. We washed the walls, the drapes were taken to the cleaners, and floors were scrubbed. I have no idea where my mother learned this thoroughness, but for us the practice was self-understood. One thing we never fully understood was that during spring cleaning, things in the attic would be rearranged and many of them would be taken into the basement. During fall cleaning, we rearranged many of the things in the basement, and carted the same things back into the attic that had been moved to the basement the previous spring. I suspect that there was some logical lunacy involved in this. What we did capture in it all, however, was that our mother was in charge, she knew what had to be done, and nobody could slack off until everything was finished. Whether we actually sensed and smelled it ourselves, I’m not sure to this day. But our mother knew that when all was finished, everything smelled clearner and looked brighter. She had a vision and it involved freshness, brightness and cleanliness. Without that vision, all would be drudgery, and we would probably have revolted by mid-week.
WHAT GOOD IS LENT WITHOUT A VISION?
At a much more profound level, there’s some relationshp between spring cleaning and the season of Lent. Both do occur roughly at the same time, and both have roots in older traditions. The Lenten tradition began as a time for candidates to prepare themvelves for baptism on Holy Saturday. In the earliest church, it was the only time for baptism. As those times became more frequent, however, the Lenten season came to be a time to focus on the changes that ought to take place (could we call it the spring cleaning?) in our own lives as we prepared ourselves to understand and celebrate the suffering, death and ressurection of Christ.
Looking ahead to the intent, to the purpose of it all, is certainly important, just as it is in spring cleaning. Lent with its self-denial, its ashes, its discipline can be drudgery if we haven’t caught the vision. If we don’t remember that Jesus died for our sins and rose again for our justication (Rom. 4:25), then we are likely to get stuck in the mud on our Lenten pilgrimage. On tonight’s news, there was an episode about a man who was moving a house across a field in a northern State, and thaw had come faster than he expected. So, the wheels under the frame holding the house got stuck in the mud, and nothing was going anywhere until someone rethought what the whole moving process was about.
The fourty weekdays of Lent that lie before us can produce great disillusionment if we don’t remember why we are invovled in this discipline, repentance and self-denial. Wisely the Church decided to make the focus of the Sundays during the six weeks of Lent on the resurrection of Jesus. Thus the six Sundays are Sundays in Lent, not of Lent. They remind us of the destination of our season. They remind us of the goal of faith. They remind us of the joy at the end of the journey.
I like to remind myself that the earliest Christians never really thought much about the birth of Jesus and did not even celebrate it. That was a later tradition for the Church. What was overwhelming to them, and the basis for their faith, was that Jesus had overcome the power of death, had freed them from their sins, and invited them to enter into a new life which lasted forever.
The baptism that they were to experience on Holy Saturday was to unite them with the death and resurrection of Christ. They themselves understood that they would die to sin in the waters of baptism and by the power with which God claimed them rise to newness of life. There was freedom and emanciaption in these words. There was light to forever quench their darkness. There was joy to stifle any sadness. The resurrection proclaimed at Easter was surely worth waiting for. Knowing that it was coming, and keeping this before their eyes of faith, they could not easily get lost in the muck and drudgery along the pilgrim way.
How painful it is for me to hear a sermon that does not hold up that vision before my tired eyes!
All too often we are told that we should change or improve, but there is no power given and no emanciaption offered for the burdens and baggage of our lives. We are given rules and laws, but the preacher forgets to say that what motivates us is the good news that God has not left us in our sin, but has opened the door to an abundant life through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
This is what we need to remember as we read our text today. Jesus is challenging his hearers to avoid false piety. I have no way of knowing this, but I think Jesus may have provided this challenge with a good sense of humor, wild gesturing and facial contortions. Don’t sound trumpets when you give generously! Don’t stand on the street corners when you uplift your hands to pray! Don’t make grimmacing gestures with your face when you fast to give the impression that you’re really better at this than most! And don’t spend so much time watching the NASDAQ and the Standard and Poors because they don’t provide your real treasure anyway!
Now, we could continue this list from the Sermon on the Mount using good Christian judgement and understanding the realities of our temptations in our world today:
Don’t practice false humility—condescending to others who aren’t as good as you are.
Don’t pretend to be honest—when even your children know when you aren’t telling the truth.
Don’t imply that you support justice—when you side with that which favors your need.
Don’t let us believe that you are loyal—when your spouse has reason to question it.
The list of those things that we could be tackling in Lent can get very long—were we to see this as a time to work at our failures, foibles and follies. There is plenty of room in all of our lives for a vigorous spring cleaning. We are all closet cases in that we have much that we would not prefer to take out for friends, family and even those closest to us to see.
I think we need to look at this realistically, but I don’t think that Jesus who went to the cross for our sakes is asking that we become ruthless and overly diligent in our desire to make some changes in our lives. Everything he is saying in this text is subsumed under the statement, “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them” (v. 1). “Practice your discipleship,” says Jesus, “with sincerity, but not with arrogance.”
You are no better than anyone else. Let people know that you are real, that like others you too have failings and shortcomings. Let them also know that because the light of Easter is already shining in your eyes, you are striving to discover the full stature of Christ.
This month is the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, one of the most beloved novelists in the English language—and certainly one of the most influential. His story has something to say to our story today. When Dickens was just a young lad, his father died, and so he had to go into a workhouse to be the breadwinner for the family. There he experienced life at its worst. Child labor was common; children were beaten and hardly fed. Crime was rampant and children were forced to be thieves. Prostitution and dishonest public officials were a way of life. When at the age of 14 he was able to leave Blacking Workhouse, he could have followed the low life he had come to understand as commonplace. Instead, however, somehow, he saw the light beckoning to him. He understood that a world of generosity, humanity, and love was waiting to embrace him and everyone who was open to begin again. Many are those who have read the stories of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Little Nell, A Christmas Carol, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations and many others who were touched by the light that Dickens saw and were encouraged to be different from the mean-spirited people who denied Oliver more food or Cratchit a day off for Christmas. Dickens’ life is a parable of the new possibiltiies that are given to us all as we seek to the light that summons us from Holy Saturday’s baptismal candle.
Lent is meant to be a time of introspection, refocusing and beginning again. But there is no way this will work for us unless we remember that these fourty days are set within the Sundays that remember the resurrection celebration. We who have celebrated many Easters before know that we have been baptized with Christ. We have put on the mind of Christ. And as we daily die to the old nature within us, by the power which God gives us through our faith in Jesus, we rise to the full stature of Christ.
The days before us are filled with vision. It is a vision of the God who loved us with an eternal love and now invites us to his table with thanksgiving. Here he will share Christ’s very self with us as we are empowered to become his body and blood in our world. Here we begin another leg in the pilgrimage which is his life at work within us. Here we rejoice that his life is ours too.