Göttinger Predigten
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
Ash Wednesday, 02/14/2018
Sermon on Matthew 6:1-6; 16-21, by Evan McClanahan
Psalm 51:1-17, Joel 2:1–2, 12–17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Give your life away. For you are going to die anyway. And your Father will reward you. Those are the three very basic truths I want to focus on tonight. I seek not to be poetic or dramatic, but straight to the point.
First, give your life away. Perhaps never before has man been so tempted to store up for himself treasure. In virtually every arena of life, we are front and center, the exact opposite of the life Jesus here offers. Economically, we are consumers, and the whole world is catering to us so that we will separate ourselves from a few bucks and place it in their hands. What they really want is our money, but they will appeal to us to get it. “Buy me and I will make you happy” the advertisements say. And we must believe it, for we have evolved into consummate consumers, experts at being sold to. We watch the Super Bowl, some say, for the ads themselves, so happy are we to let others well us on their path to joy.
Jesus tells us to give our lives away: “But when you give alms,” he says, “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret;” So not only does Jesus indeed call us to sacrificially give our gifts for the poor, but to do so without giving it a second thought. Merely giving is one thing. But doing so without regret is harder, especially when so many forces promise a worldly reward if you will buy from them.
We also live in the age of virtue signaling. If you’ve never heard the phrase, virtue signaling is the practice of letting the whole world know, mostly through social media, of your courage, determination and will to do what is right. It is letting the world know criticism of you is off-limits because you have preemptively done what is right and told the entire world through Facebook. If you know any do-gooders online always telling you the noble causes they fight for, you may be familiar with this practice. Think of it as practicing your piety before others.
Jesus says to give your piety away. Specifically, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them;” Does Jesus ever say not to do good, to work for justice, to care for victims, to pray for others, to fight for the oppressed? No, I’m quite sure he wants us to do all of those things. And certainly to invite others to join us in loving our neighbor. But we don’t do anything good to win the admiration of men. We are to be content to do good works in secret, because we are happy to give our piety away as well.
Now, regarding public prayer…I know very few Lutherans who are comfortable doing such a thing. There are times for public prayer, like in restaurants before meals. But we do not have a culture of public prayer, even like the 5 times a day prayer rule for Muslims. But whenever and wherever you do pray, we give our prayer away as well. It is not for other men, but for God.
And the same for fasting. Again, we have abandoned a normative and even public life of fasting. But some do make fasting a custom, and it is a good custom to observe. At least during Lent, there is nothing wrong with fasting from a particular food as a reminder of the good gifts we normally enjoy. Only, give your fasting away. Do not do it for reward or recognition by men.
Again, the point is simple. Give your life away. Your giving, your praise, your heart and soul…they are all God’s. Do not allow yourself to fall into the consumerist trap, whereby you live your entire life worried what other people think about you and letting those with a product make you a mere consumer. Give your life away instead for the sheer rightness of it, the sheer joy of fully living in God’s world.
And why do you give it away? Because you are going to die anyway. Just as your possessions will eventually rust or be consumed by moths, so too will these bodies become dust. You have already heard that truth tonight. So why live consuming that which will eventually be destroyed? Why seek to avoid death when it is the one race you will never be able to win?
Now, again, there are more options for eternal life than ever. No, I’m not talking about new religions, though they are always popping up. And I’m going beyond those very weird cryonically frozen bodies stored up for future revivification. Now, the hope for many is that their consciousness can be digitally uploaded to a cloud so you can live forever without fear of death. Sure your body may or may not be real by then, but it will really be you, carrying on in some form or fashion.
Well, forgive me if such a digitally uploaded existence doesn’t sound very appealing. I’d rather just die and then be with Jesus in paradise that very day. So yes, we will die, and there really is no point to, at least beyond what we could discern as good stewardship, living as though we will never die. We will die. And that actually offers us incredible freedom to give our lives away now! For we do not live in fear of death and trying to avoid it. No, we accept it, and are then free to live for others.
Finally, your Father will reward you. We tend to overlook this refrain. Perhaps it is because we are modest Lutherans and know we really do not deserve any rewards. Or perhaps it is because charlatans have abused these kinds of passages to make promises they can’t keep, promises about earthly wealth.
I grew up being told “Virtue is its own reward”, so I have never expected any reward. And all Jesus says is that the Father will rewards us. He does not say how or in what way. I am certainly not above believing that we will indeed reap rewards in this life for giving our lives away. Indeed, how many blessings, material and social and spiritual, do we enjoy every day and rarely give God the credit!
If the reward was explicit, we would make it an idol. If it was instant or material, it would demand none of the great virtues: endurance, patience, hope and faith. Jesus is saying to trust the reward of God more than the praise of men. When put that way, doesn’t that sound like the right thing to do?
In the cross, we find all of these things done well, far better, in fact, than we could ever hope to do. Jesus gives his life away. He holds nothing back, not even his clothes. He died with nothing. And die he did. There is no conspiracy here. The body of Christ gave out its last breath and remained that way for about 40 hours until resurrection. And the reward? Well, its a reward we reap more than anyone. It is the reward of God becoming sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God. It is the reward of reconciliation with God and everlasting life being ours.
So give thanks on this evening, as the oil and ashes on your head remind you of your sin, and your death, that you have a great reward won for you by Christ. For he is the man who gave his life away so you could have the reward. Amen.