Matthew 6: 1-6:16-18

THE FIRST DAY OF LENT, ASH WEDNESDAY | Feb. 22, 2023 | Mt 6: 1-6:16-18 (RCL) | David Zersen |

“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. “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut. When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. ¹⁴For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. “And 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.⁷But 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. 

PRACTICING YOUR PIETY

This last week our daughter sent a Facebook message to her friends that celebrated our granddaughter having received a first in an FBLA and that the MFHS team took first in the regionals and that she would be majoring in UX Design nest year. The acronyms meant little to me, but I’m in a generation that didn’t grow up with churches and schools and business and people being turned into acronyms. Blame it on hyphenated surnames that nobody can remember or merged corporations with long names or even a need to talk faster. In any case, today our text asks us to talk about something for which modern psychology has coined a term and even a disease name. Instead of an old biblical word like “sin”, let’s now talk about a specific sin like “narcissism” and a specific problem called narcissistic personality disorder or NPD.  Got it? Let’s talk about NPD.

There’s an interesting Greek myth that predates the use of this term in psychology. Narcissus, a handsome youth, so the story goes, continued to reject all the lovely girls that the gods sent his way, even Echo whose words came back to her every time she spoke. In frustration, the gods punished him by trying to make him fall in love with his own image in a quiet pool of water. When Narcissus discovered that his image didn’t respond to him, he became increasingly despondent and finally died.

I liked to remind my students in Developmental Psych that Freud decided to address one of the great human predicaments with this myth. Already in infancy, children are predisposed to desire their own needs first. Self-centred desire is narcissism. As we mature, hopefully, we grow out of the need to put ourselves first. To some degree we never will. A minority of us will have serious problems with self-centredness. We say that such people are just “full of themselves”! Psychologists may call it NPD.

In our own time, technology has created a larger problem with NPD, especially with teens who are in a stage of maturation. Using Tik-Tok and other online devices, teens who desperately want to find their place in society can try to follow what others are demanding of them, like extreme weight loss or illogical affection. Psychological terms like anorexia nervosa or antisocial behaviour are used by specialists. But parents and siblings and friends know that something, as Miss Clavelle once simply pronounced  in a famous children’s story, “is not right”.

This is Ash Wednesday and for centuries, perhaps as long as 1500 years, people have been called to agree that something is not right. We may have learned to name it “NPD” with our contemporaries and to avoid using old-fashioned terms that seem out of vogue. A dear friend of ours would often pronounce, when some problem didn’t seem to have an easy solution, “it’s because of sin”! And we may laugh at such a proposal because we have become sophisticated modern people! It’s especially problematic to many of us in our society that has been influenced by secular ideas, that although sin may take place in “extreme” situations, even serial killers are probably influenced by some unfortunate incidents in their childhood—which may ameliorate the seriousness of their failure. And, of course, the term “sin” should not be applied too easily to children because “sin, some would say, is a learned behaviour and is picked up only after imitating other people who have learned how to become sinners! “Original sin”, the doctrine  that Lutherans and most Christians confess, is thus a concept not easily accepted by many in today’s world.

Now, although language changes with time, I think that Jesus and Freud would be in agreement here about a number of things. Some years ago, my wife and I attended a great play in Chicago, “Freud’s Last Session,” in which C.S.Lewis and Sigmund Freud had an amazing ‘one-on-one”. It gave substantial food for thought. If infants initially seek only their own best interests, then both Jesus and Freud may have to agree that they are sinners or narcissists from birth. And together, they might agree that maturation takes place only as children begin to imitate the practices of care for others taught in, for example, the Gospels, or practiced by those who lovingly care for them.

Jesus is saying that when humans mature, they should pay attention to the stumbling blocks that can occur. We can be generous with others, we can forgive others, we can be sorry for what we’ve done. However, we should also be careful that we don’t practice our piety in such a way as to try to convince others how good we are. Our practices have the good and gracious will of God working in us and through us– and that’s  what we need to celebrate. That others should recognize what we have done for them is not important. In fact, desiring their approval, makes us narcissists. Or, as Jesus might say, “sinners”, quite literally, people who have “missed the mark”. It’s the same thing. People who call attention to themselves, but have no real interest in serving others, are not letting God’s love embrace us.

Is there then no fear that on Ash Wednesday we allow ourselves to be anointed with ashes and then parade around the community saying, “Look at me! I’m a special person. I once was lost but now I’m found” as many have learned to sing it. It is true that  Christians marked with the sign of the cross may seem to be calling attention to themselves, a practice Jesus reprimands in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector that features a pharisee walking around praying ostentatiously. However, it should be remembered that anointing with ashes is an ancient custom, at least one thousand years old, and when it was practices for centuries before us, all those who were bearing the imposed cross walked around in the villages and cities with fellow Christians. They were not condescending to others, but were mutually acknowledging that all of them together were practicing a piety that said, “Sinners though we are, we are striving together to grow up to the full stature of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13). St. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 3 that although we are no longer physical infants, we may be “infants in Christ” and we are being given grace to “grow up to the stature of Christ’s fullness”. Without that fullness, received through words and deeds of care from our parents, siblings, pastors, and teachers we would remain untutored feral creatures and the concept  of original sin might be more obvious than it is to many today.

Let me tell you a secret about the imposition of ashes. In the early 1960s, 1962 to 1965 to be exact, when I was a young pastor, Vatican II, the great convocation of the Roman Catholic Church, took place. Many innovations in liturgy and in other areas were set forth and in many cases, other Christian groups were influenced by these innovations. In my case, I noted that some Lutheran churches were beginning to impose ashes on Ash Wednesday, so I thought, without providing any explanation to my congregation, that I would do it too. I had noticed that in a Lutheran supply store you could buy ashes from the previous year’s burned palm fronds, but being cheap, I thought I would just get ashes from my fireplace. So, on Ash Wednesday, much to the surprise of my congregation’ members, I imposed ashes on the foreheads of the worshippers. Much to my horror, however, I discovered that ashes from logs don’t leave a mark! Everyone left that day with only a symbolical reminder that just as we are all baptized in Christ, so we have been crucified with Christ Jesus no longer live, but he lives in us! (Gal. 2:20) It was a thought in our hearts and minds—but there was no proof of it on our foreheads.

Today, however, being served by wiser pastors, you can decide, with or without ashes, to celebrate with Christians everywhere that Christ lives in us, that we are dying to ourselves, and that with each day we are being strengthened by the grace of God at work within us to live fuller, kinder, and more loving lives. We practice our piety not to impress anyone at all, but to celebrate the grace that takes us farther and farther from narcissistic self-interest, from the will to put ourselves before all others.

David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS

President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas         

zersendj@gmail.com