SPRING CLEANING THE SOUL

February 22, 2023 / Ash Wednesday
Isa. 58:1-12; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

Moving one’s home from one location to another has been identified as one of life’s major stressors. It involves giving up things and giving up comfortable routines of work and social life. It is hard work, both physically and emotionally. Inevitably, moving requires taking stock of your possessions and discerning what to take and what to let go. Tom and I have different thresholds for tolerating clutter and holding onto unused items. For me giving away or otherwise discarding stuff we have moved from house to house without using is a no-brainer. For Tom, it is a wrenching break from the past. I have been engaged in a year-long mission of decluttering and getting broken parts of our house repaired. I have found it freeing. Tom has found it annoying.

I have discovered that this extension of “spring cleaning” requires truthful assessments of household acquisitions into categories of need versus want. The season of Lent which begins today on Ash Wednesday can be likened to a spring cleaning of the soul.

Some Protestant denominations have scorned the observance of Ash Wednesday as indulgence in “works righteousness” and deemed “too Roman Catholic.” Unfortunately, the “too Roman Catholic” complaint has also been applied to such a foundational Christian practice as celebrating Holy Communion, which Jesus commanded and the first Christian churches practiced at every worship service. Although the Service of the Imposition of Ashes was not a formalized practice until after the Council of Nicea in 325, we know from historical data that the worship practice had already begun by the second century. And of course, we read in the Old Testament that religious practices using ashes as a sign of penitence was practiced in the earliest days of the Hebrew people. When we observe Ash Wednesday with a worship service and the imposition of ashes, we are standing in the tradition of our most ancient ancestors of faith.

We associate certain words with Lent, like confession, penitence and sacrifice. None of these sound like fun. But what if we thought about Lent with words like truth, cleansing, and freedom? These are words we also find in the bible associated with repentance. In the early church, beginning with the first churches founded by Peter and Paul, the weeks before Easter were viewed as a joyful preparation for the foundational event for Christ-followers – the Resurrection. This time represented a return to the “fast” which Adam and Eve broke when they disobeyed God’s only restriction on their freedom.  For the early Christians, what became known as Lent, was a time to remember that God is the center and source of life. Isn’t that something we all need to do?

In this era of post-truth, looking for truth beyond the lies, by which we are bombarded by those who seek to tempt, coerce or manipulate us for power or profit, is as counter-cultural as Christ. The most obvious example of this is Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness and his rejection of Satan’s temptations. It is these forty days following Jesus’ baptism that serve as the model for our forty days of Lent. In this season, we are challenged to question our intentions, our priorities, and our actions with Christ’s life and teaching as our plumb line of truth.

Both scripture passages read this evening provide the definition of the kind of fasting God demanded of the Israelites and Jesus expected of his disciples. With the prophet Isaiah as God’s mouthpiece, God describes an acceptable fast: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Isa.58: 6-7)

From what should you fast? Anything that leads you “into temptation” to stray from Christ’s path. As one devotional writer offered in his expression of his need for Lent: [I need] “to clear my eyes of the glaze of indifference and apathy which comes from situation after situation where I feel nearly helpless so that I can fasten my eyes once more on the almost unbearable revelation of the God who loves God’s children enough to take the form of a man hanging on a tree.”

If you seek the truth about yourself, you will find the fast you need to undertake. In Lent, we are challenged to question our intentions, our priorities, and our actions with Christ’s commands and witness as our reference point. Lent is about seeking the truth about ourselves and our world, not for recrimination but for aligning our truth with God’s.

With the mark of ashes on our foreheads we are viscerally reminded that one day we will die.  The mark of ash is now on our foreheads and I proclaimed, “From dust you have come and to dust you shall return.” It’s biblical. You can read it in the 3rd chapter of Genesis.  It’s also truth. It’s what happens to all things that live—they die. But Lent is not about contemplating death, it is about contemplating life.

The fact that we are here tonight means we still have lives that can become more like Christ’s before we meet him face to face in the eternal lives we have been promised. What a relief to be given another chance! What greater blessing than knowing our honest intentions to follow Christ are rewarded with the grace to always begin anew? We have the freedom that comes from releasing ourselves from the judgment of others and focusing on living lives that are pleasing to God. We have the freedom to release ourselves from the bonds of worldly consumption, the treasures on earth, and to accept God’s blessings which are beyond price.

Tonight, we are marked, not as ones who live in the shadow of death, but as a sign and seal of our willingness to die to all the life- denying claims in the world around us and to live as God created us, as Christ taught us, and as the Holy Spirit helps us to do what we cannot do ourselves. May you experience the blessing of practicing a holy Lent.

Amen. May it be so!

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2023, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org  | 309.673.8501

“Throughout the week, there are many worldly things pulling me away from my commitment to God.  I come to church on Sunday at Westminster to reconnect and renew my relationship with Him.  Part of my worship is to ask him for forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness.  I leave, reminded that he loves me, forgives me, and walks beside me every day.  What a profound blessing that is!”