Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 (Ash Wednesday)

St. John, Galveston 3/5/2025

Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

And so, we enter once again into the wilderness of the Season of Lent. As you know, it is an especially penitential time of the Church Year. Much of the way in which we recognize and observe this seaon, what we call our piety, is outwardly visible. The paraments in the chancel have changed from the festive white of Transfiguration Sunday to the solemn colors of Lent. If you came forward earlier, you were marked with an ashen cross on your forehead. Though the day is almost spent, you’ll leave here this evening and that cross will bear witness to what you believe and to whom you belong. There is a certain humility involved in having ashes smeared on your forehead, isn’t there? Those ashes are an outward sign of an inner reality. They speak, not just of a contrite heart and of repentance, they also bear witness to your baptism, whereby God covered you with His cross and marked you as one redeemed by Christ, the crucified.

While there are many unmistakable signs that we have entered, once again, into the wilderness of Lent, this evening Jesus directs our attention away from the outward signs of our piety, to the inward condition of our hearts as He speaks about giving alms and praying and fasting in a way intended to illicit the praise of men. “Thus, when you give to the needy (He says), sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

For us, this shift in focus from our works to the condition of our hearts is never very comfortable. In many respects, we would much rather appear holy and righteous outwardly and avoid altogether the scalpel of the Great Physician of our souls, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

In the end though, it’s in our hearts and minds that we examine our motives, our hopes and dreams and our expectations for life and most especially, for our life in Christ. It’s in our hearts and minds that the battle for faith rages. It’s there that the devil aims his arsenal of fiery darts to wound and ultimately to destroy our faith in Christ. It is there that the solemn confession of our faith, a confession put there by God, through His good gifts, is tested and refined by fire, that it may bring forth praise, honor and glory to God.

The motivations of our hearts can be considered from many perspectives, but this evening, I’d like to address a couple of polar opposites that can both prove detrimental to our faith. On the one hand, we might consider our motivations to be of little, or, no consequence in life. In other words, what matters most is what we do, not what we think and believe. In this case, if we do something good in life, feed the poor, or, help someone in need, for instance, we’re inclined to believe that it doesn’t really matter why we did it, even if we did it for selfish reasons. The point is, we did the good work!  

This is exactly the issue that Jesus’ addresses in this evening’s Gospel reading. In many respects, the Pharisees were guilty of this very of mindset.  Jesus spoke often of the error of their ways. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees (He said), hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (And again, He says) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So, you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Clearly, the motivations of our hearts do matter. God would have us serve others out of our love for them, as well as for Him. At the same time, a careful examination of our motives for doing what we do, without properly dividing the Law and the Gospel, can be as detrimental to our faith as a failure to examine our motives. It can be detrimental because it can lead us to despair regarding the things we do in life.     

By way of example, if we were to consider what St. Paul wrote in Romans 7, in insolation, it would appear that he came dangerously close to the point of despair as he evaluated his life, both outwardly and inwardly. “I do not do the good I want (he said), but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” That’s a terrible place to be, isn’t it? “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit moved Paul to find hope and consolation outside of himself, in the Gospel. In the very next verse, right after Paul’s woeful lament of his life, he wrote, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! He then began the next chapter of Romans, saying, “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

As the baptized of God, you are IN CHRIST JESUS. Let then the angels rejoice, let the fatted calf be slaughtered, for we must celebrate the return of the prodigal. He was dead, but now he is alive! He was lost, but now he has been found!

The motives that fill up all the spaces of our hearts are never completely pure and holy, for, we are, at one and the same time both saints and sinners. This realization, while not something to hide behind, can be wonderfully comforting and liberating to us, as we seek to live out our lives in Christ Jesus.  

This Lenten season the Wednesday night messages are broadly titled, “Ironies of the Jesus’ Passion.” As such, we’ll be looking at various Ironies that occurred during the last week of Jesus’ life, what is commonly known as His Passion. Even this evening we have arrived at an Irony of Jesus’ Passion. Your salvation as a Christian, is not based on your holiness, it’s not even based on the purity of your motives. In fact, it is based on your corruption and the unholiness of your motives. 

Please understand, I don’t say that to minimize the importance of our motives in life, or to suggest that we shouldn’t strive to live a holy life before God and our fellow men. I say it, to put our lives and our motives for what we do in perspective. You and I are sinners, saved by God’s grace so lavishly bestowed on us in Christ Jesus. Yes, we are a new creation, set apart for God’s own purpose, but we are also those who cry out every day, “Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.” That being the case, Martin Luther once said, “never aspire to such purity that you no longer wish to be called a sinner, or, to be one, for Christ died only for sinners.” That’s the other side, isn’t it, of our struggle with the motives behind our actions? “Never aspire to such purity that you no longer wish to be called a sinner, or, to be one, for Christ died only for sinners.” 

JIn the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.
 

+ Soli Deo Gloria +