Christ Has Prepared a Banquet
Mat 6:1-6, 16-21, A sermon for Ash Wednesday
by HW in HI

Today we enter into the season of Lent. This is the season where the church calls us to consider our distance from God. We mark this beginning with Ash Wednesday.

The church has a long history of Lent, going back probably to the time the Roman Empire became Christian in 317 AD. Ash Wednesday got started a little later, in the 500's. The idea of Ash Wednesday was to give us 40 days before Lent. Except that if you do the math it doesn't work. The idea of the early church was this: Sunday would still be a day of celebration, and not a day of fasting. So for Lent the church had 40 days of fasting, with Sunday separate. And many would fast on all those days.

The idea of ashes goes back to the year 1091. Before that the church spoke of putting on "spiritual" sack cloth and ashes, but nobody was expected to wear them. In the Old Testament there are many references to covering oneself with sackcloth and ashes as a sign of repentance. In 1091 the ashes became a reality, and Ash Wednesday was called by some a 'holy day of obligation.' A day when one is obliged to attend church and minimize feasting, avoid unnecessary work etc.

Ashes remind me of a game I played when I was a little girl. We held hands and walked around in a circle and sang, “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” And with that we would fall down quickly. I don’t remember whether or not the game had a point, but I do remember the haunting words: ashes, ashes we all fall down. It turns out it was a children’s song from the middle ages, when the bubonic plague broke out all over Europe.

Our ashes today are not the ashes of unclean places being burned to keep disease from spreading. Rather, they are the ashes made from the palm crosses we wear for Palm Sunday. The ashes serve to remind us both of our Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem as well as his crucifixion on a Roman cross. He went from glory to humiliation in just a few days; from light to darkness in just a matter of hours.

Of course we are those people who know that the cross eternally stands empty, like the tomb itself, calling us to a new life, a resurrected life, with Christ. That resurrected life is a gift from God. But we so often turn our backs on that gift, preferring a lesser approach to our lives. God has given us the possibility of clothing ourselves with the fine white clothes of the saint. So often, we seem to prefer the Emperor’s clothes. Which is to say, we prefer to fool ourselves into thinking we are somehow on the right track, even as we do wrong.

A minister named Bob George put it this way, ‘ Christ has prepared a banquet for us. How is that we want to eat out of the garbage bin out back?’

Lent is a time to turn toward that heavenly banquet, to turn our lives toward God and do things a little differently. Some will fast. Some will pray without ceasing. Some will read scripture. Some will give up some habit or other. Some will take on a good deed.

Today the church calls each and everyone one of us into a holy Lent. Let us enter into that holy Lent together, and pray that God’s heavenly kingdom awaits us. Amen.

Today we enter into the season of Lent. This is the season where the church calls us to consider our distance from God. We mark this beginning with Ash Wednesday.

The church has a long history of Lent, going back probably to the time the Roman Empire became Christian in 317 AD. Ash Wednesday got started a little later, in the 500's. The idea of Ash Wednesday was to give us 40 days before Lent. Except that if you do the math it doesn't work. The idea of the early church was this: Sunday would still be a day of celebration, and not a day of fasting. So for Lent the church had 40 days of fasting, with Sunday separate. And many would fast on all those days.

The idea of ashes goes back to the year 1091. Before that the church spoke of putting on "spiritual" sack cloth and ashes, but nobody was expected to wear them. In the Old Testament there are many references to covering oneself with sackcloth and ashes as a sign of repentance. In 1091 the ashes became a reality, and Ash Wednesday was called by some a 'holy day of obligation.' A day when one is obliged to attend church and minimize feasting, avoid unnecessary work etc.

Ashes remind me of a game I played when I was a little girl. We held hands and walked around in a circle and sang, “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” And with that we would fall down quickly. I don’t remember whether or not the game had a point, but I do remember the haunting words: ashes, ashes we all fall down. It turns out it was a children’s song from the middle ages, when the bubonic plague broke out all over Europe.

Our ashes today are not the ashes of unclean places being burned to keep disease from spreading. Rather, they are the ashes made from the palm crosses we wear for Palm Sunday. The ashes serve to remind us both of our Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem as well as his crucifixion on a Roman cross. He went from glory to humiliation in just a few days; from light to darkness in just a matter of hours.

Of course we are those people who know that the cross eternally stands empty, like the tomb itself, calling us to a new life, a resurrected life, with Christ. That resurrected life is a gift from God. But we so often turn our backs on that gift, preferring a lesser approach to our lives. God has given us the possibility of clothing ourselves with the fine white clothes of the saint. So often, we seem to prefer the Emperor’s clothes. Which is to say, we prefer to fool ourselves into thinking we are somehow on the right track, even as we do wrong.

A minister named Bob George put it this way, ‘ Christ has prepared a banquet for us. How is it that we want to eat out of the garbage bin out back?’

Lent is a time to turn toward that heavenly banquet, to turn our lives toward God and do things a little differently. Some will fast. Some will pray without ceasing. Some will read scripture. Some will give up some habit or other. Some will take on a good deed.

Today the church calls each and everyone one of us into a holy Lent. Let us enter into that holy Lent together, and pray that God’s heavenly kingdom awaits us. Amen.