Ash Wednesday Sermon and preparing our income tax

During my twenty years in active ministry as an Episcopal Priest I wrote a lot of sermons. Sometimes I looked at the lectionary for the week and was instantly inspired. Often I looked for inspiration from others. Sometimes a word or phrase that someone wrote would set me off in a whole new direction, other times I would discover a whole new way of relating to the scripture.

With my retirement I feel called to share with others some of the sermons that I have been graced to write. If you are a preacher, I hope that they give you some new ideas. If you are just wishing to explore another way of approaching scripture, I'm delighted to expand the audience for my preaching.

My intention is to post a sermon about a week before each Sunday beginning with Lent Year A.

The basic concept in this sermon could also be used on the first Sunday of Lent

Here is a sermon I preached on Ash Wednesday in 1996.  The readings referred to are Isaiah 58:1-12,  and Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

At the beginning of the Ash Wednesday service the celebrant reads an invitation to the people to observe a holy Lent. It includes “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

Lent is a time of self-examination and repentance; of prayer, fasting, and self-denial; it is also a time during which most of us work on preparing our income tax. What do these have in common (except the obvious opportunity for pain)? Let’s explore that together.

Preparing our income tax is a wonderful opportunity for self-examination. Each year, as I scan back through all my checks looking for possible deductions, I am struck by where my money has gone during the year. There of course are the mortgage payments, the grocery bills, and all the other necessities, but there also always seem to be other places that the money has been spent. These could be little things that over the course of a year really add up.

The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday ends with the familiar quote from Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What better means of self-examination, of searching out where our hearts are, could there be but to prepare our income tax. The mortgage or rent payments show how our hearts are in our homes, the money spent for gifts to others shows who we care about. Is our heart in travel, or fixing up our homes, or sending our children to school? How much of our resources, our hearts, is dedicated to the poor, to the church, to other charities? Are we using our resources in ways that are life affirming for ourselves our families and our community, or do many of our resources get frittered away in life denying ways such a cigarettes, gambling, alcohol, or addictions? It is amazing how much one can learn about someone by perusing their check stubs, it is amazing how much we can learn about ourselves while preparing our taxes.

Lent is also about repentance, metanoia, turning around, seeing things in a new way. Looking over your finances, is there anything you wish you could change about how you used your resources last year, do you need to repent, to plan to do things differently this coming year. Do you need forgiveness, from God, from other people, from yourself? Now is a good time to plan your spending for the rest of this coming year. Make those changes now. Such decisions should be made with prayer and perhaps might lead to some self-denial (both important aspects of Lent).

But the thing that we most often associate with Lent is fasting. How many times has someone asked, “What are you giving up for Lent?” Is the answer meat on Friday, cigarettes, coffee, chocolate? But let us consider what Isaiah (58:1-12) has to say about fasting. Isaiah is concerned because some people will fast, but while they are fasting will continue to oppress their workers, quarrel and fight. Such fasting does not lead to a closer relationship with God. Instead Isaiah quotes God as saying “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...” So the true fast, in Isaiah’s eyes, has to do not with abstaining from something, but in doing good. Social justice, compassion, and love are what bring us closer to God.

In your self-examination consider how much of your resources, your time, your talent, and your finances, you direct toward loosening the bonds of injustice, toward the poor, the hungry, the homeless. When you consider your Lenten disciples, when you make an intention to “give something up for Lent” consider also doing something for Lent. So, perhaps, if you are giving up cigarettes, consider giving the amount you would normal spend on cigarettes to charity. Or if you are going to fast by skipping a meal a week, give to the hungry what you would have spent for that meal.

Episcopal Relief and Development is an excellent place to consider giving to this Lent. They have a Lenten calendar, much like an Advent calendar with suggestions for each day and suggestions for acknowledging our blessings by giving to those who are less fortunate. Also, beginning this Sunday we will have a basket for food at the front of the church. I would suggest that each member of your family bring in one item each Sunday as an acknowledgement of how we have been blessed by God and as part of Lenten fast to “share our bread with the hungry.”