Scripture: Matthew 6:1-21; Matthew 13:1-9 Series: Lent
An Ash Wednesday sermon on Matthew 6, reframing repentance as a reorientation—recognizing we are already going the wrong way and turning to go rightly. Drawing heavily on Schmemann, the preacher argues Lent is not a marketable season of sadder songs but a liberation from enslavement to sin through fasting and forgiveness. Fasting is not a cleanse diet or self-improvement but participation in Christ’s freedom from dependence on the world; it will lead to real struggle and repeated failure, met by the divine virtue of patience. With the parable of the sower, the sermon insists costly tilling by God is what lets us bear fruit, the goal being a softened heart open to communion with God.
Illustrations: lent-is-unmarketable, broad-way-narrow-way, idaho-vs-texas-soil, orthodox-graduated-fast
Ash Wednesday
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, 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. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”Matthew 6
Repentance, above everything else, is a return to the genuine order of things the restoration of the right vision. -20
Repentance is not about turning and going backwards. It is about recognizing that we are already going the wrong direction and that we need to turn in order to be going the right way.
Lent is not a highly marketable season. You don’t share lententine’s with people or give them Lenten chocolates. You can’t sell a fast. You can’t sell not buying things or not eating things.
It is not easy, indeed, to reject a petty ideal of life made up of daily cares, of search for material good, security, and pleasure, for an ideal of life in which nothing short of perfect is the goal: “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This world through all its “media” says: be happy, take it easy, follow the broad way. Christ in the Gospel says: choose the narrow way, fight, and suffer, for this is the road to the only genuine happiness.
The broad way is broad for a reason.
Sin is not only the transgression of a rule leading to punishment; it is always a mutilation of life given to us by God. (81)
Parable of the sower
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:1-9)
It is costly to be tilled by God, but only then can we bear fruit.
Idaho soil vs. Texas soil
Lent offers us tools for repentance and tools for our liberation. Lent is not simply another few weeks of the year when the church sings sadder songs.
Lent is the liberation of our enslavement to sin, the prison of the world. The Gospel lesson from Matthew sets the conditions for that liberation.
- fasting: the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal, the effort to free ourselves from the dictatorship of flesh and matter over the spirit.
- forgiveness: The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my “enemy” the radiant forgiveness of God Himself. (28)
Fasting is the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal, the effort to free ourselves from the dictatorship of flesh and matter over the spirit.
The point of a fast is not the what but the why. You can fast from candy or beer or like the Eastern Orthodox, give up meat one week, and the dairy the next, and then even oil. “What then is fasting for us Christians? It is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself in which He liberates us from the total dependence on food, matter, and the world. (96)
The lenten fast is not a cleanse diet or an attempt at self-actualization. The goal is not to improve yourself but to grow closer to Christ as Christ’s body the church.
We should not ignore the challenges of fasting nor speak glibly of it. And fasts aren’t just for some people. We do not fast for God as a sacrifice to him. God gives us the fast for our own benefit. We don’t earn our salvation, we experience grace.
After all this is said, one must still remember that however limited our fasting, if it is true fasting it will lead to temptation, weakness, doubt, and irritation. In other terms, it will be a real fight and probably we shall fail many times. But the very discovery of Christian life as fight and effort is the essential aspect of fasting. A faith which has not overcome doubts and temptation is seldom a real faith…Too many people start fasting with enthusiasm and give up after the first failure. I would say that it is at this first failure that the real test comes. If after having failed and surrendered to our appetites and passions we start all over again and do not give up no matter how many times we fail, sooner or later our fasting will bear its spiritual fruit. Between holiness and disenchanted cynicism lies the great and divine virtue of patience—patience, first of all, with ourselves. There is no short-cut to holiness. (98-99)
The purpose of lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to “soften” our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the Spirit, to experience the hidden “thirst and hunger” for communion with God.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen.