The Movement of the Heart: An Ash Wednesday sermon

 Ash Wednesday 2022. Readings: 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10; Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

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The gospel of Ash Wednesday really sets our bearings for this coming season of Lent.

 

It does so in setting out the priorities of our demeanour in public worship, our almsgiving, prayer, fasting and orientation of heart.

 

The movement of the heart towards God is the essence of Lent. The practices of worship, almsgiving, prayer and fasting are the points on the compass that sets the direction for our hearts to turn afresh to the Lord.

 

So these practices are significant. They embody our intention; literally put our intentions into practice, expressed by our bodies.

 

This is not about what we say we will do, but about what we do, do.

 

Jesus condemns the hypocrites for shouting about, trumpeting, what they will do and never doing it or just making a show of their piety. As such there can be no movement of their hearts. They’ve had their reward. The reward they sought was to make showy displays; and they got it.

 

The mystery is that the reward is not measurable or eye-catching, such that we can say with St Paul, ‘I have nothing, yet possess everything’.

 

The ‘reward’ - if reward is even the right word - the reward of Lent is a changed heart, in Ezekiel’s words, ‘a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone’.

 

The season of Lent has a penitential character, in other words, it is about a change of heart through a thoroughgoing and honest acknowledgment of who we are and how we are. It reminds us that we have nothing yet possess everything, and it does so in a blunt way at the Imposition of Ash:

 

‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’.

 

Lent, though, is not a time to be beaten up, but a time to be built up. And that is what penance is about, what it is for.

That's why to make personal confession in Lent is of deepest value.

 

Built up not beaten up. There’s a motto for Lent.

 

But if you’re still of the miserabilist approach to Lent, be reminded that, in Jesus’ own words:

 

‘God did not send the Son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’ (John 3.17)

 

Lent, then, is a time to allow the deep movement of God in our lives, where we find deep reward.

 

Re-read tonight's Gospel reading. Essentially it asks, ‘where do you find your reward... truly?’

 

If adulation is the reward you seek, or the approval of others then you need spiritually to reassess, big time.

 

If the reward you seek is having nothing yet possessing everything then there is plenty to work with.

 

Either way, use this Lent as the compass to set the direction in your Christian life, that God make create and make in us new and contrite hearts.