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Ash Wednesday sermon
Feb. 10th, 2016 10:58 pmI sat next to the Vicar at Deanery Synod last week. As my own parish didn't have an Ash Wednesday service, I asked him when his was. "7:30. Do you want to preach?" Well, I wasn't expecting that, but I also recalled that my sermon number 1 was given at St. Matthew's on Ash Wednesday in 1995. So, I got the text, edited it a bit, and voila! I got quite a few compliments and I am hoping people will remember it.
When I was a young kid, I was always extremely upset at the prospect of Lent. My mother and the nuns in Sunday School would begin on me a few weeks before Lent began, on those Sundays with the exotic Latin names: Septuagesima, Quinquagesima, Quadragesima. “What are you giving up for Lent?” they’d ask, looking down at my ample stomach. I was ample-stomached even then, I’m afraid. The implication was clear: Kid, you’d better give up sweets.
My mother, I’m sure, wanted me to give them up for the best of motives, as she saw it. I could get holy during Lent by doing a penance, and lose a few pounds at the same time. I’d get two benefits for just one price: good value for penance, she would have said.
The nuns, too, in their way, thought that by giving up something which every young child loved, those children would somehow draw closer to the passion of Christ on the cross. Self-denial would be good for their souls, the nuns believed.
You know, I’m sure, how each Lent turned out. We Roman Catholic children would begin very well, and piously keep away from the sweet shop down by the railway station. The owner had sweets which cost one US penny, or even half a penny. For those who were really big spenders, there were chocolate bars for the princely sum of 5 cents. (they’ve now gone up by much more than the rate of inflation since the 1950’s). A real den of iniquity for holy kids trying to do their penances in Lent.
The lady who owned the shop disliked Lent—her business always suffered those first few weeks. She was a patient soul, however, and she just waited behind her counter. After the first few weeks kids began to slink back into the store by ones and twos to furtively buy their forbidden sweets. As we succumbed, one by one, to the temptations within this Paradise of Sweets, most of us forgot our vows to give up sweets for Lent. We could hardly look our mothers in the eye (not to mention the nuns).
After my college years, I worked for a while and then entered a Roman Catholic seminary. The moral theology professor was the closest thing to a nicotine fiend I had ever met (and I grew up in a household headed by two very avid smokers indeed). He smoked three or more packs of cigarettes a day.
In my first year, when Ash Wednesday rolled around, the professor gave up smoking for Lent. In my smug innocence I proclaimed this to be a good thing. But the students a year ahead of me said, “Just you wait until the Easter Vigil.” Sure enough, after the procession left the chapel on Easter morning, the professor stepped out to the cloister and lit up a cigarette gratefully. I was astonished that anyone who had given up such a nasty habit for 40 days and 40 (even more difficult) nights would voluntarily take it up again.
Oddly enough, the moral theology professor was much closer to the penitential spirit of Lent than the nuns, or my mother was.
Rumer Godden wrote a book called In This House of Brede about cloistered nuns. In it, the Abbess says to one of her nuns who asked permission to take even harsher penances than the Rule required, “Penance isn’t designed to gain a victory. It’s to force a surrender.”
If you’ve decided to give up smoking for Lent only because smoking is bad for your health and the comfort of those around you: keep smoking! If you need to lose a few pounds, and you’ve decided to keep away from sweets, or alcohol, or red meat during Lent: pig out! Eat those chocolates, and have a glass of red wine with your steak.
The plain truth is this: any penance which brings us even a tiny personal benefit isn’t what God wants! God doesn’t want you to celebrate a personal victory on Easter Day. If you successfully give up sweets for Lent, and lose a stone, that’s all well and good. But, what penance is that? You should be losing weight not for God, but for your own health and for proper stewardship of the body God’s given you.
If you successfully give up smoking for Lent, because you know it’s a nasty habit and one which might kill you, that’s not giving up smoking for God, it’s giving up smoking for you. I encourage you to give up now, but don’t consider that your Lenten penance.
God wants us to surrender to the divine will as our Lenten discipline. God’s will for all of us is that we should share the gifts given to us with out neighbours.
Doing something for other people is the best penance we can do, because it doesn’t gain us a victory—it forces us to surrender—surrender our wills to the will of God. You can’t beat sin out of yourself—goodness knows, enough people have tried that. You can’t starve sin out of yourself—that’s been tried too.
If you offer your sinfulness to God, and resolve to do better, as Jesus says in the Gospel: “Your Father, who sees what no man sees, will repay you.”
And so, may we keep a holy Lent, not fasting to benefit ourselves, but doing good works and praying with our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom must be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and praise both now and evermore. AMEN.
10th February 2016 Ash Wednesday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 7:30PM.
First Reading: Joel 2:12-18
2nd Reading: II Cor 5:20-6:2
Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
“…your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 7:30PM.
First Reading: Joel 2:12-18
2nd Reading: II Cor 5:20-6:2
Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
“…your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN
When I was a young kid, I was always extremely upset at the prospect of Lent. My mother and the nuns in Sunday School would begin on me a few weeks before Lent began, on those Sundays with the exotic Latin names: Septuagesima, Quinquagesima, Quadragesima. “What are you giving up for Lent?” they’d ask, looking down at my ample stomach. I was ample-stomached even then, I’m afraid. The implication was clear: Kid, you’d better give up sweets.
My mother, I’m sure, wanted me to give them up for the best of motives, as she saw it. I could get holy during Lent by doing a penance, and lose a few pounds at the same time. I’d get two benefits for just one price: good value for penance, she would have said.
The nuns, too, in their way, thought that by giving up something which every young child loved, those children would somehow draw closer to the passion of Christ on the cross. Self-denial would be good for their souls, the nuns believed.
You know, I’m sure, how each Lent turned out. We Roman Catholic children would begin very well, and piously keep away from the sweet shop down by the railway station. The owner had sweets which cost one US penny, or even half a penny. For those who were really big spenders, there were chocolate bars for the princely sum of 5 cents. (they’ve now gone up by much more than the rate of inflation since the 1950’s). A real den of iniquity for holy kids trying to do their penances in Lent.
The lady who owned the shop disliked Lent—her business always suffered those first few weeks. She was a patient soul, however, and she just waited behind her counter. After the first few weeks kids began to slink back into the store by ones and twos to furtively buy their forbidden sweets. As we succumbed, one by one, to the temptations within this Paradise of Sweets, most of us forgot our vows to give up sweets for Lent. We could hardly look our mothers in the eye (not to mention the nuns).
After my college years, I worked for a while and then entered a Roman Catholic seminary. The moral theology professor was the closest thing to a nicotine fiend I had ever met (and I grew up in a household headed by two very avid smokers indeed). He smoked three or more packs of cigarettes a day.
In my first year, when Ash Wednesday rolled around, the professor gave up smoking for Lent. In my smug innocence I proclaimed this to be a good thing. But the students a year ahead of me said, “Just you wait until the Easter Vigil.” Sure enough, after the procession left the chapel on Easter morning, the professor stepped out to the cloister and lit up a cigarette gratefully. I was astonished that anyone who had given up such a nasty habit for 40 days and 40 (even more difficult) nights would voluntarily take it up again.
Oddly enough, the moral theology professor was much closer to the penitential spirit of Lent than the nuns, or my mother was.
Rumer Godden wrote a book called In This House of Brede about cloistered nuns. In it, the Abbess says to one of her nuns who asked permission to take even harsher penances than the Rule required, “Penance isn’t designed to gain a victory. It’s to force a surrender.”
If you’ve decided to give up smoking for Lent only because smoking is bad for your health and the comfort of those around you: keep smoking! If you need to lose a few pounds, and you’ve decided to keep away from sweets, or alcohol, or red meat during Lent: pig out! Eat those chocolates, and have a glass of red wine with your steak.
The plain truth is this: any penance which brings us even a tiny personal benefit isn’t what God wants! God doesn’t want you to celebrate a personal victory on Easter Day. If you successfully give up sweets for Lent, and lose a stone, that’s all well and good. But, what penance is that? You should be losing weight not for God, but for your own health and for proper stewardship of the body God’s given you.
If you successfully give up smoking for Lent, because you know it’s a nasty habit and one which might kill you, that’s not giving up smoking for God, it’s giving up smoking for you. I encourage you to give up now, but don’t consider that your Lenten penance.
God wants us to surrender to the divine will as our Lenten discipline. God’s will for all of us is that we should share the gifts given to us with out neighbours.
Doing something for other people is the best penance we can do, because it doesn’t gain us a victory—it forces us to surrender—surrender our wills to the will of God. You can’t beat sin out of yourself—goodness knows, enough people have tried that. You can’t starve sin out of yourself—that’s been tried too.
If you offer your sinfulness to God, and resolve to do better, as Jesus says in the Gospel: “Your Father, who sees what no man sees, will repay you.”
And so, may we keep a holy Lent, not fasting to benefit ourselves, but doing good works and praying with our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom must be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and praise both now and evermore. AMEN.
