God's Chosen Fast -- A Homily for Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58:1-12

Tonight we begin our Lenten journey toward Good Friday and Easter. This is a season of preparation and reflection. It’s a time to look inward and discern areas of life that we’ve not given over to God. Traditionally it’s also a season of fasting, where we seek to emulate Jesus who went into the wilderness, fasted for forty days and forty nights, and faced temptation (Matt. 4:1-10). The point of all of this reflection and fasting is that it’s designed to make us more aware of God’s presence and also more aware of the presence of our neighbors.

We begin the journey by remembering our own transgressions, for as the Psalmist reminds us, we are all sinners. As we remember these sins, we receive a mark upon our foreheads as a tangible reminder of our sinful state, and then we offer prayers of confession and receive a word of forgiveness.

Tonight I’ve chosen to focus on the word from Isaiah, which speaks to “God’s Chosen Fast.” In Matthew’s gospel we read Jesus’ words about fasting. He challenges those who make a spectacle of their fasts by presenting themselves in a rather disheveled manner so that their neighbors might know that they’re fasting (Mt. 6:16-18). But Isaiah takes a different approach. This post-exilic prophet challenges his people who have come to believe that their fasting will get God’s attention. They say: “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” (Isaiah 58:3). Isaiah says to them – in your behavior you dishonor this practice.

Although giving up chocolate or some other pleasure might be a good spiritual discipline to adopt during this season, Isaiah calls us to a higher level of understanding. Fasting may discipline our bodies so we can give greater attention to God’s presence, but as Isaiah makes so very clear, God is less interested in our observance of certain fast days than in the way we live our daily lives as God’s people.

Isaiah says to the people, you come out and fast and yet at the same time you oppress your workers and quarrel with each other. If your fasting is accompanied by such actions, then this won’t get your voice heard by God. Instead, God has chosen another fast for us, calling on us 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; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Is. 58:6-7)

As Amy Oden puts it: “The fast that God seeks calls for vigilance, for justice, and generosity, day in and day out.” (WorkingPreacher.Org, 2/6/11).

Isaiah’s call for justice is echoed by a word given by the 4th century bishop and theologian Basil of Caesarea who writes:

As we take this Lenten Journey, let us consider the kind of fast that God is calling us to pursue. Isaiah writes that if we engage in this fast, we will be blessed. What is most important, we will be blessed in the knowledge that we are partners with God as moral agents in this world, working with God and empowered by God, we might pursue righteousness and justice in the world.

This is a time for us to look inwardly, to assess our path, to see if our vision is clouded by sin. It is a time to purge ourselves of those things that keep us from being all that God would have us be. The fast that God has chosen for us is one that leads to a new life and partnership with the God we know in Jesus Christ, who makes known to us God’s steadfast love.

 

Preached by:

Dr. Robert D. Cornwall

Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Troy, MI

Ash Wednesday

March 9, 2011

Are you not a robber, you who consider your own that which has been given you solely to distribute to others? This bread which you have set aside is the bread of the hungry; this garment you have locked away is the clothing of the naked; those shoes which you let rot are the shoes of him who is barefoot; those riches you have hoarded are the riches of the poor.  (Quoted in Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Enuma Okoro, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, Zondervan, 2010, p. 178).

I Have Sinned: A Word for Ash Wednesday

Psalm 51:1-5 (NRSV)

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.


1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgement.
5 Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.

Ash Wednesday is a day of introspection, reflection, and repentance.  Marked with ash, we are reminded that we are sinners in need of forgiveness.

Psalm 51, which is traditionally attributed to David, a man known to be close to the heart of God, reflects upon David's own transgressions.  In this Psalm David cries out to God "I am a sinner" after Nathan rebukes him for his affair with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 12:1-7).  In this back story to the Psalm, David spies out Bathsheba, begins an affair that leads to a pregnancy, and finally to the death of Bathsheba's husband -- because he is too honorable to sleep with his wife while his troops are at the front.  Nathan confronts David with his transgressions, telling a parable of two men, one rich and one poor.  The rich man, who has many lambs, takes the poor man's one lamb and slaughters it to put on a feast for his friends.  David is furious, and then Nathan says to him:  "You are the man!"  This revelation leads to David's act of repentance, an act of repentance that is expressed through this Psalm (even if David likely didn't write it).

David's cry of repentance is very different from those we're used to seeing on television from politicians and preachers.  This is no maudlin confession like the one given by Jimmy Swaggart, which was more show than anything.  In this psalm we see an expression of deep anguish and repentance.  It also reflects the realization that it is almost impossible to escape from sin's hold on our lives.  The 5th verse says it clearly:  "indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me."  Lest we get caught up in debates about whether sin is a genetic defect or not (as St. Augustine essentially taught the church), the focus is on the reality of our own sinfulness -- whatever the cause.  We're all tainted.

Although the chosen passage ends with the confession that sin conditions one's life, the prayer itself begins with a different confession.  In this is the good news.  Even as the penitent cries out, seeking God's mercy, the person making this confession roots the request in God's steadfast love.  Biblical commentator James Luther Mays writes:

Confession of Sin is already on the way to justification because it is first of all a response to grace.  It is the act in which we humans acknowledge what we are before God and what God is for us.  We are sinners; God is gracious.  (James Luther Mays, Psalms: Interpretation Commentary, WJK, 1994, p. 199). 

As we begin the Lenten journey, we do so knowing that while we are all sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness, "God is gracious."  Without this knowledge we might fall into despair.  With this knowledge, we have the confidence to continue the journey, knowing that God's steadfast love is ever present with us.

(Amended version of reflection published in the 2011 Lenten Devotional of Central Woodward Christian Church, edited by John McCauslin).  

Our Lenten Burden is Light

Yesterday was 'Ash Wednesday' which marks the beginning of the 40-day period leading up to Easter marked by sacrifice and fasting known as Lent. The origins of this pre-Easter fasting period have been disputed. Some feel that Lent traces back to the Apostolic era of Jesus' followers themselves during the years immediately after his death. Others feel that it developed later, perhaps around the time of the Council of Nicea in the early fourth century. Whatever the origins of the custom, it has become a period of forty days based on various Biblical examples provided for such a period by Moses, Elias, and Jesus Christ Himself, who was said to have laid in the tomb for forty hours. In the early years the actual fasting periods and methods varied in many places, but of course it generally involved someone intentionally 'giving something up' from their regular daily lives as a sacrifice in remembrance of the ultimate sacrifice that Christ had made on the cross. Socrates spoke of the practice in the fifth century when he described some who "abstain from every sort of creature that has life", meaning that these people would eat only fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, and things of this nature. Still others, he said, ate fish only, or ate only birds and fish, or abstained from eating eggs, or ate only dry bread. There were still others in those times who were even more strict in their fasting, taking only a couple of meals each week, and the early rules of the Church on fasting said that you could only take such meals in the evening, and that meat and wine were forbidden during fasting. It was during the sixth century that Saint Gregory laid down what has become considered as common law within the Church. In a letter to Saint Augustine of England, Gregory stated "We abstain from flesh meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs." Exceptions were made traditionally as 'dispensations' for special circumstances, as well as in exchange for gifts to the greater Church. There has still been a general prohibition on eggs and milk observed by many during the Lenten period, and from this over the centuries evolved the practice of the 'Easter egg' as a return to the produce on Easter Sunday. Many different customs and rulings from the Church Fathers evolved over the centuries, and the Holy See, the central administration of the Church, has modern rulings in place for Americans. In the United States today, the official Church position is that working men and women and their families may use flesh meat once a day throughout the year, except Fridays, Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday, and the Christmas Vigil, and that during Lent we are not supposed to take both fish and flesh at the same meal. Besides the traditions and customs of sacrifice and fasting, since Vatican II the Church has emphasized Lent as a preparation period for the Baptism of catechumens, those individuals who are first coming in to the Catholic Church voluntarily as adults or older children. Lent is about conversion, the turning over of our lives more completely and fully to Christ, and nowhere is that process more full and complete than in the willing Baptism into the Church, which is itself the very body of Christ, of new believers. But it is not just for these 'newbies' that the conversion aspect is important. All believers are urged during Lent to not just give something up, but also to recommit to Christ and to our faith. We should all be encouraged to make a good, full Confession, do Penance, and thus receive forgiveness for our sins and make a new beginning. For many who have been away from the sacrament for a long time, that overcoming of your fear and your ego is a wonderful sacrifice in itself. The Lenten sacrifice lasts for a period of forty days, but you will have many more opportunities during the period to recognize your need for conversion. Not just on Ash Wednesday, or on Fridays, or on Sundays. Not even in your daily lives when you give up that candy, or soda, or smoking, or some other habit or sin. Every intentional act of drawing closer to Christ, be it increased prayer, the saying of the rosary, going to Confession, watching EWTN on television, being nicer to the people in your life. All of these things are acts of conversion, and all can be considered as a part of the Lenten sacrifice. Remember that whatever you give up, or whatever new you take on, none of your sacrifices could ever compare with the sacrifice that God has made for you. He gave up His only begotten Son that you might live. Jesus Christ suffered severe persecution and ultimately died on the cross so that your sins would be washed away. With this in mind we should all realize that our Lenten burden is indeed a light one.