Ash Wednesday sermon by Mike Stutso, Deason in Training; based on Matthew 6:1-6 16-21
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer... AMEN
So, the story continues, I know you might be asking, what story? Well, it’s the Sermon on the Mount; you know where it says “Blessed are” the poor, mourning and so on. But what I didn’t realize was for a long time is Matthew 5:1 it says: “He went up the mountain” then in Matthew 8:1 it stated: “When Jesus had come down from the mountain”.
So that includes today’s reading, so I thought to myself after reading all of those readings, that was a lot of teaching and a lot of preaching. Because of that, I’m going to have to get with Fr. Chris, because in my knowledge of Jesus’ ministries, this appears to me to be one of the largest examples of Jesus’ teaching and preaching I know.
I know there could have been other times in his life and just maybe it didn’t appear in the text. What do you think Fr. Chris? With today being Ash Wednesday, we now enter into Lent, a time we remember the love of God and our preparation for Easter and the resurrection of our master.
We say that we celebrate lent for 40 days but if you count the actual days, you will come up with 46 days and that is because we do not count Sundays. Sundays are a feast day in celebration of Christ’s resurrection, and we do not fast on feast days, so bingo we have 46 days. Now my issues with this whole process is when I was growing up nobody told me I could have candy on Sundays!
Now five years ago my wife (Laura) and I went on what I’ll call a pilgrimage to experience one of greatest preparations for Lent I’ve ever seen, we went to New Orleans and Mardi Gras, now those people know how to get ready for Lent and I wish I could prepare like that every year.
I know y’all are thinking that’s just a big party, well it is in a way but if you look closely at the meaning, who builds most of the floats as well as many of the trinkets they throw you will see that they are religious organizations. But we are not here to talk about my travels, so let’s talk about alms, prayers and fasting.
The reading starts with a warning, “Beware of practicing your piety”, so just to clarify my thought I looked up the word piety, it said: “being religious or reverent” and that’s what I thought. So, in other words, don’t practice your religion for the approval or praise of humans, if so, you missed the boat, for your reward has been received on earth. Remember that Jesus didn’t say not to do these things throughout this reading but to do them the correct way for the right reasons.
Then we move into verse two and the giving of alms and don’t sound a trumpet. In other words, don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back or take a victory lap. I read a commentary that said that it could be the vessel that people collected alms in was trumpet shaped to catch alms and would make a loud noise so maybe others would hear. I’m not sure if I buy that one. It is clear to me that in reading Torah that God favors alms giving if it is done properly for the poor, it is a good thing.
A couple examples are; Proverbs 14:21 “Happy are those who are kind to the poor” or Proverbs 19:17 “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full”. (Thank you Fr. Chris and Bible study classes) Y’all should join us on Tuesday mornings. I noticed that Jesus uses the word “Hypocrites” so again I had to look up the word and, yep, I’m glad I did. It comes from the Greek word “Hypokrites” which means an actor on stage or a pretender, I didn’t realize that part. So now we have a wrong way and a proper way, which is spoken of several times in this reading.
Now understand before I speak about the next part, because it is not a criticism of anyone, I know but yet we do know of those that through giving seek public praise. They feel their names and good deeds will live forever, well in a way they are right, you can walk into many buildings and see their names all over. We do it in the military for the right reasons for great leaders or fallen heroes. So I guess in a way they will live forever on earth, but do you think God is really impressed? As it says they have received their reward.
With all that said, there are those through their proper way of giving will in my mind live forever and will receive that reward in heaven. Examples would be through our stewardship programs assisting both in time and money to further our ministries to those in need. A big one is the food pantry and I’d like to thank everyone involved from the bottom of my heart.
It says don’t like the hypocrites in the synagogue or streets. That made me think of, Mark12:42-44, where the widow puts the two small copper coins into the treasury and Jesus says my favorites “Truly I tell you”, because she gave everything she had where the others only gave out of their vast abundance, she was the one God has truly seen. So don’t worry about the glory just do it and God sees all and while you’re at it don’t let your left hand know what the right one is doing.
Now it goes into prayer, and again it talks of hypocrites and again public praying for the public recognition. So again, if you are praying to be noticed then you have just received your reward (This is a reoccurring theme).
It made me think about going to the Dearborn Home Coming a few years back. When Laura and I were going into the carnival area there was a young man and a few of his friends clutching their Bibles while he stood on an actual wooden crate (soap box) telling everyone where we were going, and when he was all tired out, another young person took his place smacking the Bible. Well, I was not impressed and quite turned off.
Let’s do as Jesus did, in most cases as the Bible shows Jesus prayed alone or with just a few of his disciples. Didn’t it seem that Jesus loved praying on a mountain where people could not see him, but God could see and knew? This is not to say that there are those who take religion to the streets are wrong there is a vast history of those who take it to the streets for all the right reasons and God has rewarded them for their public life and service to God. Examples would be; Wesley, Calvin, St. Francis, Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa and we could continue that list for a while, and we all know that they were not looking for public acclaim on earth.
Fasting, obviously we fast as God has asked in Torah and as our Master did for 40 days in the wilderness. I remember as I said earlier being a good little Catholic boy (Not sure about good) and Lent. That meant I had to suffer because the church was making me give my favorite foods up and I had to eat fish every Friday. You know, I love fish now, but then, no way, but I choked it down because God said I had to. And yes, I still eat fish every Friday and now I can’t wait (Go Figure).
Then there are other things that l give up like, doughnuts, real candy, cokes and fast food burgers. Now there are people like myself that have Diabetes or other health reasons. So, the church now states there are other ways to fast, examples from a list Rev. Ann Weber gave us, which I didn’t type because my fingers didn’t want to. (READ PAPER) Wow you know some of those are not easy to do in some cases.
Finally, Treasures, now we all know we ain’t going to take all our junk (treasures) with us no matter how valuable you might think these things are. You can try to call Two Men and a Truck to pack it all up but I don’t know where you going to get that road map to where you’re going. Folks, I plead guilty on the above charges.
You can ask my wife about all the drums and music equipment in my house, it is a small fortune there and I’d need a truck for all that junk. I could have given that money to outreach programs, but I didn’t, but I know that one day all my treasures will be donated to music programs in need, and it is a very good thing.
Our real treasures are when, through our outreach programs, we are able to help our sisters and brothers, now we are living into our covenant with the creator. Our families go further than just blood, we are all related in the body of Christ and helping brings us closer in our families and our St. David’s family.
This is the core of our existence, our essence in life, our true hearts, and our eternal soul and this we can take with us so one day we too will receive our reward in Heaven. Closing with some new words I learned this week. Our job is not to show off but to show up.
AMEN