Simple Lives — An Ash Wednesday Sermon By the Rev. Peter De Franco
February 17, 2021
Every Ash Wednesday, I get this terribly feeling of guilt. It’s not because of some terrible sin but because of the Gospel reading. We hear the deacon proclaim the Gospel where Jesus tells us: Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. We then go on to smear our foreheads with ashes in the sign of a cross for everybody to see. I can just imagine Jesus hitting his forehead in total disbelief as we, his so called disciples, ignore his very words and put our religiosity on display. So I am totally relieved that this year we are not doing ashes, we are really listening to Jesus and doing what he advises us. Perhaps next year, we will again hang out at the train stations and create Christians on display. But this year we are Christians in hiding.
This year we can get on the Jesus program and do the three things he commands us to do: Pray, Fast, Give. Pray, Fast, Give. I hope you have a place in your homes where you can go to read the bible, to sit and think, to spend some time with God in prayer. My place is on the sofa in the living room, with a prayer book, a bible, and next to an icon of Christ. There might be an occasional cat. Did I mention Alexa? She is very useful for keeping track of meditation time. She can also provide music. So what is your place, your hidden place, your meeting place?
Pray, Fast, Give. Most of us can afford to fast. It’s more than just losing some weight. Fasting involves putting our bodies where our prayer is. Fasting involves denying food to our bodies that the hunger pangs we feel remind us of the hunger God feels for us. The Hunger God feels for us. Perhaps that hunger God feels for us resonates in our hearts and we respond to God with a desire for God, a desire deeper than food, a desire deeper than things, a desire deeper than self.
Pray, Fast, Give. Our Christian lives are meant to connect us with others, with others in the community of faith, with others who are different than us, others whom we might avoid, others who might embarrass us, others who might make us feel angry. During this Lent, we as a community will try to simplify our lives, pare our lives down to essentials, and with the money we save we will give it to the poor. We shall give that money to the YWCA Domestic Violence Victim’s program. These women, men and children, victims of physical and emotional abuse, should remind us Jesus, a victim of physical and emotional torture.
Lent comes to us as a time to simplify our lives, to remove some of the clutter, to pare away the excess, to get to the essentials.
Lent comes to us as an invitation from God, to make a deeper connection with God, to get to know God’s Word, to get to feel the passion of God’s love for us. At the end of these 40 days, we shall set before our hearts a love which endured the utmost humiliation, the utmost anguish, the utmost solitude, all to show us how deeply we are loved. Pray, Fast, Give. You will discover a God hastening to you, desiring you, loving you. If only you dare to open your heart.