Beyond Private Piety: Reclaiming the Communal Heart of Worship

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:05:39] I'm so glad to see all of you here tonight on Ash Wednesday. It's my privilege to welcome you to this service. We are beginning Lent today. The movement, the spiritual journey towards Easter, it's 40 days minus Sundays, which means if you're fasting from some habit you're trying to break in
[00:06:03] order to point yourself towards God, or if you're implementing some new act of devotion or goodwill, to help heighten your spiritual awareness through Lent. You don't have to do it on Sundays. The Sundays during Lent do not count. So you can break your fast
[00:06:21] on Sundays. Just want everybody to know that. And this is a very long tradition in the Christian church as preparation for Easter. And it comes from a time when the church used to only baptize on Easter Sunday. And so it was a preparation for baptism, this time of fasting
[00:06:46] and prayer and meditation. And it's come to mean a little bit more. It's come to take on the air of repentance, a time when we look deep into ourselves and into our society, and we identify
[00:07:00] the fact that we in fact need a Savior, and that the blessing of Jesus' resurrection is indeed necessary for our lives.
[00:07:11] And then there's the kind of scared straight part of it in that we're reminded that from dust we've come and to dust we shall return.
[00:07:20] We are asked to grasp our mortality on Ash Wednesday.
[00:07:25] But we do it all in the presence and in the comfort and the grace and the care of God.
[00:07:34] we're not left to our own devices to make this journey and that's the reassurance if you would please pray with me now almighty and eternal God on this sacred day that begins the holiest of
[00:07:53] seasons we come before you to receive a mark of ashes a humble cross of dust may it be for us a sign that leads our hearts back to you, a reminder of the earth from which we've come, and a promise
[00:08:14] to walk in your grace. Throughout Lent, turn our prayers into lanterns in the darkness, turn our fasting into space for your presence, and turn our good deeds into extensions of your love.
[00:08:31] From dust you called us into life And in these 40 days call us once again From wandering to wonder And from the shadows to the light Only by your redeeming grace do we offer this prayer
[00:08:51] Amen It's lovely to see your faces when I say this Thank you choir Our first Ash Wednesday reading Is from the prophet Isaiah from chapter 58, and I'm going to be reading verses 6 through 12.
[00:12:29] Is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with
[00:12:44] 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, then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
[00:12:59] and your healing shall spring up quickly. Your vindicator shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry for help, and he will say, here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of
[00:13:19] the finger, the speaking of evil. If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like this noonday.
[00:13:32] The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
[00:13:46] your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt and you shall rise up raise up the foundations of many generations you shall be called the repairer of the breach the restorer of streets to live in the word of our lord for us on this evening i grew up in viewmont baptist church and as a boy i
[00:14:14] learned the RA pledge that called me to have a Christ-like concern for all people. I was taught that I was to share the gospel and to be the presence of Christ to all people. In Sunday
[00:14:32] school, I was taught that the Good Samaritan was a hero for helping an injured person of a different religion and ethnicity. I was told that meekness, humility, and honesty were Christ-like virtues.
[00:14:49] I was led to believe that the first shall be last and the last shall be first, so we ought to lay up our treasures in heaven. I was taught that when I fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sought
[00:15:04] justice for the oppressed, I was actually doing it for Jesus. I sang in the children's choir, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. I was urged to forgive those who hurt me and to do my very best
[00:15:31] to love my enemies. I learned that by showing hospitality to strangers that we sometimes entertain angels unaware. I was reminded to dwell on my own shortcomings, not the flaws of others.
[00:15:55] I was asked to wrestle with and try to grasp that it's better for me to lose my life in Christ than to gain the whole entire world that's what they said those beliefs and actions that as a boy
[00:16:15] I learned were Christ-like in today's world are labeled as soft weak and dumb not only by the world but by many churches, pastors, and Christians. I mean Lord have mercy. We were created by God
[00:16:46] to love people and to use things but in our materially obsessed world we love things and we use people. We have come to extol, enable, as well as envy massive wealth accumulation and we ridicule and deride generosity and the common good.
[00:17:12] We do not seek the joy of the Lord, but rather we implore God to take away our struggles and our pains so that we can seek our own bliss.
[00:17:26] Now, what God was saying to the people in the passage we just read from Isaiah 58, he was saying that if you want to experience a vibrant sense of my presence when you gather, when you worship, don't turn the music up louder. This is in the first six verses that we didn't
[00:17:50] read. Don't shout more amens. Don't dance in the aisles or bring bigger offerings. If you want to know my blessing, says God, then feed the hungry. Stand with the afflicted. Bring the homeless into your homes and give clothing to the naked. On all seven days of the week, practice what you preach,
[00:18:21] practice what you confess, practice what you read, and practice what you profess when you're not at church. Live the laws of justice, righteousness, and love, and you will know my presence and feel my glory, says the Lord. The reporting is very clear that in the 21st century, potential Christians
[00:18:48] are avoiding the church like the plague, and current members are falling away like leaves.
[00:18:55] Not because they are not attracted to Jesus, but because they don't see or experience much, if any, Jesus in the church. In a word, we've got to bring God and Jesus, the ones attested to
[00:19:15] in holy scripture, back to our churches and back to the world. I'm going to end this segment with a prayer that was offered as a benediction by Bishop Woody White at a national convention of
[00:19:30] the Methodist Church. Woody White is a friend of a friend. He said, and now may the Lord torment you, May the Lord keep before you the faces of the hungry, the lonely, the rejected, and the despised.
[00:19:45] May the Lord afflict you with pain for the hurting, the wounded, the oppressed, the abused, the victims of violence. May God grace you with agony, a burning thirst for justice and righteousness. May the Lord give you courage and strength as well as compassion to make ours
[00:20:10] a better world, to make our community a better community, to make our church a better church.
[00:20:19] May we do our best to make it so. And after we've done our best, may the Lord grant us peace.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:20:27] I just had a memory when we used to go on mission trips to Belize.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:24:32] In the church there in Crooked Tree, every worship service, they had time for testimonies.
[00:24:37] And sometimes the testimony would be a song.
[00:24:40] Somebody would get up and sing.
[00:24:41] And there was one lady, we went there several times, her name was Miss Hetty.
[00:24:45] And she always sang, that's, pass me not, oh gentle Savior.
[00:24:51] She sang it every time.
[00:24:52] Our second scripture passage for tonight is from the Gospel of Matthew.
[00:25:00] chapter 6, verses 1 through 6, and then 16 through 21. Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
[00:25:16] So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogue and in the street so that they may be praised by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received
[00:25:27] their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your alms may be done in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And
[00:25:40] whenever you pray, do not do like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and the street corners so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received
[00:25:52] their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you fast, do not
[00:26:06] look dismal like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head
[00:26:19] and wash your face so that your fasting may be seen not by others, but by your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves
[00:26:31] treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The word of the Lord
[00:26:53] for us on this night. Something new struck me or occurred to me as I read that scripture for Ash Wednesday tonight. There's a commonality in all the public acts of piety listed, not just that
[00:27:08] they're in public, but giving alms in public, praying in public, fasting in public, along with the section of hoarding money that comes in the end, every one of those behaviors are condemned by Jesus. But you know, they also are all performed for personal benefit, individual benefit. I mean,
[00:27:33] if I can give money in front of everybody and they can all see how generous I am, then everybody will hold me up in high esteem. And if I can pray on the street corner and
[00:27:45] everyone can marvel at the beauty and the eloquence of my words, they will all praise and envy my prayer life. And if I can let everyone know that I'm fasting and how hungry and weak I am,
[00:28:01] and let them know the pain and the suffering that I'm enduring for my faith, they're all going to revere my saintly devotion to God. And obviously, storing up vast treasures for myself benefits it's only me. We do well to remember that our faith in Christ is meant to be lived out in
[00:28:32] community. Each of us is a part of the body of Christ. Each of us who serve and are served by the other parts of the body. I was reminded by a clip that Carl Elledge sent to me this past week
[00:28:53] that not one time in the Bible, from the mouth of Jesus, the writings of Paul, or any of the disciples, will you ever encounter the words personal Lord and Savior. It's not there. That was a false construct of the revivals of the 1900s. It was an ad campaign. Come here and have
[00:29:20] your own concierge God to serve all of your needs. Too much Christianity today is lived out as a search for how God can bless me, rather than a quest to see how I can love God by serving
[00:29:42] others. In Christ, we find a movement towards connection rather than separation. From Jesus' prayer in John 17, to the words of Ephesians 4, to Luke's description of the early church in Acts 2, 44 to 47, the Bible points at a profound truth. We are one. Paul even says in 1 Corinthians 12, 26,
[00:30:12] when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer with it. When one of us loses, we all lose.
[00:30:23] when one of us succeeds we all succeed your joy is our joy your grief is our grief and vice versa my sins not only hurt me they also hurt you your sins not only hurt you they hurt everybody
[00:30:46] the biblical witness extends this sense of community beyond the borders and the confines of the church even, because the Bible is clear that God loves everyone. Every human being is made in the image of God. We are all God's children, and John 3 16 informs us that God sent his only son
[00:31:12] to save the world. Jesus teaches us that we're to love our enemies, that we're to pray for those who harm and persecute us. We're supposed to care for and tend to the very least among us.
[00:31:31] And Paul says that in Christ, our divisions disappear. The truth is that as humans, we're all in this struggle called life together. And just as it's impossible to poke a hole in just one end of a lifeboat, it's also impossible to only inflate one end of a lifeboat. We all do
[00:32:00] better when we all do better. Hear these words from M. Scott Peck in his book, The Different Drum.
[00:32:14] Community requires the confession of brokenness. We think of a confession as an act that should be carried out in secret in the darkness of a confessional or office with locked doors with the guarantee of professional priestly or psychiatric confidentiality.
[00:32:34] Yet the reality is that every human being is broken and vulnerable. How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded. And vulnerability is a two-way street. Community requires the ability to expose our wounds and weaknesses to
[00:33:05] our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be affected by the wounds of others, to be wounded by their wounds but even more important is the love that arises among us when we share both ways. On Ash Wednesday in the Christian Orthodox Church they actually line up
[00:33:38] and every single member goes to every single other member and asks for forgiveness. You know for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Thus we've all harmed the body and so they
[00:33:56] repent. They must have a really long service. We're not going to do that here tonight but how about if you look to your right or your left ahead of you or behind you and offer the words please forgive me
[00:34:17] to three or four people and allow them to ask the same of you. We do not need to cite why we are asking for forgiveness, nor do we need to answer or confer forgiveness on anyone. It's simply an
[00:34:37] act of great humility, contrition, and repentance to acknowledge among the body that along with being an asset we all at times have been a liability join me in the repentance

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:35:45] reading it is found on the back of your program so you can follow along as I read this from Psalm chapter 51 verses 1 through 17 have mercy on me O God according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
[00:36:15] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight
[00:36:34] so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
[00:36:43] Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
[00:36:50] You desire truth in the inward being.
[00:36:54] Therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
[00:36:59] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.
[00:37:03] wash me and I shall be whiter than snow let me hear joy and gladness let the bones that you have crushed rejoice hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities create in me a clean heart O God and put a new and right spirit
[00:37:30] within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will
[00:37:53] return to you. Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice. If I were
[00:38:17] to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise. Would you join me in prayer please? Powerful One, it is the time of
[00:38:47] centering. We come this day in humility before you, repenting of our sin. As we bow, we are assured that you grant your grace, for we become vulnerable enough at last to hear your word to us. In the quiet we lift to you the sins and the
[00:39:14] burdens we have carried far too long. As you formed us from the earth and yet created us to be keepers of the earth, you have given us the spark of life.
[00:39:34] Tonight we receive the smudges of ashes. We come forward and are marked as disciples as those who have been called, cleansed, forgiven, and healed. We do not step foot on this journey lightly, for it will not be easy. There will be times of
[00:40:00] great joy and wonder, and there will be times of confusion and fear, but through Through all of this, God is with us, guiding, comforting, and leading us.
[00:40:17] We have raised in prayer names of those we love who need your healing mercies, O Lord.
[00:40:23] We have lifted up situations of pain, loneliness, and confidence of your amazing grace.
[00:40:31] Though the night is dark and there is much darkness in the world, we will place our trust in your son, whom you have blessed and given to us.
[00:40:43] Help us to follow in his steps and place our trust in him as we enter this Lenten journey.
[00:40:52] For it is in his name that we pray, amen.

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:41:05] And now as you come forward for the ashes, you have an option.
[00:41:09] You can either get them right here on the forehead and just kind of do this, lift your bangs up, or you can give me the back of your hand And I can put the cross right here, whichever you prefer.
[00:41:20] And you'll hear the words, from dust you've come to dust you shall return.
[00:41:27] Will you come?
[00:46:59] Before I say a benediction, I will tell you one thing about this.
[00:47:04] These are actually palm ashes from Palm Sunday last year.
[00:47:09] And from what I read and what they tell me, you don't want to put water on it to wipe it off.
[00:47:14] It could burn if you put water on it.
[00:47:17] so the best thing to do I just got a dry towel and you can wipe it with a dry towel if you need to you can get some hand sanitizer but don't just put water on it I mean it's not going to like
[00:47:30] eat through your skin or anything but it might might not feel too comfortable from from what I understand when you when you take it off okay thank you so much for being here let's pray
[00:47:42] together. Lord, some of the greatest words in all of scripture are that for when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And Lord, there is no condition that we can create or fall into
[00:48:09] or become where you will not receive us, where you will not greet us, and you will not meet us.
[00:48:16] and we thank you God for hearing our cry tonight and for indeed not passing us by and we pray God that you would move in a strong way through this congregation during Lent that we might grow spiritually and relationally
[00:48:35] and that we might draw nearer to the cross of Jesus in these next 40 days.
[00:48:43] It's in his name that we pray, amen.