Ash Wednesday Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
“Living Baptized”
Live your baptism. When Martin Luther was asked to explain the basis for Lent and Lenten practices he taught these three simple words, Live your Baptism. It is a great slogan that would fit nicely on a bumper sticker. But it does beg the question, what does that mean? A little less simply put, Lent is a time when we seek to go back to the basics of our faith and focus on the essentials. Lent is intended to be a time where practices, routines, and or even abstentions help us do just that.
This has been done in a lot of different ways. When it comes to Lent I have been known to make grand plans. I will give up this, and read the bible for two hours a day and pray for three. And much like New Year’s resolutions, these commitments were revealed not to be commitments after all. I think my failure to live up to these grand commitments has something to do with choosing the wrong practices in the wrong amount. But it also has as much, if not more, to do with a clear lack of why I would do them anyway. In other words, what are the basics to which I hope to return? Instead of thinking what we might do, not do, or practice in Lent, we should ask, why bother.
In the early church the period before Easter was a time of preparation for baptism for new adult members and their families. This period became the basis for Lenten practice. But the time of preparation was not simply for the new members. The entire community would join in the preparation for reaffirming the promises made in baptism. But this does not answer the question, why bother?
Living our baptism means following in the way of Jesus that is marked by three main values, hospitality, generosity, and no vengeance. We live in a time that marked by different values. Our identity in our culture can be boiled down to how much we can and cannot participate in the economic arena. Any way of living which does not bring a profit is not valued. Living as people who practice generosity, hospitality, and no vengeance cannot be done alone and it cannot be done without practicing these values. Lent provides the perfect opportunity to come face to face with the conflicting values of our faith.
The heart of Lenten spirituality is not dependent upon whether we use ashes for a sign of the cross, or whether we use water. The practices we use and the commitment we make serve only to help us live the values of hospitality, generosity, and no vengeance. Maybe that means giving up chocolate, maybe that means not watching your favorite television show. Or maybe it means a deeper investment in how we are trapped by the conflicting values of our culture. That is not something I could pretend to answer tonight. However, each one of us is being invited into a Lenten practice.
The day he baptized his son Carson, Stan Saunders preached a sermon called, A Death in the Family. In that sermon he shared that on that day Carson was dying to the values of the world and bring brought into new life in a community that would teach him so much more than he and Brenda could on their own. And speaking to the gathered community he told them that that they would have to teach him the essential values of the faith: hospitality, generosity, and no vengeance. He expressed this with these words:
Teach him how to lend his intelligence, his influence, his hands and voice and body to the mass of humanity that has no hands and no influence. And teach him the arts of mercy and forgiveness and how to hold on to hope in the midst of adversity and suffering.
So this is what we begin again on this night. It is my hope and prayer that you will find an answer to the question, why bother with Lent anyway so that you will be able to live your baptism with a renewed joy. Amen.
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