ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

ASH WEDNESDAY - THE VICAR'S SERMON AT HIGH MASS

Readings: Joel 2. 1-2,12-17; 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10; Matthew 6.1-6,16-21

"Blow the trumpet in Zion" Joel 2.1

..whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others." Matthew 6.2

The prophet Joel orders trumpets to be blown to summon the people to a great act of communal repentance.

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount tells us to put the trumpets away.

The Church has both of these read to us at Mass on Ash Wednesday as it calls us to keep a holy Lent.

We are clearly meant to listen to and learn from both as we seek to renew and deepen our Christian discipleship in preparation for Easter and the renewal of our baptismal vows.

They might seem at first to be contradictory but are in fact complementary.

Let's begin with Jesus, usually a good idea for Christians. He talks about three ancient acts of Jewish piety almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Note that he does not abolish them but assumes that his followers will do all three: "Whenever you give alms", "Whenever you pray", "Whenever you fast". So the Church took over all three practices.

The difference for followers of Jesus was not the acts themselves, but the motive and the manner in which they are carried out. Instead of being done with a fanfare that would attract attention and admiration from other people, they are to be done modestly and in secret. This was a direct challenge to the competition for status, for public "honour" in Roman society and increasingly influential among the Jews of Jesus' time; and hardly unknown in our day. We are not told to abandon acts of piety; only warned not to do them in order to be praised by others.

Prayer . Jesus' disciples recognised that prayer was at the heart of his life, of his relationship with God. For those who follow Jesus, prayer is just as important. But our prayer, our acts of devotion, are not to be done for praise, visibility, or the building up of wealth and reputation. Instead, the focus is to be God alone. Hypocrisy consists of undertaking pious actions in hope of earthly rewards, rewards that come from human beings instead of God.

Our tradition places considerable emphasis on bodily acts of devotion, ceremony and action. So we stand, we kneel, we bow, we genuflect, we make the sign of the cross, bless ourselves with holy water and so on. . Anyone who has been round churches like this for long knows that these things can become a way of showing off how pious we are: "Lord, I thank you that I am not as other men are; low church like those dreadful protestants. I am a proper Catholic". Sometimes this is just a matter of youthful enthusiasm for something newly -discovered; a phase we grow out of into something more modest and restrained. I don't mean mediocre. But, sometimes it is attention-seeking and showing off; the religious posturing which the Ash Wednesday Gospel warns us against.

Fasting. You can usually find someone in a church who looks long-faced and miserable; and deliberately so. How many are doing this to show that they are fasting is another matter. I suspect more often it is to show their disapproval of the Vicar or the music or the churchwardens.

Too many of us have perhaps taken Jesus' words as dispensing us from fasting and abstinence altogether. If we can't do it properly, well then we'd better not do it at all, we say, with a sigh of relief, and turn back to our roast beef and claret.

And yet ours is a time which probably needs this practice as much if not more than any other: not just in food and drink -although that is certainly the case in an obese and alcoholic society - but also in terms of many other things - luxuries and entertainments, perhaps which take up our time and distract us from God. It is not that these things are necessarily bad in themselves. But, if you have ever said, I don't have time to pray, I'm so busy, I'm too tired, ask yourself how much time you give to watching TV or listening to your I-pod. Fasting from distractions gives us time to pray. Abstaining from luxuries enables us to be more generous in our almsgiving. The three are inter-connected.

Jesus then addresses our personal and individual motives for religious activities. Joel speaks to the people of God as a community. He calls them and us to a corporate act in which all stand as equals before the Lord; equal in need of forgiveness.

We live in a society in which Individual freedom and choice are seen as paramount. The communal and the corporate take second place or worse. There has been a proper development of emphasis on the rights and freedoms of the individual over against the totality, the state or the community, which we should value and defend.

But as Christians we should be able to appreciate that there is also a loss when we are turned into solitary individuals reliant on our own resources. There is a strength and, yes, a freedom to be found in sharing with others in the life of faith. Left to ourselves, we could not invent the Christian faith, nor would be very good at practicing it. In the bit of the Sermon on the Mount which the editors leave out for this mass, Jesus teaches us to pray "Our Father" not "My Father". The highest act of Christian worship is not some individual experience of mystical union with God, but the Eucharist; a holy communion with God and with our fellow-Christians.

There is a creative relation ship between the communal and the individual, the corporate and the personal. One supports the other. Conversion and repentance must have an individual element to them: I must accept God's grace, I must obey his call. But I would be proud or stupid, or both, to think that I have not received this at the hands of others, or that I cannot be helped immeasurably by sharing in that repentance and obedience with others. It is belonging to the Body of Christ which strengthens and encourages me when loneliness settles on me, and a sense of my own inadequacy dawns on me. As Pauls says, we are to "bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Galatians 6.2) and that involves a willingness to have our burdens borne by others. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us: "let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another." Hebrews 10.24-5 It is in coming together, praying together, worshipping together, serving together, giving together, sharing one another's joy and sorrows, that we both find encouragement and others find encouragement in us.