Grace Cathedral

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“We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying and see – we are alive; as punished and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything (2 Cor. 5).”

Why do I love Ash Wednesday so much? It is because of you. You are my Valentine. Although what happens here makes no sense to the people around us in San Francisco you came out on a cold, rainy night to be reminded that our life is passing away. You are here because of your faith.

So many different backgrounds and experiences shaped us, but we share in common a sense that Jesus is inviting us into a life-saving mystery. Tonight let me share a theological idea, a poem and a parable.

1. How well do the people in your life understand you? How does our yearning to be understood change the way that we act? Jesus addresses this question today.

Greek has different words for seeing.¹ When we hear repeatedly, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” the word is blepo. It refers to seeing physically, with one’s eyes. But at the very beginning of the passage Jesus uses a different word to warn us to, “beware of practicing your piety/your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.”² In this case the Greek word is theathēnai. It means seeing with understanding. It is related to our word for theory or to theorize, but also to that place where we see into various characters, the theater.

The preacher Sam Wells compares the religion of Israel to a great theater. Moses goes up to the peak of Mt. Sinai and emerges through the curtain of clouds carrying the law. King Solomon builds a great temple containing the holy of holies where, concealed by a curtain, the priest encounters God. Jesus takes this theater for granted. It is the theater of keeping the commandments, the theater of “thou shall not.”³

But there is more to faith than merely keeping the commandments and avoiding wrong doing. There is another theater beyond it. This is the theater of holy living. It is the world of “thou shall.” It is what we actually do, how we live as people of faith.

There is a danger in this. In Jesus’ time and now religion can become a theater of performance or appearance. For instance, it can be a way of being recognized for good deeds, such as our generosity in giving. Jesus talks about hypocrites sounding a trumpet before giving to the poor. He warns about praying publicly so that others admire us and seeking praise for make our fasting obvious.

We have a sense for the way that something good we put on social media becomes an effort to look good on social media. Jesus teaches that when religious life becomes a way that we impress others, something very important is lost. And so Jesus redefines the theater. Instead of being actors in front of an audience that is the world, he asks us to be disciples with God as our true audience. And so the locked room of prayer becomes our theater, the place we encounter God.

It is natural to want to be noticed, respected, admired. It makes sense to try to be the center of people’s attention. And that is one of our options. We choose our audience. It can be the crowd. Or it can be God. If it is God we receive a different kind of gift. It is the gift of a secret, a kind of intimacy with God that nothing can break.

The theater of the crowd and the theater of the locked room involve the suspension of disbelief. They have rules like other games. We call the players actors. Strangely enough the Greek word for actor is the same word that Jesus uses in this story. It is hypocrite. It means to pretend to be one thing when we are really another.

In this case there is no way around pretending. Either you pretend to give alms, pray, and fast in order to be seen by the theater of the crowd. Or you in a sense pretend not to give alms, pray and fast, because God is your real audience. This is about faith. In a sense Jesus asks us to live as if we were already part of the next world, as if we had already entered the realm of perfect love.

And to do this we have to be a kind of hypocrite. We have to seem as if we fully embrace this world when deep in our hearts we believe in the next. The follower of Jesus who can give without letting one’s right hand know what the left is doing, will have a unique freedom from material things. A Christian who can pray in secret, will grow closer to God’s way of seeing the world and will be free of the passing illusions of our time. And the person of faith who secretly fasts will soon learn a whole new spiritual landscape and realize that we are more than just our bodies.

2. The Christian farmer-poet Wendell Berry writes about this freedom from the world’s opinions in his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” Let me share an excerpt from it.⁴

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise, / vacation with pay. Want more /of everything ready-made. Be afraid / to know your neighbors and to die. /And you will have a window in your head. / Not even your future will be a mystery / any more. Your mind will be punched in a card / and shut away in a little drawer. / When they want you to buy something / they will call you. When they want you / to die for profit they will let you know. /”

“So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. /Love the world. Work for nothing. /Take all that you have and be poor. / Love someone who does not deserve it… / Ask the questions that have no answers.”

“Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. / Say that your main crop is the forest / that you did not plant, / that you will not live to harvest. / … and hear the faint chattering / of the songs that are to come. / Expect the end of the world. Laugh. / Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts….”

“As soon as the generals and the politicos / can predict the motions of your mind, / lose it. Leave it as a sign / to mark the false trail, the way / you didn’t go. Be like the fox / who makes more tracks than necessary, /some in the wrong direction. / Practice resurrection.”

3. Finally, there is an old Jewish parable that seems so perfect for Ash Wednesday. When God makes each of us we are given a garment to use in this world. In one pocket is ash to remind us that we come from the earth and will eventually return to it. In the other pocket is a letter from God. Addressed to each of us individually it says, “even if you were the only soul on the earth. I would have created everything that exists just for you.”⁵

Thank you for losing your mind a little with me tonight. Thank you for “seeing with understanding,” for choosing God in the secret theater of the locked room over the crowd. Thank you for living as if you are already part of the next world. Thank you for practicing resurrection every day.

¹ Eido is to look with understanding, like when someone tells us a story and we say, “I see.” Blepo is to look with the eyes in a more physical kind of way. Optomai means to appear. Oraō means to see to it or look out for. It is the same word for theaomai. https://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/e/e-i-d-om.html https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/theaomai

² Prose÷cete [de«] th\n dikaiosu/nhn uJmw◊n mh\ poiei√n e¶mprosqen tw◊n aÓnqrw¿pwn pro\ß to\ qeaqhvnai aujtoi√ß: ei˙ de« mh/ ge, misqo\n oujk e¶cete para» twˆ◊ patri« uJmw◊n twˆ◊ e˙n toi√ß oujranoi√ß. Matthew 6:1.

³ The entire first section of this sermon depends on: Sam Wells, “Holiness: Simplicity: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21,” The Christian Century, 23 February 2000. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/holiness-simplicity?code=wi5dWLGrq0cgW0WFzyHA&utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4f1520476d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-02-08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

⁴ “Love the quick profit, the annual raise, / vacation with pay. Want more /of everything ready-made. Be afraid / to know your neighbors and to die. /And you will have a window in your head. / Not even your future will be a mystery / any more. Your mind will be punched in a card / and shut away in a little drawer. / When they want you to buy something / they will call you. When they want you / to die for profit they will let you know. /”

“So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. /Love the world. Work for nothing. /Take all that you have and be poor. / Love someone who does not deserve it. / Denounce the government and embrace / the flag. Hope to live in that free / republic for which it stands. / Give your approval to all you cannot / understand. Praise ignorance, for what man / has not encountered he has not destroyed. /Ask the questions that have no answers.”

“Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. / Say that your main crop is the forest / that you did not plant, / that you will not live to harvest. / Say that the leaves are harvested / when they have rotted into the mold. / Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. / Put your faith in the two inches of humus / that will build under the trees / every thousand years. /”

“Listen to carrion—put your ear close, / and hear the faint chattering / of the songs that are to come. / Expect the end of the world. Laugh. / Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts. /”

“So long as women do not go cheap / for power, please women more than men. / Ask yourself: Will this satisfy / a woman satisfied to bear a child? / Will this disturb the sleep / of a woman near to giving birth? / Go with your love to the fields. / Lie easy in the shade. / Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance / to what is nighest your thoughts. /”

“As soon as the generals and the politicos / can predict the motions of your mind, / lose it. Leave it as a sign / to mark the false trail, the way / you didn’t go. Be like the fox / who makes more tracks than necessary, /some in the wrong direction. / Practice resurrection.” Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front,” Collected Poems 1957-1982 (San Francisco, CA: North Point Press, 1984) 151-2.

⁵ Melia Young told me this parable she learned in Mexico on Ash Wednesday Valentine’s Day.