Ash Wedenesday Sermon 17th February

Our Curate, Gill Tayleur, preaches on Ash Wednesday

What do you want to hear first, the good news or the bad news? People often have a preference, for good news first or bad, and you may too. But when it comes to The Good News, the Best news, of God’s love & forgiveness & acceptance, we have to hear and face up to the bad news first. The bad news, the worst news, that we have all sinned and need God’s forgiveness and grace. That goes for every single one of us.
Yes it’s fabulous, wonderful news that God’s saving love & forgiveness are indeed on offer, but in order to receive them
we have to acknowledge our need of them, have to recognise our sin.
I’ve heard sin explained as having I in the middle, the letter I in the middle of the word sin; I at the centre of my life.
My life being all about me. What I want.
When we’re made to live best with God at the centre, to live His way, as He wants.
God centred rather than me centred.
Facing up to our self centredness, to our sin, is part of what Lent is all about.

We have just been called “to observe a holy Lent, by self examination and repentance”.
After this sermon, there will be what is called the “liturgy of penitence, an examination of conscience”, the long section of prayer on page 3, with a period of silence that the instructions say “should not be omitted or reduced to a mere pause”. In other words, there must be time for that self examination.
And then in a little while, we will be invited to receive the mark of the cross in ash, on our foreheads, as a sign of our repentance.

The bad news of self examination leading to repentance, making way for the good news of God’s forgiveness, acceptance & love. That’s what this service is about, and an important part of what Lent is about.

Self examination and repentance is what Psalm 51 is all about too. It was written by King David after Nathan had confronted him about his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. You may be familiar with the story: one day King David was on the roof of his palace and he saw the beautiful Bathsheba taking a bath. He knew she was married to Uriah, who was away at war. David wanted Bathsheba, so he sent for her and slept with her. She became pregnant. David panicked, got Uriah back from war hoping he would sleep with Bathsheba so it would look like the baby was his. But this didn’t work, and David in desperation sent Uriah back to war and told the army commander to put Uriah in a place where he would be killed. And that’s what happened. And David didn’t appear to see the sin in it, or take it seriously, until God sent a prophet called Nathan, to confront David with his sin.
And finally David sees his sin for what it is – and is heartily and painfully sorry. We see just how deeply sorry he is, in these words of Psalm 51.

“Have mercy on me O God, blot out my transgressions, cleanse me from my sin” and so on. This is heartfelt repentance! David recognises that he has done wrong. He has taken what was not his, Bathsheba. He has committed adultery and murder. And he recognises that these wrong actions, the wrong he has done outwardly, comes from the wrong in his heart. And he recognises that his heart needs dealing with. In this Psalm he cries out: “create in me a pure heart O God”, “renew a steadfast spirit within me.” “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” He’s saying his sinful deeds have their roots in the sinfulness of his heart.

In the gospel reading we have just heard, we see the same importance given to the inward, heart attitude and not just the outward actions. In the first few verses of the chapter, Matthew 6, Jesus teaches about giving money to the needy, in full view of everyone else and for their approval.
Jesus says don’t do that, do it in secret, for only God to see. Jesus then goes on to say the same sort of thing about prayer: don’t do it where other people can see you, to impress them, but do it in private, where God alone sees. Our reading skipped on to verse 16, where Jesus makes the same point again, about fasting. Don’t make sure everyone can see that you’re fasting and think well of you, but rather keep it as something between you and God. And finally, those last verses we heard read, about storing up treasure in heaven rather than on earth. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, Jesus is saying the heart is as important as the actions, maybe even more so. We’re to make sure our hearts are right: our motives, our attitudes and our posture before God.

So do we examine our hearts, our motives and our attitudes really humbly and honestly before God? As we’ve heard, Lent is a time for such self examination. It’s tough, it’s hard and painful and I think we naturally avoid doing so. I avoid doing so.

We’d much rather tell ourselves we’re not that bad a person really. I’m not as bad as David, I’ve never committed adultery or murder! Comparing ourselves to others we consider ‘worse’ than we are, is one way we avoid being honest about our sin.

Another is by blaming someone else! For provoking us. If I lose my temper and am rude to the person who has kept me waiting on the phone for 15 minutes, I think “well they treated me badly”. But the truth is simply, I’ve been rude & angry. They may have treated me badly but that doesn’t mean it’s OK for me to treat them badly back.
I’ve heard it illustrated like this: If I’m holding a cup of something, and you bump into me and it spills all over the place, it may be your fault that it has spilled, but I’m responsible for what was in the cup that has spilled. I’m responsible for whether it’s clean water, or filthy gunk, that spilled out. So if you wrong me and I react with anger and rudeness, I must take responsibility for the anger and hatred in my heart. It shouldn’t have been there in the first place, then it wouldn’t have spilt out.
We behave as if we had the right to be treated well and fairly at all times, and if we’re not then watch out! But we have no such right.

If I get really het up and jealous that someone else is given something I’ve been wanting, be it something concrete or something like attention or appreciation,
my annoyance and jealousy is not their fault, it’s mine. I am responsible for my reaction.
We so easily blame someone else!

Then another way we try to excuse ourselves is to say “everyone does it!” For example, when I tell a white lie to cover up a mistake I’ve made, it’s easy to say to myself, everyone does it. And yes a lot of us do things like that – but it’s a lie, spoken to save my face, to puff myself up, to make me look good. That’s not a pure heart, not a Godly motivation.

A similar way we avoid acknowledging our sin for what it is, is by making the excuse, “it’s only human!” It’s much easier to say “it’s only human”, or “it’s very understandable”,
than to own up to recognising our sin for what it is. We try to fool ourselves that our sin isn’t really bad, it’s just human. Of course our sin is “only human” – but Jesus had to die on the cross for us humans!

Jesus didn’t soft pedal this; he said sin had a broader definition than we might want to give it, not a narrower one. He said even to think an angry thought is like committing murder. He certainly didn’t excuse sin in any way. Every single time we fail to live up to the Godly way of living that Jesus came to show us, we sin.
So, with various excuses on the tip of our tongues, we have to be determined to recognise our sin for what it is. But if we are willing, it doesn’t take much digging to see what’s going on in our hearts. And if we ask God to show us the attitude of our hearts, then it really doesn’t take long!

So will we, this Lent, this evening even, ask God to help us see the sin in our hearts? Will we be willing to cut through the excuses to see our sin for what it is? And will we be willing to repent of it? To actually say to God, humbly, I have sinned, I have done wrong. To say, it’s part of what you had to die on the cross for, and I deeply regret it.
To say, I want to change & live differently.

The point of acknowledging our sin is not so we can beat ourselves up about it, is not self hatred or to be burdened with guilt. It’s exactly the opposite: so we can know we’re loved & forgiven & accepted & set free to live differently. It’s about freedom! About being changed! About becoming more the people God has designed us to be; how glorious is that?!

So we choose to search out the sin in our hearts to repent of it, and be freed from it.
And that’s when the bad news makes way for the Good News! The wonderful news is, that God loves us so much, that He does indeed forgive us completely.

We read in Psalm 51, “have mercy on me according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion... wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy & gladness, restore to me the joy of your salvation” The Psalm speaks of God’s compassion and mercy and being filled with joy & gladness!

Our sin can be forgiven, thanks to Jesus’ death on the cross, as we’ll be celebrating in Communion shortly. When Jesus died, he took the sin of the whole world, and that includes yours and mine, on to himself, and took our place so that you and I might be free from the punishment we deserve.
So that we can be forgiven. How wonderful to know we are deeply loved by God and to receive His forgiveness! We don’t have to earn it, we simply have to receive it. That really is the best news ever.

So, let us, this Lent, grapple with the bad news of our sin, to know the very Best news of God’s love and forgiveness. Let’s heed the call to self examination and repentance, so that we can know the assurance of forgiveness, and its joy. The joy of Easter, at the end of this season of self examination and repentance.

Now let’s pray...
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time of Lent, and for the opportunity to think carefully about our lives, our sin and your wonderful love and forgiveness. Help us to do just that, this evening and in the weeks ahead, this Lent. In Jesus name, Amen.