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ASH WEDNESDAY

February 21, 2007

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; II Corinthians 5:20b—6:10

As far back as the eighth century, Christians would commemorate the beginning of Lent by the imposition of ashes as a token of mourning and penitence.  This imposition of ashes was also accompanied by the wearing of old, ragged and often-filthy clothing.  The ashes were poured over the heads of the clergy and laity alike (thus the term, “repenting in sackcloth and ashes”).  Gradually, over the centuries, the observance became more genteel, with the sign of the cross being made with ashes upon one’s forehead.  But whether on the forehead or covering the person, the ashes are meant to convey both mourning and penitence.

Ash Wednesday continues as a rite of the church generally observed by Christendom.  Even as recent as 1929, the observance of Ash Wednesday was made a special fast-day of the Episcopal Church (USA) and named a “Greater Feast” by the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) to be observed by all.  Most liturgically centered denominations still make it an important day both for Christian penance and for the inauguration of Lent, and it is today observed throughout the Christian world.

True to the primary theme of Lent, the scriptures in the Cycle C Lectionary for Ash Wednesday all deal with our repentance and penitence as essential to God working his sovereign will among God’s people and in our lives. 

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.   The message of the second chapter of Joel cannot be understood except through placing the prophecy into its context.  But what is that context and who was Joel?  The prophecy of Joel has no internal indicators of who Joel was (except that he was “the son of Pethuel” 1:1), and he is not mentioned as a prophet in any of Israel’s pre-exilic or post-exilic literature.  All that we know of him, including the date and context of his prophesy, we must deduce from the content of the book that bears his name. 

He likely lived in Jerusalem (given his frequent references to that city).  He was not a priest (1:9, 13; 2:17), but he was keenly familiar with the functions of Temple worship (1:9, 13, 14; 2:14-17; 3:1, 6, 16).  Joel quotes Exodus 34:6-7, Amos 1:2 and Isaiah 13.  In Joel 3:10, he intentionally reverses the image for world peace used by the prophets Isaiah (2:2-4) and Micah (4:1-4), knowing that the reader would immediately recognize what he had done to these far better-known prophecies.  He refers to the vision of a holy city with a life-giving stream used in Ezekiel 47:1-12 and Zechariah 14:8.  Therefore, he would have to be post-dated after all these books were written.

Further, Joel refers to a functioning cult in Jerusalem, sees Judah and Israel as a single entity rather than two distinct nations, refers to Israel having formerly been in exile, knows that a new wall encloses Jerusalem, and refers to the Greeks as enemies but doesn’t mention Assyria and Babylon.  Therefore, it can logically be concluded that Joel was likely written no earlier than 445 BCE (the year that Nehemiah completed the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem), and no later than 334 BCE, when Alexander invaded Persia.

Why is it helpful to know when the book of Joel was written?  Simply because the central message of Joel is the coming of the “Day of the Lord”.  In Jewish lore, the “Day of the Lord” was perceived as a day of victory for and vindication of Israel, when Israel’s enemies would be overthrown and Israel made great before the world.  But like the prophets Amos and Jeremiah before him, Joel proclaimed that the Day of the Lord would be no victory for Israel, but rather a day of judgment and darkness against them.

After the Israelite exiles had returned from Babylonian captivity to the Promised Land under the aegis of the Persian king, Cyrus, many had believed that the Day of the Lord would soon come.  But instead of working together to build a shalom community of justice, equitable distribution of wealth and dynamic relationship with God, the Israelites became steadily more insulated, isolated and xenophobic.  By the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, they had rebuilt the Temple but their life together as God’s people was in a shambles.

A contemporary of Nehemiah, the prophet Malachi described most graphically the spiritual and physical corruption of the people.  The nation was experiencing both significant political oppression and economic depression (Malachi 3:10-11).  Adultery, perjury, intermarriage between pagans and Israelites and victimization of the poor were all being widely practiced by the Jews (3:5; 2:10-12).  Most of all, even though the Temple had been rebuilt and formal Yahweh worship had resumed, the people had abandoned their religious heritage (Mal. 1:14; 2:13; 3:7-14).  They believed God had abandoned them.  And therefore, they had chosen to abandon God!  It was therefore in this context of such faithlessness and refusal to follow the covenant that had previously brought economic, political and spiritual stability to Israel, that Joel wrote his prophecy.

“The Day of the Lord is coming, it is near”, Joel announced to the hopeful Jews (Joel 2:1b).  But that day is not to be a day of triumph and victory.  Rather it is to be “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (2:2a)!  Blow the shofar, alerting the city to its imminent danger.  For God’s army, vast and powerful, will descend upon them like a plague of locusts, blackening the sky with their numbers (2:2b).  “Their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come” (2:2c).  Thus, the day toward which Israel had looked forward as their day of liberation and salvation will actually be a day of destruction and judgment.  God will bring judgment upon God’s covenant community because they have been disobedient in having not been faithful to God and his call to them to work for his shalom community of justice, sharing of wealth and commitment to God.  They had learned nothing from their exile in Babylon or their captivity under the Persians.  They are even now as sinful as they were when they were rulers in their own land before the exile.

But Israel need not end its days in destruction and judgment.  “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him” (2:13-14a)?   A window of opportunity still exists.  Even as God’s great army gathers for the invasion, the people of God can repent and return to God.  And if they repent, God will hear and save both them and their land. 

Repentance is the second key theme of the prophecy of Joel.  Thus, the prophet sounds a call to penitence given to all of God’s people (2:15-17).  This repentance must be total – not just a renewal of liturgical observances or returning to the Temple to embrace its rituals.  Rather, there must be a genuine embrace of God “with all your heart” (2:12, 13) that leads to a change of priorities and a concentration on working for God’s kingdom.  If Israel repents, not only by penitence and deep sorrow, but by demonstrating that penitence through doing justice, caring for and loving each other, and being humble before God (cf. Micah 6:8), then God will hear from heaven and will heal them and their land!

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.  Jesus begins this portion of his Sermon on the Mount by presenting the primary point he wishes to make.  “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” (6:1).  He then presents three ways that piety is publicly displayed within the Judaism of his time: almsgiving to those in need (6:2-4), making a display of praying in public (6:5-15) and fasting (6:16-18).  In each case, such practicing of piety is in reality an ostentatious display, designed to garner praise for the person for his piety.  But there is no genuine compassion for the poor or sincere longing for relationship with God in such actions.          

What does not immediately communicate to today’s reader regarding this passage (but would have been abundantly clear to Jesus’ contemporaries listening to this sermon) was the practice of patronage or beneficence in the ancient Roman and Jewish worlds[1].  Public works, such as the construction of theaters, monuments or public baths, or the holding of a citywide festival, feast or games were not undertaken by the state.  Wealthy individuals would assume responsibility for the building or conducting of the same, would receive permission of the local governing body to do so and, upon the work’s completion, would be declared a “benefactor” of the city and accorded public recognition by that city’s citizenry and governing body in a public ceremony.  If the benefaction were a major public work, the praise given by the city would be extreme.[2] 

Thus, the gladiatorial contests and competitions held in the Coliseum in Rome were not events paid for by the Roman Empire but by the emperor himself out of his personal wealth (which was why he and his entourage was given such choice seating, received the chants of the people of “Caesar, Caesar, Caesar”, and had the ultimate authority to decide whether a combatant would live or die).    

 Benefaction would also be practiced toward individuals.  There were three levels of such benefaction.  There were client-patron relationships, in which a wealthy person would maintain a long-term benefaction relationship with a person below his station, providing him with a predictable stream of income, goods or foodstuffs.  In return, the client would perform services for his patron, normally proclaiming before him as he walked through the streets the generosity of his benefaction, writing poems or essays about his generosity or even awakening him each morning with a hymn to his benefaction.[3]   The second level of individual benefaction was the support of widows.  Widows selected by the benefactor (normally those without a family to both support and protect them) would be given a monthly amount of money upon which they were to live; in essence, the benefactor had become their protector.  Again, this continuing generosity was to be proclaimed throughout the streets.[4]  The final level of individual benefaction was toward beggars and the homeless needy in the streets or on the roads.  This level of benefaction consisted of the occasional and haphazard contribution of funds, entailing no continuing supporting relationship.  The beggar, receiving the gift, was expected to proclaim loudly to all within hearing the generosity of his benefactor. 

Thus, in both the Roman and Jewish worlds of Jesus’ time, the state did not pay for public works, festivals or social services for the poor.  These were all paid by wealthy patrons and benefactors (including even the Roman emperor), and each giving his money for that purpose expected appropriate recognition and praise (even adoration) for doing so.

When Jesus taught, “Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do” (6:2) or “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, standing and praying in the synagogues and street corners” (6:5) and “Whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites” (6:16), what he was doing was not making simple commentary about being modest in your spiritual practices.  What Jesus was doing was striking at the very heart of the Roman and Jewish practice of benefaction.  He was calling Israel back to its Old Testament roots, reminding them that it is the responsibility of the entire shalom community of God’s people to “seek the welfare of its city” (Jer. 29:7), to be committed to its public life, to build its festivities around the worship of God (not the shedding of blood for sport’s sake), and to care long-term for the widow, the orphan and the poor within its midst (Deut. 15:4-5). 

Thus, true disciples of Yahweh are not those who give alms to gain public respect, but those who quietly, compassionately and genuinely meet each other’s needs and the needs of their society    True disciples are not those who pray in order to gain public approval but those who seek a genuinely deeper walk with God.  True disciples are not those who fast and practice spiritual disciplines as a means of self-display, but those who accompany fasting with prayer and working for justice (cf. Isa. 58:3-14).  It is the hypocrites[5] who claim to have a relationship with God and to be in support of the Law and its call to build the shalom community but who in reality are only self-serving and even self-deceived, undermining God’s very intent in building a society that truly embraces God’s shalom!

Which, Jesus asks, do you choose to be?  Are you going to be like these hypocrites that occupy the seats of authority and power in Israel’s religious, political and economic world, but appear to be God-fearers?  Or will you choose to be an authentic disciple of Christ’s.  Thus, Jesus concludes, “Do not store up for yourselves 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 in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:19-21).

II Corinthians 5:20b—6:10.  In this passage, Paul entreats the Corinthian Church to be reconciled to God.  Supposedly, they are already Christians.  But he calls them “to accept the grace of God” (6:1), for “now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation” (6:2b).  Thus, Paul suggests here that, although the Corinthian Christians have begun the process of salvation by initially responding to God’s grace as manifested to them through Jesus Christ, the division and acrimony which seems at the very heart and root of their church is a denial of all they claim about their embrace of salvation.  So embrace all that there is of salvation, Paul instructs, for God through Christ has acted to embrace you.  See all that I have gone through for you, Paul testifies (6:4-10) in order to call upon you to fully embrace Christ.  So embrace Him – and in that embracing, embrace each other!

Thus, in the spirit of Ash Wednesday and of Lent, Paul is also calling upon the Corinthian Christians to repent of their conflict with each other, to be penitent about their treatment and even demonizing of each other, and to embrace the fullness of salvation in Christ.  The apostle does this by a masterfully crafted statement that summarizes the essence of the gospel message.  “Be reconciled to God,” he writes.  “For our sake he made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (5:20b-21).

Through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, Paul states here, God did two things.  First, “he made Christ to be sin”.  Second, “in him we might become the righteousness of God”.  What Paul presents here is that God assigned the responsibility of our sin to Christ, so that he died in our place, taking upon himself the full brunt of our sinfulness (Isa. 53:6; I Pet. 2:24).  Second, in that death, God transferred Christ’s righteousness to us.  Thus, in his death, Christ became like us so that we might become in life like him! 

God has been doing and continues to do that work within each one of us, Paul declares, and the manifestation that God’s work is working in us is our increasing receptivity to and embrace of the gospel!  Thus, as God’s salvific work continues to occur in us, our moral character begins to change.  We become more cognizant of our sin, more sensitive to the pain our attitudes and actions create in others, more penitent in our will and behavior, more desirous of building the peace, unity and purity of the church, more committed to working for justice in the world.  In other words, the Spirit is doing a work within each of us and all of us collectively.  Thus it is that our very penitence as a Christian and as part of the people of God makes us ever more receptive to the salvific work God is doing both in us and through us as we work for the transformation of the world into God’s shalom community.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt. 6:21).

(Copyright © 2007 by Partners in Urban Transformation)