4 Disciplines That Let Christ Into Our Lives

[This was shared tonight with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio. We were commemorating Ash Wednesday.]

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

In tonight’s Ash Wednesday Gospel lesson, Jesus talks about four spiritual disciplines of the Christian life and how we should approach them. A spiritual discipline is a practice by which we surrender our lives to the Lordship and love of the God we know in Jesus in a particular way. 

As children, if our parents truly loved us, we experienced being disciplined. (Christian parents are called to discipline in love, not punish in anger, by the way.) My parents taught me basic lessons of respect for one’s elders, consideration of others, and thriftiness by, initially, imposing discipline on me so that I would live out of these values. I didn’t always adhere to their expectations of me. 

But usually, discipline imposed out of love eventually does have its effect until discipline imposed becomes discipline embraced as parts of the ways we live.

When we become adults, you know, we can become a bit self-indulgent. We slack off on self-discipline because there are few people who will tell us what to do, even when a discipline may be good for our health or our souls. 

When I was growing up for example, my parents had strict rules about no snacking after school or before dinner. I lived that discipline for a long time, until just a few years ago. Now I graze too much. My waistline shows this breakdown in personal discipline. Like Saint Paul in Romans 7, I can say: “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”  

Now, eating without discipline may seem trivial, although we know that even if a Christian never reaches a state of “morbid obesity,” there are, speaking for myself anyway, spiritual implications to overeating. In First Corinthians 6:19, we’re reminded that what we do with and to our bodies is significant: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own…” 

In a very real sense, the ways we use our bodies--from overeating to engaging in sex outside of marriage, from binge drinking to driving ourselves to exhaustion for whatever reason--represent our futile attempts to grasp for the joy or the personal significance that only comes from God. And if we aren’t willing to voluntarily submit to the discipline of the gracious God Who, through Christ, loved and redeemed us before we even knew we needed His help, we are in rebellion and risk blocking Christ and life with God completely from our lives. The stakes then can be high for things we may count as trivial.

Please don’t misunderstand! We are saved from sin and hell by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That truth is central to our faith and lives as Christians. Spiritual disciplines won’t save us. Only Christ does that. 

But spiritual disciplines are means by which we open ourselves up to the saving work of Christ in every aspect of our lives. 

Think of it in this way: Until you turn on your laptop, desktop, smartphone, or TV, you’re not going to see the Super Bowl, Game of Thrones or the 700th presidential campaign debate of 2016. Spiritual disciplines are the channels by which believers open their wills and lives to the grace and guidance of God.  

Throughout this Lenten season, our midweek gatherings will focus on Reach Up, Reach In, Reach Out, the six words we use to summarize the mission of Living Water as a congregation and as individual disciples who are part Living Water. 

To help unpack the meaning of those six simple words, in coming weeks, we’ll focus on six spiritual disciplines that God can use to strengthen our faith and to fulfill our mission and purpose as disciples of Jesus Christ. There are many spiritual disciplines; starting next week, we’ll look at just six foundational ones. 

But tonight, Jesus speaks with us about four such disciplines of the Christian life: 

• giving to the needy; 
• prayer; 
• fasting; and 
• using all of your money in a way that honors God. 

Discipline one Jesus mentions is giving to the poor. When we do so, He says, our motivation shouldn’t be to look upstanding and honorable to the crowd, but to give because it’s the right thing for those of us who have more to share with those who have less, whether anybody else sees it or not. God does give the world its daily bread. There's more than enough for every person on earth. It’s up to us who have been given more of it to share our excess to others, to even things out. 

Jesus then talks about the discipline of prayer. In this case too, Jesus says, don’t pray to be noticed by others. If we play to the crowd when we pray, we get the very thing we’re looking for, the notice of the crowd. But we won’t be connecting with God, which is the real purpose of all spiritual disciplines. And prayer can be a joyous connection with God. When we pray to God in Jesus’ name, we become conduits by which His grace, love, and power enter the lives and circumstances for which we pray. It’s an awesome and humbling thing!

Jesus then talks about, “When you fast…” We’ve noticed on previous Ash Wednesdays the significance of Jesus not saying “If you fast…” He assumes that fasting will be part of the Christian life. Fasting as a seasonal discipline during Lent is fine, of course. But the real purpose of fasting is to remove from our lives all immoderate or even sinful behaviors that get in the way of our loving God, loving our neighbor, or being a faithful disciple of Christ. You can fast from anything--food, social media, excessive TV viewing. You can fast from particular sins with the intention of exorcising the habits that undergird those sins from your life forever, so that your fast from that sin is lifelong. But never should we fast, says Jesus, to get applause for our piety. Except when enlisting prayer partners or spiritual mentors in praying for you and supporting you in the pursuit of your fast, no one else should even know that you’re fasting. It’s your own connection to Christ, not someone else’s.

Finally, Jesus addresses the spiritual discipline of using our financial assets in eternal things. In this discipline, we honor God with our money. This isn’t necessarily about giving to a local congregation, though every believer is called to do that. And the adoption of this discipline doesn’t mean that we can’t sometimes use our money for fun things. Fun can feed our faith too, you know. But Jesus is saying, invest in things that last, eternally. According to the Bible, only one thing on this earth will last eternally, and that’s the people of God, the Church, the fellowship of believers in Christ. When you invest in people, whether by writing a check or getting involved in a mission project or telling a coworker about Christ, you’re seeking to help the people in whom you invest to know Jesus Christ so that, like you, they can enjoy life with God now and in eternity. Absent the investment of our time, our talents, and our treasures in people who need Christ, they will be lost for eternity in their sin.    

Always, the measure of the worth and the power in our exercise of spiritual disciplines--whether these listed by Jesus tonight or those we’ll address in the coming weeks--isn’t whether the world notices us or not, it’s whether our motivation is to honor the God Who sent Jesus to die and rise for us. 

Without that motive, our disciplines are meaningless. 

With them, we become the humble means by which God makes disciples of Jesus Christ, starting with us. 

More next Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday: Lenten Disciplines for Life

[This was shared during the Ash Wednesday worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio on February 13. The Bible lesson was Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.]

The sermon for tonight didn’t start out as a sermon.

It was going to be my presentation for this month’s women’s group. When the women’s group got snowed out, I posted it on my blog. Some of you have read it.

But it says what I want to share with you on this Ash Wednesday, as we begin the often misunderstood and misused season of Lent.

But, even if this is a re-run for you, you may notice things you didn’t catch when you read it on the blog.

Plus, like a DVD of a movie or TV show, there are a few added special features. In any case, I hope you find it helpful.

Many people use Lent to align themselves with Christ. They do this through the adoption of what are called spiritual disciplines. Lenten disciplines can be good, strengthening faith and helping us to love God and love others more faithfully.

But like many good things, we human beings have a way of messing up the whole idea of Lenten disciplines.

"I'm going to give up chocolate," some will announce.

"I'm not drinking beer during Lent," others might say.

"I've decided to give up cussing until Easter," they might say.

But, here's the deal: If something is getting in the way of our being Christians, isn't it also worth asking God to help us get rid of it, not just during Lent, but through our whole lives? Why is something bad during Lent, but not bad the rest of the year?


And, if something we add to our lives as our Lenten discipline helps us grow closer to Christ and to live in a more Christ-like way during Lent, can't it do the same things all year long?

If, this Lenten season, you're giving up chocolate just to lose weight, or giving up beer to please a spouse, or giving up cussing to make yourself more acceptable to some people, your "giving up" is meaningless from God's perspective.

Under such circumstances, you're not undertaking these disciplines to honor God, but as part of a self-improvement kick!

Self improvement is fine. But we shouldn’t claim anything we do just for self-improvement as a spiritual discipline, as something we’re doing for God.

Otherwise, we risk being the kinds of people Jesus condemns in tonight’s Gospel lesson:

• People who practice piety just to be seen as pious, religious people; 
• People who give to charity to be seen by others as generous;
• People who pray so that others will think they’re faithful; 
• People who fast in order to get kudos for others for being heroically self-sacrificing.

But if your intent is to grow closer to Christ and more like Christ through your discipline, it can be a very good thing.

Our Ash Wednesday liturgy mentions four disciplines most closely associated with Lent. These four disciplines might be ones you'll want to consider adopting this year.

But don’t adopt  them with the attitude that, "I'll give them up after Lent." Use Lent as a time to integrate these disciplines into your life, for keeps.

The first Lenten discipline the liturgy mentions is repentance.

Repentance gets a bad rap. It's often seen as a humiliating exercise in which we make ourselves miserable for our sin.

Confession and sorrow for sin are parts of authentic repentance, but the main words used in the Bible for repent tell a fuller story. Simply put, repentance is changing the direction of our lives, changing our minds to think more like God. We refuse to walk away from Christ and instead, turn around to walk toward Him and the way of life He has pioneered for us. [See Hebrews 2:10-13 and Hebrews 12:1-2.]

Knowing that Christ has died to save us from paying the price for our own sins, we ask God for the power to live a life in which the will of God is our highest priority.

Repentance can be a painful thing because it means owning up to our sins, imperfections, and need of God.

But repentance is also a joyful thing because through it, God gives us forgiveness, fresh starts, and the power of the Holy Spirit to help us live the life God has made for all who believe in Jesus.

Christians who choose repentance for their Lenten discipline would do well to adopt the prayer of King David, found in Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God...See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” When we repent, we ask God to show us our errors and change the course our lives are taking, steering us toward Christ and new life!

A second discipline mentioned in our Ash Wednesday liturgy is fasting. Fasting can mean simply doing away with things that get in the way of our following Christ or living life God's way. It may also mean doing without some things that aren’t bad in themselves--things like food, hours on the computer or watching TV, going to sporting events, window shopping at the mall--that keep us from prayer, worship, reading Scripture, attending to our primary relationships, or serving others.

I always suggest replacing the thing from which a person fasts with a positive, God-honoring activity. When we vacate a bad habit, it leaves a hole in our lives and schedules. It’s too tempting to indulge the behavior from which you’re fasting if you don’t have something good to take its place. If you've decided, for example, to give up watching television one night a week, you'll be able to follow through on your discipline and imbue it with some meaning beyond being a forty-day stunt of your will, if you use your usual TV time volunteering at a food bank.

A third discipline mentioned each Ash Wednesday is prayer. Prayer is conversation with God. Of course, believers should, as the Bible teaches, "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). But focused times of prayer, at set times each day, become our special appointments with God, deepening our faith, giving our lives both peace and direction.

One point about these special prayer times I would make is to be certain that you always begin your prayers by reading a chapter from the Bible or a devotion based on a passage of Scripture. Since prayer is conversation with God, it's good to let God get in the first word. Otherwise, our prayers can devolve into monologues about our wants and our feelings.

Psalm 37:4 gives us the priority our prayers should reflect: “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Put God first. When you do that, your desires will change. God’s priorities will become your priorities. What you pray for will change. God and you will be moving in the same direction. And you’ll find God empowering you to do things outside of your comfort zone.

My buddy Steve Sjogren has a new book out called, Heaven’s Lessons. There, Steve tells about his going to a Best Buy one day, looking for an accessory for his iPhone. He saw a sales clerk who, Steve says, didn’t look different from anybody else there.

But some time before this shopping trip, Steve had been praying that God would help him to do whatever God wanted him to do. Steve assumed that God would help him to do things he was comfortable doing.

As he stood in the Best Buy though, he sensed God telling him, “If you approach that salesman and offer to pray for him, I’ll give you one of my prayers to pray.” That seemed crazy to Steve, walking up to a stranger and offering to pray with him! But then he thought he was probably never going to see this guy again and if things got weird, he could just skip going to Best Buy and shop online for a few months.

Steve walked over to the guy and said, “You obviously don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but sometimes I pray for people, and good things happen. I feel like I’m supposed to pray for you for ten seconds. Would that be all right?”

The guy looked around, evidently to see if the coast was clear, and told Steve, “Yeah, go for it.” Steve closed his eyes and touched the guy’s arm. As he did, he got a clear mental picture of this Best Buy employee sitting in a medical school classroom, wearing a white smock, his initials embroidered on the pocket. Steve prayed, “Lord, on his first day of medical school, show him that he didn’t get there by his own hard work, but by the favor you gave him as his grandmother prayed for him.”

The prayer was over. But when Steve looked up at this guy, “his eyes were wide open. His jaw had dropped. His nose was running, and tears dripped down his cheeks.” “How did you know about me trying to get into medical school?” he asked. “Who are you?” Steve explained, “I’m just a guy who sometimes prays for people.” This young man later became a Christian, a member of Steve’s church, and a doctor.

We aren’t all going to be used by God in the exact same ways God uses Steve when he prays. But when we pray God’s way, delighting in the Lord, putting ourselves at the disposal of God for His purposes and not our own, God will give us the desires of our hearts. And what could anyone desire more than to be a partner with God in fulfilling His plans for the world?

A fourth Lenten discipline is doing works of love. Jesus says that whenever we have cared for those the world regards as "the least of these,” we actually serve Him (Matthew 25:31-46).

There is no place in the world that can’t be made better by the love of God. And there’s no end to what God will empower us to do to pass along the love God gives through Jesus Christ.

One work of love we may undertake is reaching out to a family member who has been ostracized from the family.

Another might be participating in a kindness outreach.

Another, picking up groceries for a homebound neighbor.

It might be doing something many of you often do, sending a card to a shut-in.

Whatever the work of love you do, if it's done in the Name of Jesus Christ, you'll find that what started out as something you thought you were doing to benefit others will, miraculously, benefit you, freeing your from your slavery to yourself, turning you out toward the wider world. You will feel and you will be more alive for it.

Jesus says, "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).

Now, if in what I’ve said (or ever said) I've come across as some "expert" either on Lenten disciplines or on being a Christian, let me close by saying that I am a sinner in daily need of Christ's forgiveness and help to live as the human being I was created by God to be.

I am, like you, a disciple. That word disciple translates the Greek New Testament word, mathetes, and it means student. I’m a student learning what it means to follow Jesus.

And if you’re like me, a sinner learning to follow Jesus, you might consider adopting one of these four Lenten disciplines--repentance, fasting, prayer, works of love--this year.

Your Lenten discipline could do a lot more than reshape your waistline; it could reshape your soul.

It could change your life not just your Lent, but for eternity. Amen

Who Do You Put First?

[This was prepared for Ash Wednesday worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Matthew 6:16, 16-21

In tonight’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells us, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.”

He goes on to give three concrete examples:

• When you give charity to the poor, don’t make a show of it. 
• When you pray in public, don’t pile phrases one on top of the other in order to wow the people around you. 
• And when you fast—that is, give up food for a time, don’t let your outward appearance call attention to your “sacrificial” religious devotion.

Spiritual disciplines are meant to draw us closer to Christ, deeper into His orbit, and to create habits of dependence on God within us.

When we give, we’re trusting God to keep providing for our needs even though we have less.

When we pray, whether publicly or privately, we’re acknowledging our complete dependence on God and not ourselves.

When we fast, we’re seeking freedom from what we want and asking God to give us only what we need, what Jesus calls “our daily bread.” (And that, above all, means Him.)

Spiritual disciplines aren’t meant to give us bragging rights, so that we can show the world how faithful we are.

All of that is easy enough to understand. It’s easy to understand too, when Jesus says that those who make shows of their acts of religious piety get the very shallow, meaningless rewards they seek: People notice them.

But the notice of people, the applause of the crowd, won’t get us what only Jesus, Who bled and died and rose again for us, gives.

To those who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Him, Jesus gives the only rewards that last after the cheering has stopped, after the crowds have turned away. Those rewards include forgiveness of sin, eternal life with God, and purposefulness for the living of these days.

Don’t forfeit the only reward worth having, Jesus is telling us in tonight’s Gospel lesson, by allowing your life with God to boil down to things you do for show.

The fact is that what people think of us doesn’t matter. Jesus commands us to play to an audience of One. The opinion Jesus Christ has of our beliefs and motives is the only opinion that will count on judgment day, when He will return to the world to judge, as we say in the Creed, "the living and the dead."

The apostle Paul knew all of this. The first century church of Corinth that he founded, after a time, became a dysfunctional mess requiring him to send at least two letters of correction, both of which the Holy Spirit has inspired the Church to include in the New Testament portion of the Bible. One dispute among many that existed in the Corinthian church was between those who liked the teaching of Paul and those who preferred that of a preacher who came along after Paul left Corinth, named Apollos. Paul wrote to say that such arguments were silly. Paul hadn’t died for their sins and Apollos hadn’t risen from the dead for them. Only Jesus could save them, Paul reminded them.

In the midst of this conflict, some of the Corinthian Christians who aligned themselves with Apollos said nasty things about Paul. Paul couldn’t have cared less. He wrote, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you…I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord Who judges me.”

Paul knew well what Jesus is getting at in this evening’s Gospel lesson:

• Don’t worry about showing others what a good Christian you are; just be a Christian. 
• Don’t call attention to your acts of Christian devotion; just be devoted to Christ.

We could end the sermon right there, I suppose. But, as Lutherans, we believe that we can’t just take pieces of Scripture and leave them as isolated proof texts for the hobbyhorse of the day. Martin Luther said that we should let Scripture interpret Scripture. In other words, a single verse of Scripture, without consideration of the witness of the whole Bible, can be used or misused to say anything. Do that enough with single passages of scripture and you distort the whole Bible and the entire Christian faith.

The distortion to which Jesus’ words for us this evening often get subjected seems especially popular among we Lutheran Christians. Historically, Lutheranism has its roots among the people of northern Europe: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians. These aren’t folks known for being talkative or demonstrative. So, Lutherans have often taken Jesus’ admonition to not make a show of religious piety to mean that we're to never talk about our faith, never tell a friend what Jesus means to us, never invite others to come and see what God is doing in our church family. This is why Lutherans are sometimes called “the frozen chosen.”

But in what Jesus says to us tonight, He isn’t telling us not to live our faith in Him out in the open where the whole world can see it. Pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 553, please. Take a look at a passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount which we discussed a few weeks ago, Matthew 5:14-16. Jesus says: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Now, turn to page 557 in the pew Bibles and look at Matthew 10:32-33. Jesus says: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before [people], him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before [people], him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”

Then, turn to page 572, and find Matthew 28:19-20. There, the resurrected Jesus, about to ascend to heaven, gives the Great Commission to all who believe in Him. The Great Commission is of equal importance for us as the Great Commandment, which Jesus gives in Matthew 22:34-40, to love God and love others. In the Great Commission, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

We are to live our faith out loud. We are to share Christ with others. We are to seek to make disciples of our neighbors, friends, and family members. Jesus commands us to do these things. But what He says to us this evening is a simple admonition: “Watch your motivation. If you’re out to glorify yourself and not Me, Your religious observances are meaningless.”

These are great words for us to remember as we begin the season of Lent. I knew a guy who gave up all sweets during Lent. He seemed to tell everybody he knew that he had given up sweets for Lent. “Want a cookie?” someone would ask him. “No,” he’d say, “I gave up sweets for Lent.” “Want a piece of cake?” Same answer. “Want a can of pop?” Same answer. The first twenty or so times he said, “No, I gave up sweets for Lent,” the response was predictable. People applauded him for his discipline and self-sacrifice and altogether upright behavior. He basked in their compliments. But after a time, people quit asking him if he’d like a cookie, a piece of cake or candy, or a can of pop. Without these offers and the opportunities they gave him to brag about his Lenten discipline, he found it harder and harder to stay away from sweets.

This fellow's desire for compliments isn't unique. Just yesterday, I read about a study conducted by scholars at Ohio State who determined that receiving boosts to their self-esteem was the thing that college students loved more than anything. The compliments of others can be addictive.

Taking on a discipline for Lent (or at any other time of the year) can be a fine thing. But, Jesus says, if it’s all about getting compliments, we’ve got it wrong.

The other night, Ann and I saw an interview on TV with an educated, middle clas Libyan man who had never before held a gun in his hand and, despite having so much to lose, had enlisted in the fight to bring down the dictator Moammar Gadhafi in his country. He said that, for him, it boiled down to a simple sentiment: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” We who confess Jesus as our God and Savior belong to the Kingdom of God. Tonight, Jesus challenges us to set our egos aside, to ask not what our acts of religious devotion can do for us, but how our acts of religious devotion can make us more submissive to the will of God and how they can help us to tell the whole world the story of the God Who loves all so desperately that He became one of us, died for us, rose for us, and gives everlasting life to those who dare to put Him first in their lives.

That’s the dare Christ lays before us this Lenten season, the dare He lays before us every day we live: Put Him first just as He did when He went to a cross for you two thousand years ago. Jesus characterizes His call to us in this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Don’t ask what’s in it for you; just follow the God revealed in Jesus, whether anybody else notices it or likes it or not.

May seeking God’s kingdom and the righteousness that belongs to followers of Jesus be our chief motivation this Lenten season…and our whole lives. Amen!

True Piety, the Lifestyle God Rewards (Ash Wednesday Sermon)

[This was shared during Ash Wednesday worship at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, on February 17.]

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; Psalm 51
“Beware,” Jesus says at the beginning of this evening’s Gospel lesson, “of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

Piety, you know, is a blanket term for acts of devotion toward God. In our lesson, Jesus talks about three different acts of piety: almsgiving (that’s providing monetary and material aid to the poor); praying; and fasting. Good Jews were to do these things in Jesus’ day. They are to do them still today.

And, by His words to us tonight, we see that Jesus presumes that good Christians will do them as well. Notice what Jesus says: “Whenever you give alms…,” not “If you give alms…” “Whenever you pray…,” not “If you pray…” “Whenever you fast…,” not “If you fast…”

As unpopular or as disdained as the word may be, followers of Jesus Christ, you and I are called to strive living pious lives. We're to engage in disciplined devotion to God. That means, among other things, giving to the poor, praying, and fasting. It also means worshiping regularly, sharing our faith in Jesus with others, serving our neighbors, and studying God’s Word. Disciplines like these need to become habits for us.

But, Jesus tells us, we need to watch out for our motives in adopting them.

At a seminar, I once heard the pastor of a megachurch lamenting the motives of a number of people who joined his congregation. The congregation wasn’t just large (20,000 worshiping there every weekend), its members also included a number of wealthy business people. “Our church has become a place for people on the make to network,” I recollect the pastor saying. “I watch them exchanging business cards and I realize that the only reason many come to church is to see and be seen by others.” This guy also said, “Whatever their motives, I trust that, because with God all things are possible, the Word of God will do its stuff and they might find God changing their motives for worshiping every week.” Yet, it makes that pastor sad that so many of the thousands who worship at his church--among them, some of the most regular attenders--are just there to look good. “Beware,” Jesus says, “of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.”

You all are good enough Lutherans to know that no one’s motives are entirely clean and faultless.

Christians are, simultaneously, saints and sinners, forgiven sinners who trust in Jesus alone for our salvation.

This side of eternity, none of us engage in any otherwise commendable act of piety with absolutely pure motives. But Jesus warns us tonight not to be hypocrites in doing these pious things.

The word hypocrite that Jesus uses is the English version of a Greek word: ὑποκριτής (hupokrites). Hupokrites in ancient times was the term for an actor. In ancient Greek and Roman theater, actors wore masks. The word, hypocrite came to be used for people who strive to look one way to the world, but are really very different under their masks.

“You may be able to fool other people behind the masks you wear,” Jesus is telling us tonight. “You may fool people into thinking of you as a person of faith, when in fact, you just want to create that impression. But you can’t fool God!”

Our acts of piety—including receiving the imposition of ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday—are worthless if they’re just masks we wear.

If we come forward for the ashes, yet don’t really believe that we’re finite mortals who need God or sinners who need forgiveness, who are we fooling? Other people? Ourselves? God?

Our acts of piety are great, but no good if they’re masks. To God, they’re just perfume on a cesspool, lipstick on a pig, or, as Jesus Himself once put it in describing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, “whitewashed tombs.”

Psalm 51, which we read together earlier, has been attributed to King David. He wrote it, the Old Testament tells us, after the prophet Nathan confronted David for two sins which David had unrepentantly committed. David thought he’d successfully escaped responsibility for these sins: adultery with another man’s wife and the arranged murder his lover’s husband.

The mask of piety that David wore either fooled the people of Israel or they were so impressed or intimidated by David’s power that they said nothing.

But God prompted Nathan to call his king to repentance. David, the most powerful person in Israel, could have simply arranged for Nathan to die. It wouldn’t have been the first time or the last that a ruler covered up his sins with another one.

But, as the psalm shows us, David repented. He confessed his sins. He turned away from them, disavowing them. He asked God to create a new heart within him and to align his life with God’s Spirit.

In other words, David repudiated his own hypocrisy. He took off the mask. He knew that this was all God asks of us: to be real, to be authentic, to admit our sins, to acknowledge our need of God’s help to live as truly human beings. David put it this way in his prayer to God: “You desire truth in the inward being.”

David knew that when the focus of our piety is on God and not on ourselves or the esteem of others, the walls between God and us, between us and joyful living tumble down.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus says that those who practice authenticity rather than hypocrisy in their devotion to God receive one reward, while the hypocrites get another.

Jesus isn’t saying that we earn eternity.

He is saying that we should aim higher than we are prone to do.

The fact is that, spiritually, we always get what we aim for.

The esteem of others and a comfortable life derived from pleasing the world can come to those for whom those things are important.

But on the day you and I see Jesus face to face, these things will be of no value.

Better to make our aim to connect with and surrender to God!

Then, we’ll not only enter eternity with Christ, Christ will also enter our lives today.

Authentic connection with the God we know in Jesus pays the greatest rewards, now and in eternity.

Make an authentic, honest relationship with Christ your aim and all the best things which God, our Maker and Savior, has in mind for us, will come to be. Amen

Being Christian, Not Just Looking Christian

[This sermon was shared at Ash Wednesday worship at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier this evening.]

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
True story: Years ago, the B-List movie star Fernando Lamas was guest hosting a TV talk show. He introduced his first guest for the evening, another actor and asked, “How are you doing?” “Not so well,” the guest said. “You see, I’ve been very sick. It’s been a tough road.”

The B-List star’s response was a classic, one that comedian Billy Crystal turned into a Saturday Night Live routine. “Yes,” he said. “But you look marvelous and that’s the main thing.”

For many of us today, looking good is the main thing. Many women, in a desire to “look good,” spend thousands of dollars on cosmetics and facelifts. Many men, wanting to appear successful, will overextend themselves financially just to have the biggest houses, the newest cars, and luxury box seats at the football game. Many teens feel that they simply must have the latest stuff from Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch, or they’ll lose face among their peers.

Does any of this strike you as a bit ridiculous?

We seem to have elevated shallowness to a place of high value in our society. Just consider all the time we spend listening to stories about Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears, their brushes with the law and time in the slammer. It’s appalling!

Lest we get too far up on our high horses, though, Jesus reminds us tonight that we Christians can be shallow, too. We can become obsessed with “looking good” as Christians, appearing holy, or devoted, or repentant, or faithful. We can be so hung up on looking like Christians that we fail to actually be Christians.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus addresses the overarching issue of Christian piety. One dictionary defines piety as, “reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religious obligations.” Piety is good. Genuine piety happens when imperfect human beings, like you and me, strive to follow Jesus Christ in our daily lives. But Jesus warns us: “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.”

The rewards which every believer in Jesus Christ wants, the gifts that we can not earn but only receive when we renounce our sin and trust in Jesus, are having God in our lives today and living with God for eternity. Jesus tells us that we risk losing these rewards when, instead of living our lives to express gratitude and love for an audience of one, God Himself, we decide to make looking good in the eyes of others our greatest goal. Or at least one of our goals.

There may be more of this happening among we Christians than we realize, this big desire to appear Christian more than to be Christian. Last year, I met a man whose ministry worked with men from all across the country. He does retreats on sexual purity and pornography. He said that at these gatherings of Christian men, he always conducts an anonymous paper survey. Over the years, anywhere between 20 to 50% of all these men describe themselves as having a problem with pornography that impacts their marriages or other relationships.
Whether those percentages hold up for all Christian men isn’t important. What is important is that it’s possible for Christians to experience a disconnect between the faith we confess and the lives we lead.

We may look good and have the accolades of our fellow Christians, even as we privately wallow in sins from which we can’t seem to extricate ourselves, sins for which we can’t even muster the strength to repent.

Lent is a time of spiritual renewal. Admittedly, it’s a season of the Church Year invented not by God, but by we Christians. Nonetheless, I think that Lent can be helpful to us. It’s a time when we remind one another to lay aside those sins and habits that keep us from having a joyful, fulfilling relationship with God and to instead live our lives for Jesus Christ alone.

That’s why at Lent, on Ash Wednesday, we always begin with this Gospel lesson, words of Jesus taken from His Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. In each issue Jesus addresses in this lesson, He’s giving the same message: If your focus is on looking like a good person to others, you risk losing your relationship with God, your eternal life.

Instead, we’re to be transparent before God, admitting our sins and enlisting His power to help us overcome them.

Jesus says, “When you give alms--that is, charity to the poor, don’t call attention to yourself. Give without taking credit for it.

"When you pray, mostly do it in private; and when you pray in public, talk to God, not other people.

"Whenever you fast--giving up food or drink--don’t go around with a hangdog face so that everybody can see what a pious Christian you are; instead, clean yourself up and let the joy of God radiate from you.

"And don’t be stingy with your money. The stingy who stack up lots of cash only make themselves susceptible to thievery. Instead, be generous. Invest in people. Invest in what Christ calls all Christians to do, the work of God in the world: loving God and loving neighbor.”

Every year, I hear from people about the things they’re giving up for Lent, things like coffee, candy, cake, cigarettes, movies, text messaging, one night a week of no TV. Those things are fine, of course. But the thought often crosses my mind that if these things are worth giving up or cutting down on for the forty days of Lent, maybe they’re also worth giving up or cutting down on all through the year.

Back in my seminary days, I worked at Ross Laboratories in Columbus. Just before Lent, some of the women in the area where I worked decided that they would give up "cussing" for Lent. They set up a jar in the office and every time one of them swore, they put a nickel into it. That jar got pretty heavy before Easter rolled around! But, for the life of me, I can't figure out what good their little "Lenten discipline" did them. They just kept swearing like stevedores.

Unless our Lenten disciplines--the stuff we give up or the habits we add on--help us to glorify God and to grow closer to Christ, they risk being meaningless.

Several years ago, friends of mine decided to help fix food for the people at a homeless shelter. It became a way that their family grew closer to Christ and loved their neighbor.

And I once knew a man who had a coworker going through a tough time and made it his habit to anonymously send the coworker ten and twenty dollars every week or so. He felt so good doing this, that he continued his "discipline" after Lent was over.

None of these people were broadcasting that information to me about their Lenten disciplines. I just happened to learn of their Christian acts in the course of talking with them about other things. But it seems to me that it’s these habits of discipleship that are the kinds of things that we should be doing in Lent and all through the year.

They’re done not to impress others. But they become ways for us to tell God...

* Thank You for Jesus and His cross.
* Thank You for loving me, as we sang a short time ago, just as I am.
* Thank You for saving me from sin and death and eternal separation from You.

During this Lenten season, I invite you to militate against our common sinful impulse to look good to other people and to instead turn your focus onto Jesus Christ and His purpose for your life.

I want to urge you to embrace a new spiritual discipline, one that you’ll do not just during Lent, but all your life. It’s the discipline that the risen Jesus described to His first followers, on a Judean hillside, just before He ascended into heaven. It too, is described in Matthew’s Gospel. (I wish that I could have been there.) Here’s what Jesus said: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...”

Jesus was telling His disciples, including us: Be intent not on looking like a Christian, but on being Christian enough...

* to share Christ with others,
* invite them to know the Savior, and
* ask them to worship with you.

A person who was on that hillside with Jesus, the apostle Peter, says that when we take it on ourselves to invite others to follow Jesus, Who saves sinners like us, we are fulfilling our highest purpose. In the first of two Biblical books Peter wrote, he says to us: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Inviting our neighbors and friends to leave the darkness of life without Christ and the Church is a great spiritual discipline for all of us to embrace this Lenten season. In fact, I think that it’s the perfect Lenten discipline. That’s because when we’re witnesses for Jesus, we take the focus off of ourselves and our selfish obsessions. Instead, our focus is simply to introduce our friends to our very best Friend, Jesus, our God and Savior.

People who live as witnesses for Jesus Christ may not “look good” in the eyes of the world. But in the eyes of God, being a witness for Christ is the very best way for us to tell God we love Him and the best way for us to love our neighbor!