LENT STUDY GROUP AND QUESTIONS - Wednesday 9th March

The Reading is St. Matthew Ch 6 verses 16 - 21

The Collect for Ash Wednesday  - Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect 

remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Gospel reading this morning is an extract from the Sermon on the Mount (SOTM).     The SOTM is very much about the choices we make in life and in religion. These particular verses and the verses before them are actually all about the practise of our religion. Jesus begins the chapter by warning us about inauthentic and self-indulgent religion: v1 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in Heaven.’ He goes on to cite some examples: drawing attention to ourselves, making a big thing about the money we give to the Church, making a song and dance about the way we pray or the content of our prayers. Interestingly, immediately before these verses Jesus teaches the most famous prayer in the world! (9-13). He then emphasises the most important part of the Lord’s Prayer – we must forgive others or we shall not be forgiven ourselves by our heavenly Father. This is crucial to our spiritual lives.  

I want to bring in today’s Collect because the writers of the Collects in the BCP used their knowledge of the Creeds and the Scriptures to compose them. Being Ash Wednesday, we can see why these two readings were chosen – they speak of true contrition (which must always begin and end with personal honesty), of fasting, and they warn about the dangers of not setting our hearts on the things of God. The Collect starts with the two great truths: that God hates nothing that he has made; and that he forgives all who are penitent.

The purpose of God’s forgiveness and our repentance - our response to his forgiveness - is the creation of a new person; and the creation of a new person must begin with the creation of a new heart (‘A new and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise’ Psalm 51: 17). But without ‘worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness’, as the Collect states, we cannot ‘obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness’. What this strongly implies is that there is an intimate connection between our readiness to ‘lament and acknowledge’ and our becoming a new person. 

The less we are prepared to do so, the less a new person we may become. It is always vital to bear in mind that the aim of the Christian religion is for us to become more like Jesus. Now I realise some people really baulk at the language of ‘sins and wretchedness’ or even the very idea of their needing to be forgiven – ‘I’m all right; not as bad as so and so; X is worse than me, etc....   And that’s probably true if we employ our own standards of behaviour. But that’s not the point. Why not? Well, because for all of us, whether a person knows it or likes it or not, the standard, as far as God is concerned, is Jesus. He is the perfect one, the only one with whom we may compare ourselves. Of course we can never compete, but we can compare; and if honest comparison prompts us to ‘acknowledge our wretchedness’ and accept God’s mercy, then the necessary process of our renewal, of our becoming a new person in Christ, has already begun. But we can only play this game by his rules, not ours.

Turning to our Gospel passage, one of the great dangers Jesus knew to be so strong was that the practise of religion can actually disguise what is really going on in our hearts (some TV Evangelists really just out to make money!) Jesus calls this ‘hypocrisy’. For all the outward signs, their hearts are not right because they are more concerned about drawing attention to themselves. Jesus says we kid ourselves if we think God doesn’t see this.

Jesus here is tackling two basic issues that prevent our hearts and lives from being renewed, from our becoming the redeemed, new people he wants us to become: first, the issue of how others see us and the importance we are tempted to put on this; and secondly, the issue of those things that fill our hearts to the extent that they serve to push God out.

‘Lay up’ here means store up, a deliberate policy on our part at the expense of storing up ‘treasure in heaven’. (A friend of mine knew a very successful stockbroker who would always give away half the money he made. He said that if he didn’t, it would ‘clog up my heart - like a kind of spiritual cholesterol.’)

The last time I spoke on these verses, someone here said, ‘That’s all very well, but it’s human nature’. I thought, ‘BINGO!’ At least this person has grasped the issue. So I replied, as courteously and gently as I could, ‘What do you want? Your old nature or the new one Christ is offering you? That’s the real issue here.’

We have to realise that faith is not just a matter of what we believe about God but what we believe he can do in our lives if we allow him. Lent offers an opportunity to consider this deeply: it requires personal honesty, ’worthily lamenting and acknowledging’, but in the knowledge that he is ‘the God of all mercy’ who ‘forgives the sins of all them that are penitent.’

Questions

1. What sorts of things in life prevent us becoming more Christlike?

2. What does Jesus say is wrong about those very concerned about how others see them?

3. Why does Jesus expect people to fast? What does it do? How does it help us?

4. How can we change what needs changing in our lives in order to become more Christlike?

5. What are ‘treasures in heaven’? Why does Jesus contrast them with earthly treasures?