Death and Life (Ash Wednesday sermon)
Fr. Tim Nunez
March 5, 2025
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
I recently read some practical advice given to a young man who has been struggling with the idea of death. The advice approached the issue from several angles.
First, it summarized Socrates, who suggested that if one could look back at one’s life and see that you had been responsible and responsive to the people, responsibilities and challenges, that would bring a good measure of contentment. If one lived a long life and was physically spent, then those together would be helpful. Therefore, be attentive to those priorities today. Fair enough.
Another angle is to look back and see how much of life you would actually want to repeat. Would you want to try another career, have more children, move again, and so on? Anyone want to go back to middle school or junior high, knowing what you know now? Or was the struggle the adventure? Is one career enough; been there, done that? How many meaningful friendships and family are enough? Are grandchildren enough? This ties back to that contentment issue, but also asks, “Was that enough?”
Third, mentally extend your life another 10, 20, 30 years. What then? And add 100? 1,000? Does that sound enticing or like trying to find something good to watch on TV?
Please note that we have not yet mentioned anything to do with faith.
Our faith is built upon God’s ultimate promise of salvation and eternal life with him won for us by Jesus. That is our sure and certain Easter hope. Yay Jesus! But, today is not Easter. There is no Easter without the cross, and our new life in him requires death to our old self.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer cautioned us about cheap grace. As he put it, “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Today, we focus on yielding ourselves to Him. We focus on our role in receiving Him. We focus on our commitment to recognize our own sin, repent and seek forgiveness. We focus on disciplining our lives, seeking after for Jesus day by day to lead and forgive us.
Today’s Gospel is taken from the Sermon on the Mount, which is the most comprehensive treasure of Jesus’s teaching. Jesus points to the core issue of motive, which is to say a test of our hearts. We say heart but we don’t mean the organ. We mean the core of our being.
What about our piety, which means the ways we act out our faith through habits of ritual and other practices? Did we come here today out of duty or tradition? Did we come to sample what we like from the spiritual buffet? We keep people’s gifts to the church confidential and most often people avoid recognition for special gifts. But regardless, look to your own heart and be clear why you give. God loves a cheerful giver, not out of compulsion, Paul taught us in 2 Corinthians.
The same thought process applies to prayer and fasting. Examine your own heart and make sure you are aligned with Jesus as fully as possible. Are we like a fan watching the games, maybe shopping buying a shirt online, or browsing the team’s section at Walmart? Are we more invested fans, like season ticket holders, with a personal seat license?
Or are we on the team? Jesus wants us on the team. Jesus wants us in the game. Don’t store your treasures here. Store them with him.
And when you’re in the game, you don’t notice bumps, bruises, blisters or even blood unless you are actually injured, and sometimes not even then. That’s nothing compared to all that Paul suffered. That’s nothing compared to the gifts that Paul brought to the churches he planted.
It’s a question of the heart, our deepest longing and desire. The heart is tested here. Don’t find motivation in this life. People, things, legacy all come to dust. Jesus is our way out.
We fail and fail. Sometimes by commission, sometimes by omission. Sometimes we are incomplete.
Jesus knows how we fail. All he asks is that we repent and we are forgiven.
The alternative is not our own sense of whether or not we’d had a good life, or what we’d want. It is death, thick darkness, as Joel tells us.
Be reconciled to God through Jesus. Repent. Be forgiven.
As we come forward for the imposition of ashes, as we come forward for holy communion, which is receiving Christ himself, rend your heart, not your requirement. It doesn’t matter how all this looks on the outside. All that matters is what’s going on inside your own heart, your own core being.
AMEN