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When I was in seminary, there was one particular time when a priest from my sending Diocese who we’ll call John came to visit us and do a presentation. I can’t remember what he talked about on this occasion. He had come up several times before to go over how to do resumes and profiles when looking for jobs.
My Diocese asked that we all go to hear him. The only problem is he was speaking during part of our Liturgics class, one of the last of the semester.
I went to our professor and ask if he’d consider shifting the class or at least moving his lesson plan. He told me something important that has stayed with me. He told me sometimes you have to make a choice.
I made the decision to go with my Diocese’s request and hear John speak. It wasn’t bad, and I got notes for the class I missed. Yet all the job stuff I heard John talk about over the years never really helped me. It took me time and experience before I got to the point where I had choices for where to go in ministry. And Liturgics, the study of all we do in our worship, that is something that I have used not only in a practical sense, but also as a tool to help bring churches (and that is churches plural) back to proper forms of worship.
You all made a choice today. Today is is Valentines’ Day and this is the evening. It is also the middle of the week. Ash Wednesday is not a service we normally do. There are other places you could have been, yet you chose to be here.
That choice, I hope, is the same as what Jesus present us. Your choice, I hope, was to be closer to God.
That is at the heart of our Gospel reading this evening. Jesus is calling us to look at things differently. Jesus is calling on us to not think about our reputation, our prestige, or even how others view us. Jesus is asking us instead to take the steps necessary to build our relationship with God.
That is what this entire season of Lent is really about. We are taking the time, in this season of fasting, to prepare ourselves to more fully celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection at Easter. We are strengthening our relationship with God so that we can more fully celebrate the heart and soul of our Faith.
Having made your choice to be here tonight, I hope you will make some further choices. No one has to know you were here tonight except for our “Father who sees in secret” as Jesus reminds us. You don’t have to go out bearing the mark of our mortality in those ashes, the mortality that Jesus saves us from on the cross. Instead, you can take the time to live into the words we heard from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and wash them off. That way the only one who really matters, our Lord, will see your desire to deepen your relationship with Him.
Further, I hope that whatever choice you make for Lent, whether it is giving something up, taking something on, or both, that you do it in order to be closer to God. In the end that is all that matters. In the end, the only choice worth making is the one that brings us closer to our Lord.