Ash Wednesday is a rather subversive sort of day. It’s a Feast that’s a Fast; it’s the day when we read a Gospel about not marking our faces, and then do it anyway. It’s the beginning of a time to look more closely at prayer, which is as shy of being looked at as a model without her make-up.
Prayer too is subversive, which is an odd thing to say, so let me explain. And I’d like to do that by taking you through the readings of the day .
In today’s epistle, from 2 Corinthians 5, Paul starts with the context of salvation through Christ.
We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,
‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’
See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see – we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10
We are urged to accept the grace of God, and not in vain, and now. Prayer is self-evidently part of the journey of faith, and it inherits these same marks. It is fundamentally ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’. It is a work of grace, something God is doing in us even before we are doing it ourselves. And it resists enclosure, seeking to seep out into all times and places, however inconveniently.
Paul declares that he will go to any lengths, follow any way, as long as it is the way of Christ. And in our prayer we too may follow whatever way works for us, as long as it is God’s way for us. Because as for Paul, so for us: it is in dying that we live, it is in losing our way that we find it.
That’s what I mean about the subversiveness of prayer. It starts off as something to do with us, with our journey and our fulfilment; but somewhere along the line it trips us up, takes us by surprise, so that we find not just ourselves, but our true selves in Christ.
In today’s Gospel we see Jesus in action doing just this.
Jesus said to the disciples, ‘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.
So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 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.’ Matthew 6.1-6,16-21
In this part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus goes through the typical expressions of Jewish piety – almsgiving, prayer and fasting – that still mark our own keeping of Lent, and exposes their spiritual centre.
You give, you pray, you fast: and you do it even if no-one knows what you are doing. You give, you pray, you fast: and you are content to leave any reward for your action entirely with God. All we are left with is the us we really are, and the God who really is – and the relationship between us. That’s prayer. Religion teaches us the ropes; but only the Spirit brings us life.
From a sermon preached at St Mark’s, Newnham
And here’s an architects’ view of what the finished building will look like. It will close the vista at the end of the High Street, and add what the planners like to call ‘significant verticality’, but more importantly a place to be happy and a place to be sad, a place to help the people of Cambourne in their vital work of turning a building site into a community and houses into homes. Hooray!
