Ash Wednesday: February 9, 2005

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Psalm 51:1-18

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

First Reading

While the scholars disagree as to a precise date (somewhere between the 9th and 3rd centuries B.C.E.), the writings of the prophet Joel are set within the context of a specific event. A plague of locusts, perhaps extending beyond more than one growing season, has devastated the agricultural economy of Judah to the point that there is nothing left even to make appropriate sacrifices in the Temple. In the midst of this natural disaster, the prophet announces that there is more at work than hungry insects. This natural phenomenon must be understood as a declaration of Yahweh's judgment against the nation. We begin our reading with a cry of alarm raised across the land that the great and terrible day of the LORD is at hand. Like a mighty army, the locusts are assembled on the horizon and will be unleashed across the countryside at Yahweh's command to bring destruction that is beyond memory.

In the midst of this terror, none other than Yahweh cries out to the people, pleading for their return not just in cultic or symbolic ways but with the rededication of their whole lives to God. Indeed, the prophet promises God's mercy and suggests that restoration is not so far off, that the land and her peoples will once again produce the good things necessary for life and the faithful practice of the cult.

There is but one thing to do: summon the entire community to fasting and prayer so that Yahweh's mercy may be poured out upon the chosen people. This is done not only for the relief of Judah but also for proof to the nations who would deride Israel for her faith. Thus even disaster and loss become a means by which God's power, mercy, and grace might be made manifest.

If Joel provides the summons for repentance, Psalm 51 provides the liturgical language. The form is that of a personal prayer of contrition, linked historically to David on the occasion of his repentance following Nathan's confrontation of the king for the murder of Uriah and the affair with Bathsheba. It is the fourth and likely the most well-known of the seven penitential psalms, of which Luther declared "Here the true doctrine of repentance is set forth before us" (Luther's Works 12:305). The confessional language is stunning in its clarity: "I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." There is no evasion. God is acknowledged as pure and upright; humankind is born a broken species. Yet God's victory over sin is shown in mercy and in the power that penetrates to transform human willfulness. It is a creative act in which a new human heart is made for joy and thanksgiving and praise.

Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth is often understood to be a compilation of at least three and perhaps four distinct writings, spanning a two- to three-year period in the middle 50s C.E. and edited into one unit sometime in the first decades after the apostle's martyrdom and before his letters were widely circulated, approximately 75-80 C.E. The portion assigned for Ash Wednesday comes from what would have been the last of those letters. It is believed to have been written from Ephesus in late autumn or early winter of 55 C.E. That the letter is of Pauline authorship is not disputed.

Paul's struggle with the contentious community at Corinth is grounded in his opposition by a band of "super-apostles" who have argued (somewhat successfully) against the validity of Paul's own apostolic credentials. Paul counterattacks with great vigor, chiefly in an earlier letter preserved for us in 2 Corinthians 10-13. By the time this final letter is written, however, Paul's tone is decidedly gentle. Paul's language is now characterized by the themes of hope, encouragement, and reconciliation.

The reconciliation of which Paul speaks is possible only through the action of God in Christ Jesus. God made Jesus to be at one with a sinful humanity so that through his obedience we might be transformed into righteous ones before God. This promise comes, however, with a certain eschatological urgency. Paul understood himself to be alive during a short intermediary period between Christ's resurrection and his final appearing. This time was given for the purpose of conversion, a gift to which Paul urges the Corinthians to respond. Paul points to his own steadfastness in the midst of suffering and trial for the gospel; in all these things Paul is sustained by the very power of God, the promise to all who follow Paul's example.

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 continues Jesus' instructions to the disciples from the Sermon on the Mount. If we subscribe to the theory that the sermon is composed of three distinct segments, our portion comes from the second of these segments, in which Jesus lays out the moral demands of participation in the cult. It is modeled on the prevalent notions of Jewish piety, which understood individual moral response to God as borne principally in almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. These disciplines are not rejected by Jesus but reassessed in terms of the integrity of their practice.