A moment ago, . . . before the Deacon read to you from the Holy Bible, he announced that he would read “the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew.”  . . . Now, you know, of course, that the word “Gospel” is an Old English term meaning “good news”.  So, when your Deacon announced the reading, he declared to you that he was about to read the Sacred Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ as told to us by Saint Matthew.  . . . And what he read to you is good news, indeed; . . . because what he read to you is a continuation of some of the best news that has ever been spoken to us.  What your Deacon read to you is a continuation of Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” . . . which Jesus begins with what have come to be called “The Beatitudes”; . . . Jesus begins His Sermon on the Mount by saying to us, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”  . . . Now, when our yearly cycle of Gospel readings comes around to Christ’s sermon, . . . I argue, convincingly (I think), that there is really only one Beatitude; . . . that blessedness is being poor in spirit . . . and that the other beatitudes Jesus gives us are descriptions of the one:  . . . that poverty of spirit enables us to be meek . . . and merciful . . . and pure of heart . . . and so on.  . . . And then Jesus continues His Sermon on the Mount by enumerating all the ways in which poverty of spirit is attained.  . . . And one of them is through the practice of piety; . . . through acts of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.

    Now, . . . modern Episcopalians don’t talk much about piety.  I suppose we don’t talk about it much because “piety” is regarded as a stuffy old spiritual practice relegated to the seventeenth century before the psychological sciences discovered the more vibrant notion of love.  . . . But piety is not at all the obsolete idea of unenlightened men.  Piety is something instigated by God!  Piety is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit that was bestowed upon Christ at His Incarnation (foretold by the prophet Isaiah), and it was distributed to each one of us at our Baptism into the new life in Christ Jesus.  Piety is standard equipment to the Christian Life, and its purpose; . . . the purpose of piety is to dispose each one of us to desire to be conformed to the Heart of God; . . . to dispose each one of us to be conformed to God’s righteousness.  . . . The Lord God Almighty has given each one of you the spiritual gift of piety so you might be an agent of His goodness; . . . so that you might be an agent of God’s goodness when you give gifts of food and money for the sake of the poor and helpless and needful; . . . so that each one of us can remember God’s goodness by hearing His Heart when we pray; . . . and so that we can be available to hear and do God’s goodness by detaching ourselves, through fasting, from the distractions of our own disordered affections.

    “Trouble is,” Jesus says, “trouble is we enjoy noticing our righteousness; . . . we enjoy noticing how pious we are; . . . trouble is,” Jesus says, . . . “we enjoy it when other people notice us as well.”  . . . And so, Jesus reminds us that the goal of piety is poverty of spirit: . . .

beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them [Jesus says] . . . but when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing; . . . and when you pray, . . . go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; . . . and when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father . . . Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, . . . but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, . . . for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    Unaccountably, however, the reading from Matthew’s Gospel as it is appointed to be read; . . . unaccountably the appointed reading cuts out the heart of Ash Wednesday and all of Lent.  . . . Unaccountably the appointed reading stops at verse 6 and then begins again at verse 16, omitting entirely what Christ has to say about being conformed to God’s Heart.  . . . The appointed reading of Saint Matthew’s Gospel omits it, but I will supply it.  . . . At verse 7 Jesus tells us that when we pray we must not “heap up empty phrases” as if our heavenly Father will hear us for our many words.  But, instead,

Pray . . . like this [Jesus says]:  Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

    Now, that final saying is a very curious thing.  . . . Jesus tells us that when we pray we must pray what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer”; we must pray about God’s majesty and will and provision of our bread; we must also pray about forgiveness and temptation and evil.  But when Christ comments on the praying which He tells us to do . . . His advice sounds as if the entire “Lord’s Prayer” is an essay on forgiveness!  What gives?  Well, . . . listen to how my interlinear Greek-English New Testament translates the section on forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer:

and forgive us the debts of us, as indeed we forgave the debtors of us; and not bring us into temptation, but rescue us from evil.

That is what the Greek text literally says.  And this literal translation of the Greek suggests that Jesus has taught us to pray to our heavenly Father that if He does not forgive us in proportion to our forgiveness; if our heavenly Father does not forgive us as we so generously and continually forgive, . . . then He is tempting us to do evil by treating us unfairly.  The petition literally asks God to save us from doing evil by treating us fair!  . . . It’s a wonderful example of rabbinic hyperbole:  an example of teaching by means of an exaggeration so extravagant as to make the matter laughable.  In other words, Jesus has taught us to pray a ridiculous petition.  He has taught us to pray as if God cannot keep up with our extravagant generosity!  . . . Jesus has taught us to pray such a ridiculous petition in order that we might laugh at ourselves and smile sheepishly at God.  For, who among us has forgiven more often than God?  Or who among us can outstrip our Heavenly Father in readiness to forgive?  . . . Jesus teaches us to pray with humor . . . so that our prayers might not become grim.

    But there’s more.  Because, when Jesus teaches us to pray about forgiveness, . . . He’s not talking about sins or even about trespasses.  The Greek word which is used to translate what Christ has taught us to forgive is opheilemata:  a term which has to do with the minor obligations incurred as the consequence of doing good!  In other words, if I do a good for you . . . you become obligated; you become indebted; you incur opheilemata . . . to do a like good for me!  And so, when Jesus teaches us to pray that the Father forgive us in proportion to our forgiveness . . . He is talking about the Father forgiving us the obligations we owe Him for all the innumerable good He has done for us . . . because we have, indeed, already forgiven the few obligations others owe to us for the good we have done for them!

    Do you see how the entire Lord’s Prayer is an essay on forgiveness?  Because the Lord God Almighty is our heavenly Father Whose Name is so sacred that it sanctifies our very being when we remember it . . . and because the Lord God Almighty provides the very bread which sustains our lives; . . . because of these things we owe Him an incalculable obligation . . . which we ask Him to forgive . . . so that, in poverty of spirit, we do not make others obligated to us.

    Do you see how this missing section of Saint Matthew’s Gospel is the heart of Ash Wednesday and all of Lent?  The object of the penitential nature of Lent is to seriously recollect the ineffable good which God had done for us, . . . especially in His self-giving upon the Cross.  God has done this ineffable good in spite of our sin, or, rather, in response to it; . . . so that we might not remain in our sin but, seeing God’s kindness in answer to our sin, repent of it . . . and be reconciled with our heavenly Father.  And so, the Christian disciplines of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, which we undertake with renewed seriousness each Lent, seek to appropriate God’s goodness by attempting to participate in it and imitate it.  The disciplines of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving seek to undo sin by participating in the goodness of God.

    Therefore, the object of Prayer is to remember the  goodness of God.  The object of Prayer is to remember that there is no other reason for us to do good than for the absolute joy of participating in God’s goodness, . . . forgetting -- forgiving -- the obligations others incur toward us by the good we do them . . . just as our own obligations to God are forgiven.  And once your memory of God’s goodness is refreshed by Prayer, . . . you may now Fast; . . . you may now Fast with the sole object of participating in God’s goodness by doing good.  Because the sole object of your Fasting is to do good by giving as Alms that which you don’t consume, . . . using either its value or the thing itself to feed or clothe or shelter or give comfort . . . so that your Alms might do a good which reflects the goodness of your Father Who is in heaven.

    So, the thing I want you to be most clear about on this first day of Lent is what the Sixth Chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us in its completeness:  this season of Lent is a time for us to once again intentionally appropriate God’s sacred gift of piety; . . . this season of Lent is an opportunity to claim and obey the Holy Spirit’s sacred impulses that we give alms, pray, and fast; . . . this season of Lent is an opportunity to claim and obey the advice of Jesus that we be poor in spirit.

    . . . And so, the ashes you receive at this Liturgy are not a sign of your sinfulness; neither are they a reminder that you are all fasting.  The ashes you receive at this Liturgy are a sign of our mortality; . . . that we are but dust, . . . and if we have any life in us at all . . . it is because of the ineffable love and goodness of God.  . . . The ashes you receive at this Liturgy are a reminder to imitate the life-imparting goodness of the Lord God Almighty . . . in poverty of spirit.