CMLC 2024-02-14 Sermon (Ash Wednesday)

Normally, whenever we have a chance to look at John the Baptist, I'm really happy about it.

There was about a month and a half where I went through different passages talking about John the Baptist,

and who he was, and what he stood for, and the lessons that we had to learn from it.

Some time ago a friend of mine had heard several of the sermons and said,

you know, let's sit and talk. I'd like to kind of get more of your thoughts on this.

And so we did, and I was sharing, you know, some of the perspectives about how John needed to convict people of certain things.

And then this friend of mine was like, yeah, yeah, people really need to have someone just be clear and straightforward and honest with them.

And then a few months later, I had to pause and be honest and direct with that same friend of mine,

who then said that I was completely in the wrong, closed-minded, and possibly bigoted.

And we did not talk again for about two years.

The interesting part about John the Baptist is that people love to listen to John the Baptist until they realize that what he has to say may be for them.

And that's really what we end up seeing here with our Gospel reading.

And what's interesting about this Gospel reading is that this is one of the times whenever I kind of pause when I say this is the Gospel of our Lord,

not because the passage doesn't come from the Gospel, but because it's not very gospel-ish.

And in today's passages, we end up seeing more of the Gospel in our Old Testament reading than we do from our actual Gospel reading.

Interesting thing about John is that John in this passage had been spending a lot of time talking about what he saw happening with King Herod.

This is King Herod, Antipass, who actually wasn't the king at all.

He was a government.

Herod the Tetrarch.

And what had happened was that Herod had ended up being married to one person and his brother Philip was married to another.

And turns out this other person's wife was someone he wanted to be married to instead, Herodes.

John had seen this, but it was even more than just realizing that John was putting his nose into somebody else's business.

It'd be really, really easy to be able to do that.

It would be sort of like saying, why in the world is it that every few minutes during the Super Bowl we have to figure out what's happening when Taylor Swift in the sports box?

Which I really don't care how long it took for Herod to jump that beard.

But instead is that not only is it the fact that the king or the governor doing something so overtly wrong of just leaving his wife to go after his brother's wife, who also by the way was also his niece,

ends up going off and leading the people into sin as well.

And this was a person that claimed to be Jewish in a sense.

He was an Edemite.

And the Edemites had historically practiced things that the Jews did, claimed to follow God as well.

And yet Herod doesn't really care what God may have to say about what he's doing.

And in addition to that, with all the different provinces having different governors, what ends up happening when they're stealing each other's lives and potentially consider going to war with each other.

All of these things, and John keeps talking.

The thing about this though is that Herod, he actually liked John.

He thought John had some interesting things to say.

He had absolutely no idea what any of it was about.

But he thought that he was an interesting person.

But even more than that, is that he knew that John was somebody respected.

The thing with it though is that it's fine and bandied to let someone keep speaking until it ends up having to do with you.

And that's what we end up seeing here at this point, is the idea that sometimes the words hit a little close to home.

But more than that, what is it that is the response?

And Herodius, well, she's kind of trading up from Philip to Herod, who at the time in his region was a bit more powerful.

But see, this is more than just trying to say, yes, I'd like to win the Super Bowl.

It would have been nice for something that small to have been what was requested that evening.

You see, Herodius' daughter, if Herodius is already here at Nice, and they were looking at Herodius' daughter, how much younger must she have been?

And that dance, I'm pretty sure, was not something from the music man.

The thing with this is that at that point in time, Herod is completely consumed and beside himself, and not in a good way at all.

But then what is he asked for? The head of John the Baptist.

He knew what was wrong, and he was the government in to do anything.

But look at how the situation is. He doesn't want to lose face.

And isn't that oftentimes where we're at, whenever we know that there is something that we should or shouldn't do,

but we end up going against our convictions because of the people around us?

There are the times whenever we know that we're listening to people that we put into office,

and we know that they know better, but they're going to do the same thing as everybody else in their tribe,

because they don't want to be the one person on the outs, and then end up not getting votes themselves later on.

We end up seeing times whenever we're spending time with our friends,

and they start laughing at somebody, not being jovial,

you know me, I like to joke, I like to kid.

But typically, while I'm certainly not perfect by any means,

if I'm going to joke about a person, it's way to be something that I'm going to say directly in front of them,

at the same time that I'm probably buying them a drink.

Because the difference between just laughing at life versus you know something's hurtful.

But why do we still laugh at those jokes?

Well, because those people around us, we want to still fit in with them too.

Or even, the times whenever all of us are trying to get to the same goal,

we have the same goal in mind, but we know that the way to get there may be wrong,

it may be hurtful, it may be harsh, it may be something in which we have to betray things that we know,

we know what's right and we betray it and do what is wrong.

But we're still getting to the same goal at the end, right?

Isn't that what matters?

But if we stop and we say we shouldn't do this, are we going to offend the people who agreed with us?

But they just wanted to go about it in a different way.

See, that's the thing about the prophets.

We like them when they're talking about everybody else,

but we have a hard time when we know what they have to say is for us.

And that's the thing about Joel's words.

You see, Joel as a prophet, he's coming there and he's speaking to people,

but in a context that may be later than we were realizing,

there's a lot about it that's kind of hard to pinpoint time-wise,

but it also makes it timeless for all of us.

It's to be able to say that it is important to drop whatever you're doing and to return to the Lord.

So many things that we prioritize, that we say are important,

and yet none of them stands nearly as tall as stopping and saying what has kept me from God,

because it's typically ourselves.

But you see, the thing about God being merciful to us when we rejected him

is that we're not always very merciful to others.

See, we are more likely not just to ignore those who are speaking truth to us,

but we're more likely to attack them.

Because it's one thing just to let them do whatever they're doing,

but it's another whenever we think that they're undermining our place.

And it might just be easier to bring them down, to belittle them,

to maybe call them part of some other group,

or that they betrayed us and they're a traitor in some way,

to our friendship, to our cause, to our whatever group it might be.

Rather than to say, hey, maybe this person who actually agrees with me in where we're going,

maybe there's something about what they're saying that I'm supposed to listen to.

That's a big piece of what we're going to be seeing here during this season of Lent.

Today, as Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of this season, this time of repentance,

and turning back to God.

We take that for granted a lot.

As the church, there are a lot of times when we say, well, I confess my sins at the beginning of worship,

I should be good to go for another week.

Or if I miss next week, well, I'm sure those will be covered too, someone.

And yet, our lives are constantly moving forward without always pausing to say,

but it's the direction I'm going in where God wants me.

This season is meant to be a time of prayer and fastness.

This is a time where you are deliberately meant to step away from your everyday life.

Maybe it's a time where you realize maybe I should take 24 hours once a week and just not eat.

So when I pause and I realize, hey, I'm hungry, and then I realize, yeah, but who is it that ultimately feeds me?

Have I actually been going to him every day?

Or maybe instead it's something that you know is sort of like your crutch,

the thing that you use to kind of get through the day, to kind of just ignore the frustrations that there might be.

And maybe you let that go for this next few weeks.

Or maybe more than anything is to just take more time to pray.

Because it's easy to say I prayed today when you realized that you've just been going down the freeway

and in the middle of your prayer is, get out of the way! I'm sorry, God.

Oh man.

The thing with this season is that coming back to God is not just this generic thing,

but to realize there probably has been something that we have struggled with.

But we're so used to being the Christians,

everything's taken care of for us that we don't pause and say, yeah, everything has been taken care of for you.

Which means you are now free to see what God needs you to see.

There's nothing approved to God. But rather God has given everything to us.

So in a few moments what we're going to do is we're going to take the time,

we're going to put the ashes on. If you don't want them on your forehead for whatever reason,

we can put them on your hand or you know, or you could try to walk past without getting them

and then I will wrestle you to the ground and I'll be like, you're getting this one way or the other.

Somehow they frown on that.

But with this time of realizing that we are just dirt,

it's not because you're going to stay there,

but rather is to realize that when we know how small and weak we are,

we also realize that God is the one who lifts us up from that

and brings us to the life that he wants for us.

Thanks be to God.