Ash Wednesday Homily - February 26, 2020 - Who is your audience?

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:1-2,12-17

Psalm 103

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

I.

Who is your audience?

This question is perhaps the most basic starting point
 for most people who work in marketing.
  And anyone here who has worked in marketing before knows
   that if you don't know who your target demographic is for your product,
    you are already off on the wrong foot.

Who is your audience?

Let me tell you who knows who their audience is:
 Google.

Have you ever had the experience of looking something up on Google,
 only to then turn around to the next website,
  and magically the advertisements on the sides of the screen
   are LITERALLY the products you just looked up?

The data that we feed the algorithm of Google
 directly allows any data gatherers
  to begin to build you into their target demographic systems
   so that they can more personally advertise products
    that YOU are likely to buy.

Trust me, it even happens when you are ordering BIBLES for people.
 I'm serious!
  We ordered Bibles for some people earlier this year
    and for the next week or so,
     Google was like,
      "Check out this audio-book Bible read by James Earl Jones!"
     
Dadgum it,
 because Google knows I like Disney,
  and I like Bibles,
   it's like, "Hey, how about having Mufasa read the Bible to you?"
    Or, perhaps more disturbing, "Want to have the Bible read to you by Darth Vader?"
     James Earl Jones played both voices, by the way.

Who is your audience?

But this question doesn't just have significance for marketing.
 It also has intense personal significance as well.

Are you performing for your boss?
 In some ways, I think we all do that,
  especially for those of us who answer to higher-ups
   and have to perform for our jobs.

Are you performing for your family?
 Again, we all have to do that,
  taking care of our parents, or our kids, the step-kids,
   or the grand-kids,
    and making sure that all the kids make it to school
     and that mom makes it to her doctors appointment on time.

Are you performing for your self-image?
 Do you do things so that people think better of you?
  Do you outwardly do things for the purpose of building your image,
   of making yourself look good to others,
    of constructing something pleasing to look at on the outside?

Are you performing for other people's affirmation?
 Do you do the things you do to get people's attention,
  to prove to others that you matter,
   or to try to garner favor with other people?

Who is your audience?

II.

You know, Jesus asks us the exact same question today.

And Jesus isn't going to put up with anything less
 than the only audience that matters:
  God's audience.

"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them;
 for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven."

And Jesus makes it really clear how wide-reaching this pronouncement is,
 especially for us who follow Jesus.

When you give alms to the poor,
 or when you give your offering to God,
  do not even let your hands know what's happening.
   If you make a show of it, your audience is not God.

When you pray,
 don't make a big deal of it before others,
  waffling on for 5 minutes and showing off how pious you are
   because you can remember that George put his dog on the prayer list last week
    and you are sure that the others in the room didn't remember that one.
     If that's how prayer goes, it certainly doesn't seem like it was for God in the first place.

When you fast from food,
 read friends, WHEN you fast!
  Jesus expects you to fast!
   And lucky you, it's Ash Wednesday, a principle fast day in the calendar!

But friends, when you fast from food,
 don't go about dragging yourself from place to place,
  begging others to ask you how you are doing
   so that you can respond,
    "I'm fasting from food for God."
    Oh, aren't we so pious!

Who is your audience?

Jesus Christ our Lord wants us to be very clear with ourselves
 about who we are doing these things for.

And what a better time than Ash Wednesday to be clear
 brothers and sisters,
  that your Lenten disciplines,
   your fasting before God,
    your practices that you pick up for God
     better darn sure be FOR GOD
      and not for anyone else.

God deeply desires your growth in holiness
 but so often we frame holiness
  merely as the outward stuff we do.

Rather, friends,
 do those things with the intention of growing in relationship with God,
  do your disciplines with the firm intention to love Jesus more,
   do your practices with the fire of one who serves someone they truly love.

Don't just walk from this place with the ash cross on your foreheads
 as a sign of your piety.

Walk here with that outward sign of your repentance
 so that you can tell others about Jesus.

"The ash that you wear reminds you of your sin and mortality.
 But the shape of the cross reminds you that you have a Savior."
  [Fr. Mike Schmidt]

So, friends, as you walk into Lent,
 in to the wilderness with Christ,
  remember
  "Who is your audience?"

Your audience is the God who created and loves you,
 and no one else.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.