The Good News Written Ash Wednesday From the wisdom of Charles Fillmore: Ashes symbolize repentance. John the Baptist came, saying, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repentance means denial; it is a relinquishment and should be made without too much vehemence. Therefore, I deny out of consciousness old error thoughts, as [...]
The Good News Written
Ash Wednesday
From the wisdom of Charles Fillmore:
Ashes symbolize repentance. John the Baptist came, saying, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repentance means denial; it is a relinquishment and should be made without too much vehemence. Therefore, I deny out of consciousness old error thoughts, as if I were gently sweeping away cobwebs, and I affirm positively and fearlessly that I am a child of God, and that my inheritance is from God…
In Christ it is not difficult to eliminate belief in strife and contention. If petty quarrels, jealousy, uncharitable thoughts come into my life, I overcome them by a quiet but positive denial made in the realization that no error has any power or reality in itself. I turn away from the belief in negation, and my thinking changes. I rid my consciousness of limited thoughts that have encumbered and darkened my understanding. I break down mortal thought and ascend into a spiritual realm… In the spirit of divine love I affirm: “Forgetting the things that are behind, I realize I am strong, positive, powerful, wise, loving, fearless, free spirit. I am God’s perfect child.”
Matthew 6.1-6 (The Message)
1“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. 2-4“When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure — ‘play-actors’ I call them — treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it — quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
5“And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a… production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
6“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense [God’s] grace.”
The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010.
Matthew chapter 6 is a hard passage of scripture. It isn’t hard to understand; it’s hard to accept. It is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and much of that sermon is confrontive, challenging, prophetic. Chapter 6 is so difficult, we’ve enshrined part of it… the prayer Jesus taught us (often called the Lord’s Prayer) while ignoring the tone and teaching of the chapter. It’s always easier to venerate than to emulate, and so, we have repetitiously recited the Lord’s Prayer, while ignoring the larger context in which the prayer is offered.
Matthew’s Jesus says, “When you pray, don’t make a big production of it in the worship space and on street corners (which would certainly include public school class rooms), but instead, when you pray go to your ‘inner’ room, close the door, pray in secret. And God who is with you in the secret place will reward you.” Then in verse 9, he goes on to say, “This is how you are to pray…” and that’s where the Lord’s Prayer, as a model, is presented (a shortened version is repeated in Luke’s gospel).
Now we know the words to the prayer.
What we often over look is the method of the prayer: Continue reading »
