Car commercials and Ashes

Ash Wednesday

March 5, 2014

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

There are two car ads which have come out in the last two years that have caused me some consternation.  The first is the Mercedes commercial which came out on the day of the Super Bowl a year ago.  A man sits in a restaurant in New Orleans with the Devil, who offers him a Mercedes-Benz, and all the fame etc, that will come with this status symbol…if he will just sign his soul over.  About to sign the contract with the devil, he then realizes that he can afford the car without the devil’s help.  The other commercial came out during the Olympics this year.  It is an ad from Cadillac that puts the work harder, buy more culture of the US on a pedestal while mocking folks from other countries for strolling home from work, stopping off at cafes, and taking August off. Off. 

Now, I like cars.  I like nice cars.  The car of my dreams is a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT fastback.  So that’s not the issue.  The issue is what these commercials suggest about having cars such as these.  You get the Mercedes-Benz and it comes with the red carpet, your picture on the cover of a magazine, hoards of people of the opposite gender running after you.  And according to Cadillac, the American dream is to work yourself into the ground, take sacrifice vacation time so you can buy expensive stuff.  In other words, what these two commercials…and many others like it, are trying to tell consumer America is that it’s all about us.  It’s about status, it’s about money, it’s about fame and fortune…it’s about bragging rights.  It’s about Me.

There’s nothing wrong with having things.  There’s nothing wrong with having nice things.  And there is nothing wrong with working hard and trying to get ahead or working hard so that you can play hard.  Anymore, though, getting something nice for yourself is less of a fulfillment of a desire to treat yourself to something nice and more of a fulfillment of a desire to be noticed.  But I think that the mistake that we make is in thinking that this is life.  The nice cars, the fancy clothes, the parties, the masks, the jewelry, the parades, the myth that it’s all about us.

Because the truth is, at some point, it all comes to an end. 

No matter how much we don’t want it to, no matter how much we think we can go on forever…all good things, as they say, must come to an end.  The $75,000 car will eventually break down.  The clothes will eventually fade.  The house will eventually need repairs. The parties and the parades will eventually need to be cleaned up.  The masks eventually have to come off.  This life will, eventually, come to an end for all of us.  And when it does, regardless of whether we drive the high end Mercedes or the low end Chevrolet, whether we are rich or poor, famous or unknown, male or female, it will be said of all of us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. 

But on this day in which we are urged to return to the Lord our God, we hear Jesus urging us to go down another path. 

Here again what he says.

‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.

 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.

‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.

‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 

Just as it was during the transfiguration of Christ when the cloud overshadowed the mountain to help Peter, James, and John refocus on Jesus, so it is here that Jesus is pointing us towards a different focal point, one that looks away from ourselves, away from the me’s, the my’s, and toward something bigger.

In the early church, part of the purpose of the season of Lent was to prepare those desiring to become full members of the church for baptism.  And when baptized at the Easter Vigil, these individuals would take off their clothing, walk down into a pool to be fully immersed in water and would exit the other side of the baptismal pool, being clothed with a brand new white robe, symbolizing that they had left the self enslaved to sin at the entry to the pool and the self freed and given new life in Christ was the person who exited. 

And though we don’t have baptismal pools big enough to do full immersion, that’s what baptism is all about, dying to the sinful self and rising to freedom in Christ.  Because the Christian life isn’t about the me’s and my’s, it’s about us collectively as a family in Christ. 

So when we give alms, or pray, or fast, Jesus isn’t bashing practices around such things.  In fact, earlier in the sermon on the mount, he tells us to let our lights so shine before others that they may see our good works and glorify our father in heaven.  What Jesus is talking about is the heart with which we give alms, the heart with which we pray, the heart with which we put on ashes and remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  If we do these things for fame and notoriety, so that people will notice us and see “what good Christians” we are, we are doing it for the wrong reason. 

Instead, we gather this day to return to the Lord our God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  To remember that we are creations of the almighty, that we came from the dust of the earth and that eventually we will return to the dust of the earth. We put on ashes as a reminder that all good things in this life will eventually come to an end.  We eat bread and drink wine to be strengthened for the journey through the wilderness that is Lent. And we go out into the world as people who live on the other side of the cross and the tomb.  People who have been given new life in the waters of baptism…people who, when the ashes come off, still bear a cross on our foreheads.  A  cross signifying that we have been named and claimed by the one who walked to Jerusalem and to the cross for us so that we could have life in him. 

God’s blessings to you as we begin this holy journey.

Amen.