Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.
Quite frankly a most strange choice of readings on the one day most Episcopalians have a chance to walk out into the world with some identifying mark, some outward sign, which says, I am a believer. On this day, we are walking billboards! This passage has a lot to commend it. You and I both know people we wish would read it and put it into real use in their lives. We know those who certainly “share” their faith, and often their judgement on our own, too much!
I have heard the debates about keeping your ash cross on for the day, or wiping it off before going outside the church. I have always been on the side of wearing it, all day long. To me, the looks we get, the questions, ought to make us think about how revealing our faith is on other days, how provoking the mark of our life is on those around us. To live this one day with that conspicuous mark, that was traced on our forehead in oil at our baptism is a reminder not so much to the world, but to us, that the cross is there all days, every day, indelible, forever. Beyond that outward mark, of ash brought forward from the palms of yesteryear, what kind of sign or mark is your life? What does the reality of that cross mean in your life, today yes, but all days?
+ Greg Rickel, Bishop of Olympia
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