ASH WEDNESDAY

February 22, 2023

As if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

-Isaiah 58:2b

One of the prayers commonly heard in this place is known as the Collect for Purity. It begins, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid” (BCP 355). It was originally a private prayer said by the priest as he was vesting, but Thomas Cranmer, the architect of The Book of Common Prayer, inserted the Collect for Purity into the order for celebrating the Holy Eucharist, thinking the sentiments it expresses are applicable to the entire worshiping community. The Collect for Purity indeed reminds us that we can hide nothing from God. All that is in our hearts, all our desires, even the secrets we would rather keep secret are laid bare in the light of God’s omnipotence and omnipresence.

Perhaps the people of Israel to whom Isaiah imparts God’s harsh criticism would have benefitted from the reminder the Collect for Purity provides. God says, “Day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways,” (Is. 58:2a), but is unimpressed by the display of religious devotion, scoffing at it, seeing what truly lies beneath: “as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness” (Is. 58:2b). God unmasks the hypocrisy behind finely crafted, well attended liturgy that is unaccompanied by conversion of hearts, renewal of minds, and opening of hands to serve, rather than grasp or strike.

At least one liturgical scholar has said that good liturgy is good theatre. The problem with theatre, though, is it is play acting. You leave the theatre and go back out into the real world. In Isaiah 58, God describes good liturgy. It leads to acts of justice and compassion, loosening bonds of oppression, feeding the hungry, providing shelter for those with no home, clothing the naked, caring for one’s family, forgiving one another, refraining from the unkind word. In short, good liturgy moves us to take care of one another, not just those here gathered by the one another we encounter in our common humanity.

After confessing that God knows all that is going on within us, the Collect for Purity then asks God to cleanse our hearts by the inspiration, the breathing into us, of the Holy Spirit. That is the gift of this Dear Feast of Lent, as the poet-priest George Herbert described the season. This is the time to fast from earthly passions and feast on divine things, like humility, with everything laid bare to the One who knows it all anyway, that he may take us by the hand and lead us in the right way, to the place where a banquet is set out for the poor, for even our poor souls.

Good liturgy, it may involve some theatrics, but what it really does is accomplish what the Collect for Purity says will happen as the result of our hearts being cleansed and the Spirit breathing into us. It will transform our hearts, renew our minds, convert our wills. It will cause ill feelings to fade into forgiveness and reconciliation. It will cause the harsh word to fall silent. It will cause the one with food to share with the one who lacks. In short, good liturgy will move us to take care of each other, and God will see us not as if we practice righteousness, but truly as those who, by God’s grace, practice righteousness.