Thoughts on the Lectionary readings for March 5, 2025 (Ash Wednesday)

Ash Wednesday (1866), oil painting on panel by Charles de Groux (1825-1870). Stedelijk Museum Wuyts-Van Campen en Baron Caroly, Liere, Belgium. (Click image to enlarge.)
First Reading: Joel 2:1-2,12-17
Ash Wednesday is the first of the forty days of Lent, named for the custom of placing blessed ashes on the foreheads of worshipers at Ash Wednesday services. The ashes are a sign of penitence and a reminder that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Our readings begin with a passage from the short Book of Joel, who may have prophesied after the return from exile to Jerusalem. Much of Joel’s message deals with the people’s prayerful response to a plague of locusts, setting a scene of penitence and sacrifice for us to ponder as Lent begins.
Alternate First Reading: Isaiah 58:1-12
Lent is the liturgical season set aside for acts of devotion and sacrifice as we reflect on the wrongs that we have done and recognize that life is short. In this alternate first reading for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the Prophet Isaiah reminds us that public demonstrations of fasting and prayer, sackcloth and ashes are not enough to please God. We should show our righteousness, rather, in service and love of neighbor. The prophet reminds us of God’s call to oppose injustice: free the oppressed, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and clothe the naked.
Psalm: Psalm 103
God made us all from dust, the Psalmist declares. God knows well that we are all only dust. We are human: broken and sinful, often wicked. Yet God’s compassion and mercy vastly exceed God’s anger. God does not punish us with the wrath that we might fear that our sins deserve. Rather, the psalm goes on, God shows a mercy wider than the world itself, forgiving our sins and welcoming us in a parent’s warm embrace.
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Much of the content in Paul’s less familiar second letter to the people of Corinth is devoted to trying to work out a disagreement he is having with the people of this contentious little Greek church. In this passage, Paul speaks of reconciliation. He enumerates the many pains that he has endured as a servant of God. Then he urges the people to accept God’s grace and work together in the Christ who reconciled us with God by taking human form and dying for us.
Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6,16-21
We land in the middle of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount in this Ash Wednesday Gospel. We hear him teaching the crowd how to practice almsgiving, prayer, fasting, and self-denial of worldly pleasures: A catalog of actions that have become traditional Lenten practices. In words that resonate with the alternate first reading from Isaiah, Jesus urges the people to practice humble prayer: Shun hypocrisy. Don’t show off. Keep your charity, your prayers, and your fasting to yourself. Don’t brag about your fast. Don’t hoard fragile, transient earthly riches, but store in heaven the treasures that last.