Lenten Meditation: Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Matthew 6:7-15
“But when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” – Matthew 6:6
You may recognize some of the verses in today’s reading from what you heard in church on Ash Wednesday. Every year, we have to thread the needle between our customs–a cross of ash on our faces, public, visible–and the Gospel instruction that our piety should be “secret.” Something kept between us and God.
The ashes are meant to be a reminder of our mortality; you could argue that that secret is out! But Jesus is also talking about the nature of a relationship, the way we relate to God. His criticism of the “hypocrites” is that the purpose of their religious observance is to be seen by other people. Jesus is asking us instead to think about what we want to show God.
How lovely, then, that Jesus follows that critique by teaching us to pray, with words that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. As Episcopalians, the Lord’s Prayer is such a constant in our worshiping lives that we might miss the intimacy of it. It begins with our highest hopes for God’s kingdom, and then asserts our most basic need for sustenance. Then we admit that we need to repent, and think about ways we remember being hurt.
In almost the same breath, God reminds us that our faith is between us and God, and that God’s generous mercy towards us is inextricably linked with our ability to show mercy towards others.
Today: Take some time with the Lord’s prayer. Think about what each petition means for you.