Where Your Heart Is
(Adapted from the Sermon for Ash Wednesday – 3/5/2025)
Psalm 51 begins our Ash Wednesday service, and our Season of Lent. In this Psalm, we hear some familiar verses, including “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me…restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your bountiful spirit.” 1
The Psalmist realizes what’s really important and knows that change, cleansing, and renewal are done from the inside out. On Ash Wednesday, we pause to consider that as well. We take the time to reflect on our lives and work to re-center ourselves amidst the busyness of our world.
In the Gospel reading for the day, Jesus warns against practicing piety before others in order to be seen by them. He instead encourages practicing faith for the sake of yourself and for the one you have faith in—God. This practice of faith serves as a sort of ongoing care and spiritual maintenance.
Everyone practices something. A daily or weekly routine may include things like exercise, certain foods, group or club meetings, family dinners, and church events. That’s practicing something. Lent is a time to take inventory of this—to notice what you’re practicing and where you’re putting your time, effort, and attention.
How does Jesus say it? “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 2
If our faith practice is performative, it’s really only helping the outside appearance. It becomes something that is only there to impress or be noticed by others. That approach leads to an emptiness and a hollow result. Instead, we pray to be restored by God from the inside out—a clean heart and a right spirit. Those new things, like any new thing, require care and maintenance.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 2 Where do we want our hearts to be?
Lent gives us a chance to check in with ourselves—to take a look at what we’re practicing and how we’re practicing it. We examine just what those practices are helping to maintain. It is a time to name again what’s really important, and to change, cleanse, and renew ourselves from the inside out.
Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality. We know that this time will end. Lent gives us a chance to reflect on what’s important and how we use that time. We pause to consider where our heart is at and where we may pray it be made new.
Blessings and peace to you this Lenten season. Amen.
1Psalm 51:10, 12
2Matthew 6:21