Most of you
know I used to be a lawyer. As a lawyer,
of course, I’d occasionally be in trials and question witnesses. When you’re a witness, and you get sworn in,
what do they always ask you? “Do you
swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
I never had anyone say no. I’m not sure what would happen if someone did. I suppose they would not be allowed to testify. But the thing is that, if we’re honest, all of us would answer no.
I don’t mean to imply that we’re all a bunch of liars. I think most of us do our best to tell the truth. But it’s very rare that we actually know the whole truth. And it’s even rarer that we know the whole truth about ourselves. And it’s rarer still when we’re able to admit that whole truth about ourselves.
Here’s what I mean. Most of us like to think we’re pretty good people. Not that we’re the best people ever, not that we’re saints or anything, but we like to think we’re doing okay. Or at least, we like to think we’re doing the best we can. And we like to think that what we’re doing is good enough.
But is that really true? Are you and I really doing the best we can? Is what we’re doing really good enough? Maybe—I’m not here to judge you. You’ll have to make that judgment for yourself. But if I’m honest with myself, I very much doubt that I’m really doing the best we can. I could do better. I suspect almost all of us could do better. And if I admit that I could do better, then it gets pretty hard to believe that what I’m doing is really good enough.
But I don’t like to think about that. And so I don’t. Maybe you don’t, either. I don’t think very many of us do. It makes me uncomfortable to think about that. It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel inferior. And so I push that thought out of my mind. Maybe you do, too.
But deep down, I know that it’s true. Deep down, most of us know it’s true. And that knowledge eats away at us. It sneaks through our defenses and comes into our minds when we least expect it. It’s the thing that keeps us up at night. It’s the thing that makes us feel down for no particular reason. It’s the thing that keeps us from being truly and completely happy even when things are going well. We try so hard to push it out of our minds, but we never can quite succeed. We know we’re not who we should be, and we know that what we’re doing really is not good enough.
And that brings me to our Bible reading for tonight. A man comes up to Jesus. He was not a bad man. In fact, as far as we can tell, he was a good man. He was someone who probably tried to tell himself that he was doing the best he could. And he probably tried to tell himself that what he was doing was good enough.
But it was not working. Deep down he knew it was not true. And that knowledge was eating away at him, just like it eats away at us. So finally, he decided to ask Jesus about it. He asks Jesus, in effect, I know I’m not good enough, so how can I become good enough?
Jesus first tells him to keep God’s commandments, but that does not satisfy this man. And if we think about it, and put ourselves in his place, we can understand why. If we were able to admit how far short we fall, and we asked how to get better, and we were told, “Don’t break the law”, that would not be a satisfying answer. Most of us don’t break the law, other than maybe speeding or something. And some of us don’t even do that. Obeying the law may be a good starting point, but we know that there has to be more to becoming better than just “Don’t break the law.”
This man knew it, too. So when Jesus told him to keep God’s commandments, he says, yeah, yeah, I know all that. I’ve been keeping the commandments. But I know that’s not enough. There has to be more to it than that. What is it? What more do I have to do to become good enough?
Jesus told him. Jesus said he needed to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. The man walked away sad. And Jesus, talking to the disciples, indicates that he knew he was telling this man to do something that he would not be able to do. He would not be able to do something that would make him good enough. In fact, Jesus said it would be impossible.
And as we come to another Ash Wednesday, I think that’s the position a lot of us are in. We know that what we’ve been doing is not good enough. We know we need to do something more. But when we really come face to face with it, we realize that what we will not be able to do what we need to do to make ourselves good enough. In fact, it will be impossible.
It will be impossible for us. But it will not be impossible for God. And that’s the main thing for us to take away from this story tonight.
You see, you and I don’t need to keep lying to ourselves. We can admit who we really are. We can admit that we’re not really doing the best we can. We can admit that what we’re doing is not good enough.
We can do that without beating ourselves up for it. We can do that without making ourselves uncomfortable. We can do it without making ourselves feel inferior. Because we’re in the position of the man who talked to Jesus. No matter what we do, we will never be good enough. It is not possible for us to be good enough. Because, as Jesus told the man, there is only One who is good. Only God. And you and I are not and never will be good in the way God is. Jesus said it would be impossible for us to do that. And we do not have to feel ashamed when we cannot do the impossible.
So does that mean that we really are okay? Does that mean we don’t need to try to get any better? Does that mean we can just go on the way we are, doing what we do, and just forget about the fact that we fall short of who we could be and should be?
Well, you’d probably be pretty surprised if I said yes. That’s not what Jesus told the man in our story. Jesus did not say “Don’t try to get any better, just go on the way you are and keep doing what you do.”
Because while Jesus said it would be impossible for us to be good in the way God is, Jesus said something else. He said, “With God, all things are possible.” And that, really, is the message for tonight.
We cannot and never will be able to make ourselves good enough. But God can. God can take us the way we are, as far short as we fall, and make us good enough because of God’s goodness and love and grace and mercy.
How does that work? Well, one of the ways it works is through what we’re going to do here tonight. It starts with a decision to go to God. And when we go to God, we need to confess our sins. Now, “confess our sins” is one of those churchy phrases, but what we’re really doing is going to God and admitting all the times we’ve messed up. We admit all the times when we were not good enough. Sometimes it’s by things we did that we should not have done or things we said that we should not have said. Sometimes it’s by things we should’ve done but did not do or things we should’ve said that we did not say. Sometimes its by our attitude, regardless of what we did or said. But in all of it, we admit what we already know deep down: that we are a long way from being the people we should be and could be. That we are a long way from being the people God wants us to be.
That’s one of the things the ashes are about. They’re a sign of mourning. They’re a sign of sadness for all the times we’ve failed God.
But we don’t stop there. We then ask God for forgiveness. We ask God to forgive us for all those times we’ve messed up. We ask God to forgive us for all those times we were not good enough. We ask God to forgive us for all being so far away from being the people we should be and could be and from being the people God wants us to be.
Those are both good things to do. Confession and asking forgiveness are very important. But they’re not enough. We then need to repent. We need to ask God to come into our lives and make us different people, better people. We need to ask God to come into our hearts and take control of our lives so we can be the people God wants us to be. We still won’t be perfect--our human nature will keep trying to take that control back from God--but if we’re sincere and open our hearts to God, God will work with us so that we can be a lot closer to being the people God wants us to be.
Our Bible reading tells us that the man Jesus was talking to turned away. We’re not told what happened to him after that. I’d like to think that maybe, at some point, what Jesus told him sunk in. I’d like to think that maybe, possibly, there came a time when the man did confess, ask for forgiveness, repent, and give his life to God. Does the Bible say he did? No. But it’s possible.
Because again, with God, all things are possible. They’re possible for the man Jesus was talking to. They’re possible for you. And they’re possible for me.
So now,
let’s take that first step. Let’s
confess our sins to God. Let’s pray.
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