Piety Gone Bad - Reflections on Matthew 6:16, 16.21, Ash Wednesday, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Friday, January 2, 2026

         This is the New Testament text for Ash Wednesday, and it does appear to be a very appropriate one for the day. Ash Wednesday services are hardly ever over-attended—after all it is Wednesday night—and the mood is somber and demanding, punctuated by that oily, ashy cross drawn on the forehead, accompanied by the dark words, “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.” Hardly a Hallmark moment, to be sure! I attend these services each year, not because I relish the greasy cross or the stark reminder of my all-too-dusty existence, but because, after nearly 80 years on earth, I still think that I need to stand in the presence of God as merely dust. Not as professor this, or Dr. that, or Rev. So and So, but just as dust. Sounds depressing, I suppose, to some, but it helps me not to prize myself and my accomplishments over much.

         Even with that special need I have, there is a small and seemingly insignificant part of the service and what follows it that has long troubled me, and that little bit leads me to think more about the middle portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. After I get my ashy cross, and go to sit in my pew, (if, of course, I am not the dispenser of the cross), I wonder just how conspicuous I am sitting there with forehead pained and cross aglow? And after the service ends, exactly how long should I keep the cross prominently displayed before I wash it off? Should I keep it on when I wend my way home? Should I wait until I shower in the morning to wash it off, thus anointing my pillow with the ash? Should I show off my cross by a trip to some public space, a restaurant or maybe a store? In short, I hear Jesus speaking to my forehead cross in the first verses of Mt.6.

         “Be careful not to do your righteousness before people to be seen by them. If not, you have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Mt.6:1). Precisely what Matthew means by the famous word “righteousness” here, a word much used in both testaments with multiple meanings, some quite powerfully theological, is not easily discerned. Yet, in this place Matthew appears to speak quite generally, though the following commands against loud and public almsgiving (vss.2-4,) ostentatious prayer (vss.5-15), and hypocritical fasting (vss.16-18), may well be the definition of righteousness in this special context. Perhaps “righteousness” has a rather wry sense here, a term ill-used by those “overly-pious” ones who want it known by all just how pious/righteous they are! Matthew warns that such behaviors may win the applause of those who watch these supposed deeply religious people, but the result for them will be “no reward from your Father in heaven.” In other words, a transient earthly reward will not suffice for the loss of an eternal heavenly one.

         So, back to my forehead cross. Why am I concerned about how long I should show the thing off to my “less religious” neighbors, to waiters in cafes or checkers in grocery stores? Am I hoping that they will catch my unsubtle evangelistic zeal and feel driven to return to church, or do I rather more likely hope that they will look upon my cross—now drooping and sagging a bit— and realize that they are in the presence of a really pious soul who has given an hour of a Wednesday night to get his cross and thus move closer to his heavenly reward? Of course, if it is the latter for me, the irony is, according to Matthew’s Jesus, that I am by so acting moving further away from that heaven and more toward the reward of my fellow humans. 

         Matthew’s second tale about alms-giving makes the same point albeit in a much funnier way. “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and alleys (or “streets” NRSV) in order that they might be glorified by people” (Mt.6:2). It might be that some wealthy benefactors of the temple literally hired a trumpeter to announce their extravagant gifts, thus calling attention to their wonderful beneficent spirits, but I rather think that Matthew exaggerates here, painting a ludicrous picture to make his point about gross and ludicrous piety. After all, the familiar term “hypocrite” derives from the world of theater, meaning quite literally an actor performing behind a mask, in other words pretending to be someone he is not. So it is with the great alms-giver, whose hired trumpet announces his wonder, while disguising the reality that he offers his gifts not out of the call of God, but because he craves the rewards of the people.

         Back once more to my ashen cross. Given these Matthean words, I think this year I will wash off that cross as soon as I am able. After all, it is a sign to me of my dustiness; no one else need see that fact since they too are but dust whether they acknowledge it or not. Furthermore, it is God who has given me that cross through the agency of God’s preacher, and whatever “reward” I am to receive will come from God alone. I am dust, but I trust that God will find in that dust a willing spirit, a representative of God’s spirit on earth, a seeker after the justice and righteousness desired by that God.