Our Gospel for Ash Wednesday emphasizes a very private form of penance (Mt 6:1-6, 16-18). This is something that we feel comfortable with. We are unlikely to be amongst those who want to make an exhibition of ourselves. The crazies who walk up and down with placards declaring the end is nigh – that’s definitely not us. We certainly wouldn’t want to be seen in the streets still wearing the smudge of ashes on our foreheads. Being holy in secret is just fine for us.
What then are we to make of Joel’s prophetic call in our first reading (Jl 2:12-18). I don’t think we can get away with saying “oh that’s just the Old Testament, we don’t need to worry about that”. I’m not sure we can joyfully proclaim the prophecies of Isaiah for Christmas and ignore the ones chosen for Lent.
So what’s the problem with Joel’s call to the people? Precisely that – it’s a call to the people, not to individuals, but to the society as a whole.
This is a more problematic zone for us. We’re generally ok with the idea of social action, the action of the “whole people” when we regard the action as something good. Then we’ll go along with the great deeds of country XYZ, or group abc. When it’s something bad, or shameful – like slavery, or colonial exploitation, or excessive consumption relative to other parts of the world – then we’ll fall back on individualism. We’re not responsible as individuals for those things, we’ll stick to our private world, the stuff that we do in secret, and the Father will be ok with that.
I wonder. Is that true?
Is our Father going to be indifferent to exploitation, discrimination, preventable poverty, untreated disease? Yes these are social ills, they are not things that any individual can remedy. But if we are not contributing somehow to improving our society and preventing these ills, then might not our Father think we are pointing the wrong way, and call us to turn back to him – not as individuals, but as a community, as a society – as Joel called out. So that those around us won’t say “where is their God?” They will see that we are true to his call. Not because we behave piously, but because we care for all His children and work to correct the wrongs we see around us – in public as well as in private.