Introduction
Ash Wednesday arrives with all the familiar words and rituals. We hear Jesus warn us about practicing our piety before others. We prepare to trace ashes on foreheads and to say out loud what we already know but rarely dwell on: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
In many congregations, this text has often been preached as a caution against performative religion. And that is not wrong. Jesus does warn against practicing righteousness in order to be seen. Especially in a cultural moment saturated with self-promotion and public branding, the temptation to perform holiness rather than inhabit it is real.
But this year, it may be worth moving beneath behavior and into something deeper.
Narrative Context: Back on the Mountain
In the lectionary, we have been on a mountain for several weeks.
We stood on the mountain with Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), where he blessed the disciples with the beatitudes, called them to be salt and light, and called them to embody a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Then we climbed another mountain for the Transfiguration, where a portion of Jesus’ identity was unveiled in dazzling glory only to be more fully revealed as he journeyed back down.
And now, on Ash Wednesday, we return to the first mountain, to the heart of the Sermon to this early crowd.
Jesus has already told his disciples to let their light shine before others (5:16). He has already called them into a visible, embodied righteousness. So when he now says, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them,” he is not contradicting himself. He is deepening the conversation. He is defining piety because he knows what the church could become if certain things became our center.
The shift is not from public faith to private faith. The shift is from outward appearance to inward orientation. Where is your treasure?
Treasure and Heart
Verse 21 can be the interpretive key to the entire passage: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
We often treat this section as behavior management. Don’t show off when you give. Don’t perform when you pray. Don’t exaggerate when you fast. Don’t be like those other people who do it wrong.
But Jesus is not really regulating religious technique. He is diagnosing the root of where we go astray. Treasure changes our heart.
What we store up shapes who we become.
What we cling to forms our interior life.
What we invest in quietly rearranges our loves.
Confessing Misdirected Love
On Ash Wednesday, we often frame confession in terms of behavior. We name the things we have done and left undone. We confess harm. We confess neglect. But Matthew 6 invites a deeper confession. We are not only confessing bad behavior. We are confessing misdirected love. And maybe love is an odd word. Maybe it’s obsession. That intense focus that pulls us fully.
And Jesus says something almost disarmingly simple, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
We treasure control. We treasure reputation. We treasure being right. We treasure security. We treasure being seen as good.
And here is the hard truth: we often baptize these treasures in holy language.
We say we treasure justice, but sometimes what we really treasure is being right and it being done our way.
We say we want changed hearts, but sometimes what we really want is to see someone else lose.
We say we want a more welcoming world, but we are quick to sort people into ally and enemy.
Your heart will follow your treasure. Not the other way around.
And when our treasure is fragile, when it depends on control, approval, dominance, or security, our hearts become anxious, defensive, brittle.
Ash Wednesday is not simply about confessing what we have done.
It is about asking:
What have we loved?
What have we stored up?
What has shaped our hearts?
Is our treasure Jesus,
or the outrage that keeps us scrolling?
Is it love of neighbor,
or the satisfaction of defeating an enemy?
Is it the quiet work of the Spirit,
or the applause of being seen?
We only hear a small portion of the Sermon on the Mount on this night and this particular year. We miss so much of what surrounds these words.
We do not hear Jesus call us to turn the other cheek.
We do not hear him tell us to go the second mile.
We do not hear him command love of enemies.
We do not hear him teach us to pray, “Your kingdom come” or “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
We do not hear the Golden Rule.
But those words are still there. They are still part of the same sermon. They reveal what the treasure of the kingdom actually looks like.
The treasure of heaven is not applause. It is not dominance. It is not winning.
The treasure of heaven is love. Not sentimental love.
But enemy-embracing, boundary-crossing, second-mile, turn-the-other-cheek love.
That treasure reshapes the heart.
Preaching Possibility
Ashes to Ashes
On Ash Wednesday, ashes will be placed on our foreheads.
Ash does not care about our reputation.
Ash does not care how right we were.
Ash does not care how impressive our piety looked.
Ash tells the truth.
We are dust.
And dust is not a treasure you can store up. Moth and rust are not distant possibilities. They are guarantees.
Control erodes.
Reputation fades.
Winning does not survive the grave.
Ash strips away the illusion that fragile things can save us. Ash exposes what we have trusted. And that exposure can feel uncomfortable. Even frightening. Because if our treasure cannot last, what can?
And yet the One who speaks these words is not scolding from a distance.
He is the One who will walk down from the mountain.
He is the One who will love enemies.
He is the One who will absorb violence rather than return it.
He is the One who will forgive from a cross.
He is the One who will enter the dust of death.
Christ does not merely diagnose our misdirected loves.
He becomes our treasure.
Not a treasure that can be consumed by moth or rust.
Not a treasure that depends on applause.
Not a treasure that must defeat an enemy to survive.
A treasure that enters the dust… and rises.
And where that treasure is, there our heart can finally be reshaped.
Not anxious. Not brittle. Not defensive.
But free.
Free to give without being seen.
Free to pray without performing.
Free to love without winning.
This is not a night for proving our devotion. It is a night for letting God reorder our loves.
You are dust.
And you belong to the One who meets you there.
Micah Krey 
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