Sermon: Ash Wednesday, Year A

Debbie Stover and I were out and about today to bring ashes and communion to a few of our homebound folks. We brought this reminder of our mortality, these ashes, to people who cannot share in this communal service, to let them know that they are a part of us, even if they cannot be here with us.

There are some clergy who offer “Ashes to go” to people who will meet them on a street corner or drive through a church parking lot.  It seems important to some to be reminded that we are only here for a fleeting moment of time.  They might only have a few moments on this day to be marked with ashes as a way to remember the lovely words attributed to 19th Century Swiss philosopher Henri Amiel that, “Life is short, and we haven’t much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us along the way.  So, be quick to love and make haste to be kind.”

While I understand that these ashes are a necessary part of our entrance into Lent; that we need to have this mark on our foreheads to feel the touch of forgiveness and death; and that this might need to be done in a quick, convenient way, like "ashes to go;" I think it is very important to be here for this worship service.  It is important to hear the lessons, the Psalms, the Gospel, and to spend time on our knees with the Penitential Order to confess our sins, enabling us to recognize our need for a deeper walk with Jesus.

We spend much of our church year recognizing the depth of God’s love.  We learn how Jesus cared for and loved the people he encountered, and through his example, we are given a mandate to do the same.  I know I preach a lot about our belovedness and our value to God and to one another, and I don’t spend too much time preaching with a focus on confession and forgiveness.  This is the season where we might touch on some hard truths that can lead us to spending more time on our knees, seeking to be cleansed, forgiven, and transformed.

Tonight, we are invited to turn our attention to those parts of who we are that might need a little tweak.  Noticing attitudes or behaviors, practices or distractions that might negatively impact our attention to living as Jesus Followers; to instead, look for ways that help us be people who choose to love others like Jesus loves us. 

We may recognize where we fall short and are willing to make some type of positive change, even if just a little, to walk more like Jesus.

We are offered these weeks to contemplate what we need to attend to, to give up a habit or behavior, or to add a meaningful spiritual practice, or to learn more about how our faith guides our steps.  We are invited to confess, to repent, to turn ourselves around so that we become people who choose new ways to exemplify our love of God.

Most of us don’t have an egregious habit that needs purging, but many of us have traits that could use some attention.  This is a time when we are specifically asked to consider our faults. 

At the same time, we need to remain confident that we are beloved, valued, and never forgotten by God, since it is inevitable we will fall short of perfection.

Tonight, we will set the tone of this liturgical season with ashes on our foreheads and later, through the Penitential Order, when we will ask for mercy from God, confess our faults, and repent them. Then, we will receive the gift of absolution and remission of our sins.

I believe that God is a forgiving God and that Jesus is the one who teaches us how to live the loving life that God so desires.  I trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us into righteous acts and holy transformation.  I believe that we need to reflect on our behaviors and attitudes to discern how to be people called into community to build one another up, knowing that the love of God is abundant, even if we might not always believe we deserve it.

And I know that there are many ways we already walk throughout our lives as lights of God’s love to the world, even so, we will always fall short. 

So tonight, as we receive ashes on our foreheads and share in the litany of penitence, this is our opportunity to set our hearts and minds on changing those things that separate us from God.  Because even the best of us need to reflect on how well we follow God’s laws.

Though Jesus says in tonight’s Gospel that we are to express our piety and give alms in private, on this night, ironically perhaps, we will have a mark placed on our foreheads, alerting the world that we are mortals, sinners, in need of repentance.  We will collectively recognize our sinful nature and at the same time acknowledge that we only have so much time to turn our lives around, at least in some small measure, before our lives end.

We do this in community tonight, maybe to hold one another accountable, maybe because in these few minutes we need someone else to hold us up as we understand more about what it is God has called us to do.  Together we pray the same words, eat from the same bread, drink from the same cup of wine, and because we do these things, we are bound together on this faith journey.  We need each other to stand next to us, to hold us up-or behind us, to push us forward, because none of us is perfect. 

We do these things, I believe, because we want to be more like Jesus.

And so, I invite you to the observance of a Holy Lent.

Please turn to page 264 of the Book of Common Prayer...

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful, were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.