Ash Wednesday

Today’s gospel text almost comes as a relief: Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. It’s a relief because we can be fairly reluctant to show signs of piety before others, especially when we’re outside of our worship service. If you want to get strange looks, read your…

Christians are hypocrites. That is the word on the street about us, demonstrated in survey after survey. A prime example is a landmark study by the Barna Group, which found 85 percent of young people outside the church surveyed agree that Christianity is hypocritical. Even when they asked only youth who attend church, 47 percent…

RCL: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103 or 103:8-14; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Ask people how they’re doing, and often the answer begins with a single word: “Busy!” This one word is then followed by a recital of all the projects and tasks that have been demanding this person’s attention. The tone…

Ever since the bottom fell out of the sackcloth and ashes business, we’ve not known what to do about Lent. “What do I give up?” seems to be the primary question, an inversion of Jesus’ call for us to give. Lent isn’t a time to slim or to save money by not buying chocolate or…

Reading Isaiah 58 knocks the breath out of our self-righteousness. The prophet’s words are addressed to all people and nations who claim belief in a God of justice and love. As citizens of this country and as people who carry the name of Christ, we are commanded to listen carefully. Ash Wednesday is a time…

In the epistle we just heard, St. Paul beseeches us to be reconciled to God. And his way of being reconciled may surprise you. Paul does not suggest a confession, or propose any self-examination, or lay out a lengthy program or exercise. He tells us that we should simply accept the grace of God when…

Today we are invited to swim against the tide. Let us consider that invitation. In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A man was recalling his grandmother’s recipe collection. Some, he remembered, were in well-used cookbooks, and some were on index cards. But he recalled the oldest recipes in her vast collection…

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” — BCP 265 The season of Lent begins with one word: Remember. “Remember,” says priest or minister as a cross of ash and dust is traced on our brows, “that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is a sober beginning…

During the recent commemoration of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz, in Poland, in a moment of almost eerie silence, a rabbi sounded the ram’s horn, the ancient “trumpet” of Israel. Sixty years after the Nazis were driven from that dreadful place, survivors mingled with world leaders to pay homage to the dead,…

I invite you, therefore to a holy lent… Ash Wednesday and these forty days of Lenten preparation often bring with them a lot of bad childhood baggage as well as a true invitation to wholeness and renewal. Contrary to the message many of us received as children, Lent is not about making us good after…

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. On “Fat Tuesday,” or Shrove Tuesday, we (at least symbolically!) use up all the rich foods in our houses to ready ourselves for a time of fasting and preparation. On Ash Wednesday, we are invited “in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent,…

[Note to the reader: this sermon is based heavily on the Joel reading for Ash Wednesday] For the day of the Lord is coming, it is near — a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! The powerful symbolism of ashes this year seems to need little explanation. For all…