Ash Wednesday sermons
Ash/Dust, Ash Wednesday – February 18, 2026
[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 It might be that we have Ash Wednesday all wrong. Or, at the very least, we have it a bit muddled and mixed up. In song and Scripture and tone, this day is an odd combination of impulses. It is…
Redeemed Dust, Ash Wednesday – 2025
[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 Ash Wednesday has its choice hymnody, for sure. There are songs that congregations expect to sing every year. There are also popular songs, however, that fit the theme. One such tune flows down the decades to us from the year 1973….
Our Ashes, Ash Wednesday – 2024
[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 There are times when our fellow Christians – and perhaps we ourselves – can be extremely iterating to the rest of society. Even setting aside the major downers like the Crusades, witch hunts, and the general condemnation of an astonishing…
Holy Dust, Ash Wednesday – 2023
[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 The Ash Wednesday liturgy is possibly the most meaningful liturgy in our Book of Common Prayer. It offers us an opportunity to stop, reflect on who we are and whose we are, adopt an attitude of humility, hit the reset…
Sound the Alarm, Ash Wednesday – March 2, 2022
[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 “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain.” There are moments for all of us when our lives change forever: When someone is born or when someone dies, or when you get injured or have a…
Regarding Sin, Ash Wednesday – 2021
[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 Sin. Mention of sin usually puts us on the defensive. Even worse, the discussion of sin puts us on the dismissive. The dismissive is when we have made up our minds to refuse to even listen. Well, here we are…
Charity, Ash Wednesday – 2020
[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 Dear People of God: I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent, a time to renew our repentance and faith, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word (paraphrased from the Book…
Singing the Song of Our Enemy, Ash Wednesday – 2019
The terrible war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended in December 1995. The fighting between Serbs and Croats had set itself up along ethnic and religious lines and so deepened the divisions between the warring factions that it seemed impossible to imagine any type of peace, much less healing and reconciliation. A Franciscan priest began a…
Lament, Ash Wednesday – 2018
After the sermon ends in the Ash Wednesday liturgy, it is customary for the minister to invite us, “in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent.” The Church invites us to self-examination and repentance, prayer, fasting and self-denial, and reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word. Many of us recall…
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