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,…

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,…

[This sermon is meant to connect to the Ash Wednesday liturgy as found in the Book of Common Prayer.] Today we retrace our Baptismal crosses with ashes. Once upon a time there was a five-year-old girl named Eleanor who, after she was baptized, asked, «Can you still see the cross on my forehead?» A marvelous…

Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you , the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus…

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Even in life, we live with death. Even as we strive to live well, provide for ourselves and others, love God, we are complicit in the forces which deny life, which desires death. It’s just as hard to focus on this now as it was in the day of…

Something about Ash Wednesday is fascinating to us. We are intrigued to see people walking through the streets with black smudges on their foreheads. When I was a child, it seemed like it was only the Roman Catholics who «got ashed», but now the imposition of ashes has made its way into the wider church…