February 18, 2026 Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:1-2, 12-*17

Psalm 51:1-17

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

 grace and peace to you from the source of life, amen.

The call of Lent is the call to return to God.

 Often in this call to return

we hear it urging us to acknowledge the worst of ourselves,

 to reform to avoid punishment from God.

It doesn’t seem to be the most uplifting of messages.

To be fair we hear this perspective

in the words of the prophet Joel

 who is calling on the people to return to God

 because they have strayed away from God

 and that in the present state

the Lord’s coming is not a good thing for them,

 they need to change their ways,

 show real contrition

 and maybe God will relent

 from much deserved judgment and punishment.

This is the perspective of the psalmist as well

 who approaches God as one who knows

 they would not bear the scrutiny of God.

For I know my offenses,  and my sin is ever before me. ⁴Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;  so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment.  ⁵Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness,  a sinner from my mother’s womb.

In Lent we are encouraged to acknowledge

where we have gone wrong

and to respond with lament, prayer, fasting, giving to the needy,

all good disciplines to be sure

  but if we focus too much on

the perspective of returning to God to avoid punishment

 focus too much on finding any way to prove to our intent to change,

to show that we have changed,

and short of actual change maybe

make it seem like we’ve changed,

look we go to church, look we pray, look we give!

 But this frame of mind ultimately takes us farther from God

- which is Jesus’ point to the disciples.

 If you are more worried about appearances than the actual actions

 your relationship with God will suffer,

 and the relationship is really what it is all about.

The Psalmist eventually comes around to this understanding

proclaiming to God “For you take no delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a troubled and broken heart, O God, you will not despise.”

In our intense focus on all that we’ve done wrong

 and what we might do to fix it,

 we forget the even more important truth

 that when we are called to return to God

 it is because God had us in the first place.

You can only return to somewhere you’ve already been,

The call to repentance is not punishment but an opportunity,

 an opportunity to reorient ourselves

around the truth that we begin and end with God,

 and that no matter where we go, even death,

God has been there first

This is why we begin this season with a cross of ashes marked on our foreheads,

a twofold sign of the fundamental truths of life.

The truth that we will die,

that we will return to the dust from which we were created,

and the truth that in the cross of Christ

we have life everlasting.

And this sign is placed on the same place

 where at our baptisms we were sealed by the holy spirit

 and marked with the cross of Christ, forever.

the call to return to God

is a call to return to our identity and vocation of baptized child of God.

To return to the abundant life of God

God who works with the dust of the earth.

As poet Jan Richardson observes in her poem “Blessing the Dust”

BLESSING THE DUST

All those days

you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if all you had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered

to the four corners

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial—

did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

So let us be marked

not for sorrow.

And let us be marked

not for shame.

Let us be marked

not for false humility

or for thinking

we are less

than we are

but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust,

within the dirt,

within the stuff

of which the world

is made

and the stars that blaze

in our bones

and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.

—Jan Richardson

from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

janrichardson.com/books

Amen.