Ash Wednesday, 2025: Tending to the soil of our souls

Lectionary: Ps 51; Joel 2:1-2,12-17; Ps 103:8-14; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Luke 18:9-14

Note: To see this sermon delivered live, click HERE. It will be available during the service at 6:30 pm.

En el nombre de Dios, que nos ama eternamente, nos guía a vivir con compasión y espera pacientemente mientras hacemos espacio en nuestro corazón, mente y alma para Su presencia...

In the name of God who loves us eternally, leads us to live compassionately, and waits patiently while we make space in our hearts, minds, and souls for Their presence. 

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, which, as you know, is my favorite season! On this day, we gather in solemn assembly in response to God's continuing call to us to repent - to return to God, opening our hearts, minds, souls, and strength to Them.

We fast if we can today and mark the sign of our salvation - the cross of Christ – on our foreheads with the dust of ashes. These traditional symbols represent our repentance and humility - two things we will focus on during these next five weeks of Lent.

Lent is not a time for us to wallow in the misery of our wretchedness as hopeless sinners. Psalm 51 simply recognizes that we sometimes feel wrethched - and act wretchedly - but God does not hold us as wretched. 

And we don't fast in order to suffer or as punishment for sin. We fast to allow ourselves to experience emptiness. In the deep, dark center of ourselves, we willingly choose to make space for something new, something nourishing and life-giving that God will supply.

During Lent, we trust God and open our spiritual eyes as the God of all mercy raises up our faces toward Their loving countenance. Then we see and perceive God who is full of compassion, slow to anger, forgives our sins, and cares for us deeply, intimately, with a sacrificial love that knows no bounds.

Lent is also the time we get honest about ourselves and the walls we have put between God’s love and ourselves. We remember that we are all wonderfully made by our Creator, who does not hate any of us, who remains faithfully in love with all of us.

During Lent, we own that we do sin, and since the church focuses on sin and repentance during this season, let’s talk for a minute about what sin is and isn’t. Theologian Karl Barth talks about sin as a state of separation from God and from one another. It’s a state we can choose to hold onto or let go of according to our free will.

In that state of separation, we objectify God, our neighbor, and even creation, enabling us to erect walls in our relationships - walls of judgment, discrimination, disrespect, abuse, and exploitation. From behind those walls, sin happens easily, and justifications for those sins abound and catch on like a plague of moral irresponsibility.

In that state of separation, from behind those walls of sin, we do harm: telling a lie, pulling the trigger of an automatic weapon aimed at people, raping our land of minerals for profit, cheating on our spouse or partner, worshipping at the altar of money, beauty, youth, or power, or using God’s name for anything other than praise or worship.

Sin is not what we do. It’s what’s behind what we do.

Our sins result from a disrupted relationship with God. In the state of sin, we become the center of our universe. What we need or want takes precedence over what God or our neighbors need or want.

Every one of us will find ourselves, at times, lacking the will to be attentive to or compassionate about the needs of someone else, especially if it means we have to make some amount of sacrifice for them. There are times when we are not slow to anger, but we are slow to forgive or reconnect.

Our preoccupation with ourselves leads us to addictive behaviors, and we can be addicted to many things: being the center of attention, food, alcohol or drugs, work, the news, self-criticism, or power. We can even be addicted to “good” things like excessively exercising or taking vitamins, or serving others in order to affirm for ourselves that we are good or smart or important.

Lent is when we stop to notice what has captivated our attention lately, what has let us off our proverbial moral hooks, or allowed us to push others into the oblivion of our intentional blindness. Whatever that is and whatever has become the source of our comfort or truth in place of God is an idol, a stumbling block from which we need to repent.

The word "Lent" means “lengthening of days,” in other words, spring, and like the season of Spring, Lent is when we tend to the soil of our souls. Our Lenten practices are meant to soften and nourish the soil of our souls, inviting God to plant new seeds, new life in us.

The hard work of Lent is emptying ourselves of all that already fills us. As Americans, our most insidious sin is probably the expectation that we always deserve to be full and satisfied. Emptiness scares us. The nothingness of it feels like death, so we tend to avoid it.

That's why Lent matters. Knowing that by our baptism we have entered into Jesus' death and resurrection, we have no fear of death, not even the little ones like the death of a habit, or the death of an idea we hold about God, ourselves, our neighbors, or our future.

The traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are reliable ways we can respond to God's call to us to repent, to return to God. As always, we begin with prayer.

Prayer brings us into the presence of God…the same God who created us, knows our humanity, and loves us for it… the same God who gave up his life on the cross for the forgiveness of sin… the same God who dwells in us and invites us to receive the seeds of new life.

Fasting reminds us of our mortality. It also provides a way for us to be in solidarity with those who truly hunger. Fasting enables us to remember how real and compelling hunger is. It connects us to those who actually hunger and moves us to compassion, to “suffer with” them - which is what that word means, so that we can act to relieve their suffering.

Almsgiving enables us who have enough to do what we can, even sacrifically, to relieve the suffering of those who don’t have enough. This year our Lenten alms will go to the Food Pantry to relieve the suffering of our hungry neighbors.

Our Lenten practices are embodied soul exercises, but if you are diabetic, on medication, or for some other reason you can't fast from food – don't. Fasting from food isn’t the only way to experience the emptiness that connects us compassionately to the suffering.

There is so much we can fast from besides food. We can fast from criticizing ourselves or others. We can fast from complaining, judging others, or harsh words. We can fast from over-exposure to the endless news cycles on tv and from addictively checking out updates on social media. If an activity that is habitual for you distracts you from your Lenten self-emptying, fast from that.

We also have the option of taking up a new practice. We might be led to find a saint to companion us on our Lenten journey, or take up a new ministry, or cultivate a new attitude. We might practice being a voice of good news in the midst of uncertainty, or using our voices in letters or on social media to speak in support of those who are suffering or afraid.

Self-emptying. Taking up. Choosing the new life being offered by God. This is our Lenten journey.

Let us pray… Almighty God, you love all you have made. Show us how to empty ourselves of all that isn’t loving. We turn to you and open our hearts, minds, and souls to you. Plant your seeds of new life in us, for we desire to love as you have loved us in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Last Epiphany, 2025-C: From glory to glory 

Lectionary: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

En el nombre de Dios que es nuestra fuente, nuestra luz, y nuestro sustento. Amén. In the name of God, who is our source, our light, and our sustenance. Amen.

The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus is one of those stories that seems so beyond our everyday experience of life and faith, but when we think about it, it really isn’t. It’s the first account of something we all experience in our faith journeys - if we’re awake to it.

This is a story of the revelation of Jesus as divine to his very human followers. It’s also the story of how we, like those first disciples, can open ourselves to this transforming experience and be changed by it into his likeness from glory to glory, as our Collect says.

Let’s break down the elements of this story to see how this works. 

The whole thing begins with prayer. Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up the mountain (Bible-speak for where God is encountered) to pray. During this shared prayer, Peter, John, and James become aware that Jesus’ face is changing and his clothes are becoming a dazzling white, which when we look to the original language, means: emitting light, brilliant, shining, glittering, radiant. Jesus - in his body - was emanating a dazzling light.

This kind of dazzling light traditionally refers to divine light, the light of the presence of God, in an earthly body. We see it in the story of Moses who didn’t know his face was shining with this light until Aaron told him. In response, Moses veiled his face since the people, even the leaders among them, were afraid to come near him because of it. It makes sense… how could Moses share the guidance of God given to him for the people in their exile if the people are afraid to come near him?

Next, we are told that Peter, John, and James see Moses and Elijah with Jesus in the midst of this dazzling light, and they’re talking about Jesus’ decease, his departure from his life on earth, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. By witnessing this, Peter, John, and James can ground this experience in the strong foundation of their faith. I wonder if later, when they witnessed Jesus’ actual death in Jerusalem, they remembered this prophetic moment and took comfort in it.

Then the disciples reach the limit of their strength and physical endurance, or as Luke says it, they were weighed down with sleep. But since they stayed awake, they saw this amazing revelation.

Isn’t that always the case with us? It’s when we are emptied of everything: strength, thoughts, hubris; when we are at the very limit of our humanity, that God leads us beyond ourselves and into the divine mystery, into the experience of divine-human unity.

The revelation witnessed by Peter, John, and James, isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a first-time thing and the revelation continues for them as we see from Luke’s written accounts about the remainder of their earthly journeys.

Mountain-top experiences are not (I repeat not) unusual. They are part of our Christian journey and we all have them. Many of us simply aren’t awake enough to recognize them for what they are.

One of my mountain-top experiences happened when I was a teenager visiting the Grand Canyon. I was so overwhelmed by the splendor and awed by the size of it. My heart prayerfully poured out unbound gratitude at the beauty I was witnessing.

Another happened when I served a church in northern Michigan and saw the sky - unimpeded by city lights - so full of stars it literally took my breath away. In both of those instances, I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually overwhelmed by the majesty, magnificence, and beneficence of God.

A Bible Study member shared their story of a mountain-top experience while inside the Grand Canyon. Their experience moved from the magnificence of God’s creation to an intimate moment with God resulting in the release of some long-held grief. They came out of this experience feeling cleansed and set free.

We all have stories of mountain-top experiences, experiences where we become one with God while still in our bodies - our feet firmly planted on the earth. The divine and the human living as one. It happened first in Jesus. Now it happens in us, and it has a purpose.

Every mountain-top experience is an amazing gift from God that deepens and broadens our everyday experience in life and faith, drawing us closer in relationship with God and with one another. Each mountain-top experience we have brings down another barrier to love in those relationships. Each one also frees us up to walk the path God is setting before us, a path that will require us to take up our cross and love as Jesus did - which is the purpose - to transfigure us from glory to glory until we love as Jesus loved.

Most of us grow up drenched in images of divine light emanating from a human body, but we often don’t connect the dots to the potentiality of this for all of us. Our religious art is replete with images of God’s light emanating from the bodies of exemplars in our faith.

What comes to mind as I say that? Right - a HALO! A halo is an artistic representation of Emmanuel - of divine light emanating from the human body in which God dwells. That’s all of us, not just those listed in the books about saints.

As Episcopalians, we honor the saints who went before, the ones we call “the communion of saints.” These saints love us, continually pray for us, and offer to be our companions at any point on our path of life in faith.

All we have to do is invite them to join us. It’s as simple as that. 

The saints stand ready to share with us the gifts they were given during their time on earth, gifts that might serve us at different moments in our lives. For example, during my process to ordination, Julian of Norwich was my companion. Knowing this, my first church, where I served my curacy, had this icon commissioned as a gift for my ordination. (Iconographer: Anne Davidson, Diocese of Western Michigan)

Later, as I was discerning a change in my path, St. Faustina, whom I’d never even heard of, came to me in a dream. I asked my then Spiritual Director, who was a Roman Catholic nun, if she’d ever heard of Faustina, and she said one of the nuns in her community was reading Faustina’s diary. She had a diary?! I immediately got the diary and before I finished the first chapter, I knew why Faustina offered to companion me in that part of my journey.

We all will have many mountain-top experiences of varying degrees of intensity throughout our lives, each one transforming us a little more, changing us from glory to glory, until we, like the saints before us, among us, and yet to come, emanate the radiance of the light of God.

We know that God has chosen us, has chosen to dwell in us, which means… God’s light emanates from us, whether we know it or not. We often exclude ourselves from the company of those lofty exemplars of our faith - but that’s a mistake.

We all have halos. Each of us is chosen by God and God dwells in us and emanates from us, just as God dwelled in and emanated from them.

Our journey through this earthly life is full of haloed companions on earth and in heaven. None of us travels alone.

Today, our Christian Formation is called Select-A-Saint Sunday - companions for the journey. Together, we will discuss saints who are or were, and we will learn how we can wake up to their presence with us now,and receive the gift of their companionship in our lives… and maybe even claim our own halos.

We have work to do bearing Christ’s love into our world. We’ll need our halos shining brightly. Amen.