Sermon for Ash Wednesday

 March 5, 2025, Ash Wednesday

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21

There have been some years when I have needed Ash Wednesday to remind me that I am dust and to dust I shall return.  And then there are years like this one, where Ash Wednesday keeps crashing into other seasons, where the forces of Ash Wednesday expand their reach.

It’s been the kind of year so far where it seems cruel to preach a traditional Ash Wednesday sermon, the sermon with the message that reminds us that our time is limited, so we better get on with whatever it is that we thought we might be put on earth to do.  We’ve had a funeral here, a few weeks ago, along with deaths in the extended families of our church members.  Many of us have more names than ever to add to the weekly prayer list, and those concerns are so serious, unforeseen, and compounded by uncertainty about the future.  Our scripture readings have circled back to death, with those passages from Corinthians that remind us of our physical death and resurrections that we can’t quite understand.  

It's been the kind of year where the weather, also, serves as a constant reminder that all we love can turn to ash and rather suddenly, with wildfires in California and the Carolinas.  We’ve had a harsh winter than many in recent memory.  And the landscape itself remains ravaged by the effects of a hurricane reaching us here in the mountains, thousands of miles above sea level and hundreds of miles from the nearest coast.  Do we really need 40 days of additional reminder of our Ash Wednesday existence?

We might read the Gospel from Matthew and find ourselves wishing for some people who were pretending to be better than they are, like those hypocrites referenced in tonight’s reading, who pray ostentatiously.  At least they are praying, after all.  We live in an age where people don’t even pretend to be pious anymore, where people are practicing a different religion, worshiping a might makes right kind of God.  We are in an age where it seems that people are in a race to see who can be most cruel as they race to dismantle systems that took so long to build.

But of course, every age has its despots, eager to dismantle and destroy.  We are not facing anything new under the sun.

In a year like this one, where it seems that the world can’t transform itself into ash fast enough, it’s good to slow down, to think about ash and dust, perhaps in a new way.  When we are surrounded by the dust of what we once held dear, let’s reconsider the role of ash.

Those of us who garden already know how valuable compost can be, how decomposing vegetative refuse can help feed new growth.  We see a similar dynamic with ash.  Experts  tell us that if we have poor soil, adding ash is one way to build the earth’s ability to nourish new life.  Ash acts as a fertilizer, enriching the soil.  Ash also deters many pests from attacking plants.  It can play the same role with weeds, protecting plants from invading weeds.  Ash protects plants from some diseases.  It can help the seed to be protected and to prosper.  We don’t hear about the afterlife of ashes in this way in most Ash Wednesday liturgies.

The danger of Ash Wednesday is that it can convince us that nothing that we do can matter.  Most of us are already aware—painfully aware—that we won’t be here on this side of the earth for very long.  We have already internalized the Ash Wednesday message that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  But let’s not be too quick to focus on the impermanence of it all.  Our physical lives, and the ways we live those lives, here in the physical realm, can be the fertilizer that our society needs.  The way we live our lives here, in 2025, can nourish the ground for the generations that will follow.

We are the ones who gather Sunday after Sunday to be transformed into a Christian community, the type of community that can sustain us, and those around us, in the hard times that are surely coming or are already here.  We are the ones who remember the ancient words and rituals that give meaning in times that are chaotic and frightening.  We are the ones who answer a different call, God’s call, to take care of the poor and the outcast, the hungry and the stranger, the afflicted and downtrodden.

We nourish the soil in the songs that we sing, the stories that we tell, the meals that we prepare, the fish we fry and the food pantries that we stock.  People do not die alone—because we are there.  People remember God’s love—because we remind them.

As we think about this season of Lent that begins today, perhaps you’ve already chosen your Lenten discipline.  Maybe you are going to eliminate something from your life, some toxic behavior that threatens your flourishing.  Maybe you are going to add something to enrich your Lent:  additional prayer time or Bible study or an activity that brings you joy. Psychology suggests that it takes about 40 days to develop a habit.  Even if it feels hypocritical at first, there is hope that our Lenten disciplines will develop, will take root, will become fertilizer for positive change.

Let us use this Ash Wednesday as a call to consciousness, a time to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  Let us use this Ash Wednesday to contemplate the soil of our lives, the destruction that has made us what we are, the decay that can nourish the work we still need to do.  Let us use this Ash Wednesday to strengthen our resolve to open our eyes to God, to say yes to God, who is making all things new.  Our God knows how to take brokenness and transform it into beauty.  Our God invites us to be part of that creation story, where dust is a medium for a new beginning.  If we look to the ground, we’ll see the bulbs that we planted in the fall are poking through the dirt.  

In Kingdom time, we don’t always get to see the flowering, but that doesn’t mean that our time, thoughts, and actions are useless.  We, too, have new life yet to come.  To paraphrase the words of Paul: rejoice, we are alive and possess everything that is meaningful and endures.  Not everything returns to ash.