Wretched

A Sermon for Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2023

Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’ve been an Episcopalian for about twenty years or so—almost half my life—which means that I’ve gone to church on Ash Wednesday a whole lot—at least twenty times—but probably more than that since many churches offer more than one service on Ash Wednesday.

I’ve walked through this liturgy many times.

And, I really do love it.

I love it because it draws us out of the ordinary experience of worship we have most Sundays, reminding us that this is an important day in the life of the Church—set apart for a very specific purpose. We began the service, for example—not with a loud, opening hymn like we usually do—but in silence. This is a solemn day. Not a sad day, but certainly one to take very seriously.

I love the liturgy for Ash Wednesday because it sets the tone for the rest of the Lenten season.  I always tell people, “If you want to have a good start to your journey through Lent, come to church on Ash Wednesday.”

The vestments and altar hangings are a deep purple, reminding us that this is a penitential season—a time to be intentional—a time to take a close look at our lives and to be open and honest with ourselves and with God.

There are no flowers on the altar during Lent. They’ve been replaced with the arrangements you see behind me—sticks and twigs—reminding us that this is a season of simplicity and a time for us to journey with Christ through the wilderness.

Yes, the colorful flowers that adorn our altar on most Sundays will return, but for now, we wait. We wait, and we prepare ourselves to experience the gift of new life on Easter Day.

And, perhaps most of all, I love the liturgy for this day because it reminds us of the fact that, even though we’ve fallen short of God’s call to love and serve others, there’s still an abundance of grace and mercy. You’ll hear these comfortable words later on when we say the Litany of Penitence together.

But—there’s one part of the liturgy for Ash Wednesday that’s always bothered me, and I think it has a lot do with my understanding of who God is and what kind of relationship God desires to have with us.

It comes at the very beginning of the liturgy when the priest says the Collect of the Day. We heard it just a few minutes ago.

There’s a single word in that prayer that I have a real problem with.

It’s that word, “wretchedness.”

Do you know what I’m talking about?

In the middle of the prayer, the priest says, “…worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness…”

To be honest with you, if I had the freedom and authority to change the wording of that prayer, I probably would, but that’s not how things work in the Episcopal Church. We don’t get to change the Prayer Book just because we disagree with it.

In a sense, it’s a lot like Holy Scripture. Just because something in the Bible makes us uncomfortable or angry, it doesn’t mean we have the authority to take it out. Sure, we could ignore those difficult parts altogether, but if we did that, we might also be missing out on something we need to hear or a hidden truth that needs to be uncovered.

So…it makes me wonder if there might be a hidden truth to the word “wretchedness” in the opening prayer for Ash Wednesday.

When I hear that word, the phrase that immediately comes to mind is, “good for nothing,” describing someone who’s “rotten to the core” or unredeemable.

That’s one definition—probably the one most of us think about when we hear the word, “wretched.”

But, another definition—and this is the first one listed when you look it up in the dictionary—is describing someone who’s “in a very unhappy or unfortunate state.”

With that definition in mind, maybe the wording of our opening prayer on Ash Wednesday isn’t to make us feel lousy about ourselves or unworthy of God’s love.

Maybe it’s the exact opposite. 

Maybe the purpose of the prayer—and the purpose of this day—is to help us realize and acknowledge the fact that, without God in our lives, we’re completely lost.

I think that might’ve been what Jesus was trying to say to his disciples at the end of our Gospel lesson for today when he says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

In other words, the way we go about our daily lives really does matter. The way we spend our time and energy; the way we treat other people; the amount of time we spend with God; and the way we fill the hours of each day—all of it matters to God.

And so, during the season of Lent, the Church invites us into a period of self-examination and repentance—a time to take a close look at our lives and re-direct ourselves back toward God.

We do this in a variety of ways. Some people choose to give things up for Lent or commit to a time of fasting on certain days or abstain from other things they find distracting in their lives. Some people take on a daily, spiritual discipline, such as a new prayer practice or committing themselves to reading a daily devotional or a different passage from Scripture each day.

Whatever you decide to do—or not to do—I hope you’ll be intentional about it. Because this time during Lent is a gift. Lent is a chance to re-connect with God—to remember who we are as God’s beloved and who we’re called to be as followers of Jesus Christ.

I hope you’ll also be intentional about coming to church on Sunday mornings and continuing this journey with the rest of us. Lent is a time that’s very personal, but it’s also a journey we take together in community. So, come to church, and experience the richness of Lent each Sunday as we make our way to Holy Week and Easter.

Finally, I want to say a little bit about the imposition of ashes because it is the focal point of our liturgy today.

In just a few moments, each of us will receive a cross of ashes on our foreheads.

There’s a reason why the ashes we’re about to receive are in the shape of a cross and not just some random smudge of ash. Not only are they a sign of our mortality and our call to repentance, but they’re also a sign of our baptism. Just as we were signed with the oil of chrism in Baptism, so we are marked with the sign of the cross on Ash Wednesday to remind us that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Even in our wretchedness—in those moments when we’ve lost our way and fallen short of God’s call—the cross of ashes reminds us that we’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.

Nothing can ever change that.

So, as we begin this holy season, let us do so with open hearts and open minds, trusting that God loves us and deeply cares about the decisions we make and the way we live our lives, and let us enter into Lent with the knowledge that, even now, the Holy Spirit is working in us in ways beyond our understanding and leading us to new and abundant with God. Amen.