If I were to say to you that there are two services that attract the most non-members each year, which two services would you guess?  Christmas and Easter?  In part, you could be right – there are definitely a lot of guests at Christmas and Easter.  But proportionately, when talking members and non-members, I notice we get more guests at Blue Christmas and Ash Wednesday – especially if we include Ashes to Go in our Ash Wednesday count. 

So what about Blue Christmas or Ash Wednesday is so appealing to someone who doesn’t regularly attend church?  Having just been a part of Ashes to Go in our parking lot with lots of guests, I think there is something very real, honest, and vulnerable about services on Ash Wednesday that do not always happen on a Sunday or especially on festivals like Christmas and Easter.  On Ash Wednesday, the church gives us permission to bring our real, broken, hurting, mortal selves to a space, to acknowledge our fragility and hurt, and to bless the fullness of our selves – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Now to some, this may feel a little too self-centered.  As we impose ashes, the choir will chant from Psalm 51 tonight:  “Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.  And so you are justified when you speak and upright in your judgment.”  Perhaps that is the appeal of this day – the opportunity to take a moment for the self and really ponder where we are with God and this life.  Those ashes will be grittily spread on my forehead, the penitence and fasting are my work to do, and death is mine alone to face.  Everything about today is about my own journey with God.

Stephen and I were just debating about this reality for Lent in general.  We are making plans for Holy Week and we have a service with gospel songs and meditations.  I was excited about the possibility of the service and Stephen quipped, “It’s a little self-centered, don’t you think?  What about worrying about others and the rest of the world?!?”  The truth is, the season of Lent that we start today and end on Good Friday is sort of a both-and experience.  This is a season we are called into self-examination and repentance.  AND, this is also a season where we examine the sinfulness in the world in which we are complicit.

That both-and experience is what Jesus was worried about in our gospel lesson today.  Jesus talks a great deal about personal piety and not showing off in front of others – to not to let others seeing you give alms, pray, or fast.  But as I studied Matthew again this year, I reread something that brought me up short.  All those warnings Jesus makes, “Beware of practicing your piety before others…whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet…when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…whenever you fast, do not look dismal…”, all of those warnings are not in the singular.  They are actually in the plural.[i]  So the words are more like, beware of practicing you all’s piety.  Or maybe in southern speak, “when all ya’ll pray…” Jesus is not criticizing or singling out you or you or me.  Jesus is singling out the community of the faithful.

That may sound like semantics, but there is something quite dramatic about Jesus speaking in the plural versus the singular.  Every week in Sunday services, we confess our sins.  But we confess them communally.  Communal confession is an extraordinary event.  While we may feel lost or despondent about our inability to live in the light of Christ as individuals, when we communally confess, a room of voices is saying with you, “Me too!”

One of the things I grieved during the pandemic was our inability to gather in person.  I loved that we had and continue to have an online community – especially for our homebound, our busy members, or for those meeting Hickory Neck for the first time.  But our necessary isolation during the pandemic naturally led to a pattern of looking inward – sometimes so much so that we forgot we are not alone – that there is a whole community of faith who is walking this journey with us and struggling just as we are.  There is something quite powerful about listening to the voices of the 7-year-old next to the 77-year-old – the person who looks so put together next to the person who is clearly struggling – the dad with children next to the widow – all confessing together.  Week in and week out, those myriad voices remind us we are not alone.

Tonight’s service very much calls us into reflection and repentance.  But our invitation tonight as we enter Lent is to remember that the act of reconciliation and redemption does not only happen alone.  We all are invited into a holy Lent.  We all are invited into prayer, fasting, and alms giving.  We all are invited to remember we are dust.  In person, online, and hybrid together, we are not only invited into solo, parallel journeys.  But also, our journeys are strengthened and made possible through the companionship of community.  You are not alone.  We are in this together – all y’all.  And Jesus lights the way for us all.  Amen.

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[i] Karoline Lewis, as described on the podcast, “Sermon Brainwave:  #889: Ash Wednesday –Rebroadcast from February 22, 2023,” February 25, 2025, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/889-ash-wednesday-rebroadcast-from-february-22-2023 on March 4, 2025.