A Sermon for Ash Wednesday, 2006  ©
The Rev. Dr. Bill Doggett
Christ Church, Washington Parish

Today is the day we remind ourselves that from dust we come, and to dust we shall return. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that to be a dismal thought at all. I mean, if God can make something as extraordinary as a human being from the dust of the earth, just think what God can make out of us, if we are willing to be remade.

Our invitation at Lent is an invitation to discipline. Usually we think of Lent in terms of fasting, or what my Roman Catholic friends in childhood called “give-ups.” And giving up some good thing for Lent: meat, or sleeping in, fro instance, is a fine Lenten discipline. Or you may wish to take something on instead of giving something up: daily prayer, say, or volunteering to help the needy.

Consider, though, today’s reading from Isaiah. God asks Isaiah to speak to the people in strong words: enough with your fasting and bowing and sackcloth and ashes, None of it is changing the way you treat one another. This is not what God wants.

Hear Isaiah’s words, speaking for God: “Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”

As we begin the season of Lent, ponder Isaiah’s words, and think if there is any part of God’s fast that you can take up. Imagine what an Easter we could have then!

“If you remove the yoke from among you,” Isaiah says, “the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

This is the fast that God calls us to, out of the ashes, out of the dust. And if God can make something as extraordinary as a human being out of the dust of the earth, think what God can make of us, if we are willing to be remade.