Ash Wednesday Homily
Isaiah 58:1-12 Psalm 51:1-17 2 Cor 5:20b-6:10 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Many years ago, one of my priests gave some sage Lenten advice. She said: “Never visit a convent during Lent.” And we asked why. And she said: “Because the nuns all give up chocolate biscuits, so refreshments are limited.” Which, as spiritual guidance goes, is both deeply practical… and deeply revealing.
Because for many of us, that’s what Lent has become.
Chocolate.
Wine.
Social media.
Coffee.
The annual spiritual detox.
And don’t get me wrong — there is nothing wrong with giving things up. It can sharpen awareness. It can make space. But tonight’s readings push us far beyond chocolate biscuits.
Because God, through Isaiah, speaks with startling bluntness:
“Is this the fast I choose — a day to humble yourself? To bow your head like a reed?
To lie in sackcloth and ashes?” Do you think surface gestures are what I’m after?
Because the people were fasting. They were praying. They were doing religion “properly”.
And yet injustice flourished. Workers were exploited. The vulnerable were crushed.
So God says: The fast I choose looks like this:
Loose the bonds of injustice.
Undo the yoke.
Let the oppressed go free.
Share your bread with the hungry.
Bring the homeless poor into your house.
It is devastatingly concrete.
And if we want to know what that looks like here — not in theory but in Perth — we do not have to look far.
The average life expectancy of a homeless man in our city is 44 years old in a nation where most of us expect to live well into our 80s, and beyond. That is not misfortune.
That is injustice written on the body. And it is particularly confronting for us, because homelessness is not distant from this parish. It unfolds right here on our grounds.
We pray and we worship …while just beyond these walls, people sleep on the earth.
And Lent refuses to let that sit comfortably.
Because Isaiah says the fast God chooses does not move the vulnerable on.
It moves the human heart open.
But that raises an almost impossible question: How do we face systems that fierce… that entrenched… that unjust… without becoming overwhelmed? Hardened? Numb?
How do we loosen bonds that feel immovable?
And this is where the Church, in her wisdom, places Psalm 51 in our hands.
Because before systems are transformed… hearts must be.
Psalm 51 does something Isaiah does not:
Isaiah addresses the world. The Psalmist addresses the heart.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God. And renew a right spirit within me.”
Not polish. Not tidy up. Create. Start again from the inside out.
Because we cannot dismantle injustice out there if we are unwilling to confront what lives in here.
We participate in the world’s breaking. We benefit. We numb out. We look away.
And yet the Psalm is not despairing — it is hopeful.
“A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Bring me your real self, God says. Bring me the unvarnished truth.
Because the fast God chooses is born when a human heart is broken open… softened… remade. Lent, then, is not a choice between inner repentance or outer justice. It is the slow, painful, holy work of allowing God to do both at once.
Which is why we come tonight for ashes. Giving our forehead to be marked is us asking for permission to stop pretending. Permission to name our fragility. Permission to admit what needs undoing — personally and collectively.
Ashes remind us: Everything performative will fall away. Everything curated will crumble. Everything false will return to dust. And all that remains is what is real.
Completely reshaped by the God who creates and loves and breaks and remoulds.
Isaiah brings this incredible promise that when this fast begins to take root:
“Your light shall break forth like the dawn… Your healing shall spring up quickly… You shall be like a watered garden.”
In place of ashes will be light, and repentance will bring repair.
So tonight, we receive ashes in the shape of a cross. A cross that tells the truth about the world’s violence… …and the deeper truth about God’s refusal to abandon it.
And we will hear again those words, ‘Remember you are dust…’
Yes.
But we are dust that God breathes life into. Dust Christ walked among. Dust that can be remade — heart first, world next. Dust that resurrection will one day raise.
And so, we begin Lent: Not just giving up chocolate biscuits…but in complete surrender to God, allowing God to break our hearts open, remake them in mercy,
and send us back into the world to live the true fast God chooses.
Amen.
Holy Adventures 