Ash Wednesday, Year A
February 18, 2026
Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Year A, Ash Wednesday
February 18, 2026
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“Let Us Begin Anew: Turning Toward Jesus”
The Rev. Kathleen Murray, Rector
Historic Beckford Parish, Mount Jackson & Woodstock
On this day, the Church says out loud what we already know but spend most of the year trying not to think about: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
That is not simply a poetic turn of phrase. It is the truth about being human. We see it when we look in the mirror and notice what has changed. We feel it in our joints when they do not move the way they once did. We know it when we sit beside hospital beds or stand at gravesides. Some of us have buried people far too young. If we live long enough, we will feel time pressing in on us as well.
We are mortal.
And yet dust is not the end of the story. The Bible never speaks about dust only at the level of the individual. It addresses what happens when entire communities crumble.
Isaiah speaks to people who knew something about ruin. He tells them that ancient ruins can be rebuilt, breaches repaired, and streets restored.
The same God who formed humanity from the dust of the earth is not finished with dust.
People in Isaiah’s time were fasting. They were praying. They were doing what faithful people are supposed to do. And yet God says through the prophet, “This is not the fast I choose.”
Because while they fasted, workers were being crushed. While they prayed, the hungry were ignored. While they bowed their heads in worship, injustice continued in their daily lives.
That is the underpinning of an Ash Wednesday observance. It is not a transaction. We are not here to pay dues or to clear some spiritual account. We are not here to impress God with our seriousness.
When ashes are placed on your forehead, it is a confession. It is a public acknowledgment that we are finite, fragile, and not in control.
We are dust.
We are also sinners. Not merely weak. Not merely tired. Not merely overwhelmed.
We wound one another. We distort the truth. We protect ourselves at someone else’s expense. We participate in systems we know are not just. We fail to love God with our whole heart and our neighbor as ourselves.
That is why the ashes matter.
And what about the world around us? To confess our own frailty is one thing. To admit the fragility of our common life is another.
We receive these ashes at a time when civic and religious trust is low. Institutions that once felt steady now feel fragile. We argue about who is a real Catholic or a real Anglican, a real Baptist, even a real Mennonite. I saw a cheap dig recently about Mennonites at EMU as though being educated somehow makes them less sincere.
We seem to think that belonging is proven by who we exclude rather than by how we love. We are suspicious of one another’s motives before we are willing to know one another’s lives.
Isaiah would recognize this.
The ruins he names are not only economic and political; they are relational and spiritual.
At some point, we have to ask ourselves when we will begin becoming who God actually calls us to be.
Not louder. Not purer. Not more outraged. Simply more faithful.
In God’s world, strength is in feeding someone who is hungry. It is loosening a bond. It is refusing to exploit people. It is repairing what has been broken.
To admit we are dust is to acknowledge our limits.
We cannot carry the whole world. We cannot solve every injustice. We cannot undo every wrong that has been done. We cannot save the world.
And yet there was a generation in the 1940s that believed they had to.
They crossed oceans. They fought fascism. They endured rationing and loss. They believed the stakes were real and that their choices mattered. And what they did absolutely mattered.
But even they did not “save” the world once and for all.
Evil did not disappear in 1945. Human nature did not suddenly change. History did not end.
What they did was this: they were faithful in their moment. They did not control the entire arc of history. They bore responsibility for the part placed in their hands. They did what was theirs to do.
And we are called to a place and moment in time now. That is always how faith works — not by controlling history, but by answering the moment placed before us.
That is what Isaiah is asking of us.
That is what Jesus asks of us.
We can decide how we live in this moment.
We can tell the truth. We can refuse to lie, even when it would be easier. We can feed someone who is hungry. We can forgive someone who does not expect it. We can stop repeating harm. We can repair what is within reach.
Redeeming history belongs to God. But we can be faithful where we stand.
And when we are faithful, when enough people practice what the New Testament calls metanoia, communities and individuals change. Trust is rebuilt.
There is one Savior. His name is Jesus.
Jesus entered the dust of this world. He walked on it. He knelt in it. He touched those others avoided. He confronted injustice. He wept. He suffered. He was buried in the dust. And he rose.
In Jesus Christ, dust is raised.
Lent is not a self-improvement plan. It is repentance. It is turning.
In a few moments, we will hear the Invitation to a Holy Lent from the Prayer Book. It calls us to self-examination and repentance; to prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and to reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.
That is not religious busywork.
It is metanoia. It is turning from what diminishes life and toward God, from fear to trust, and from faithlessness to faithfulness, and toward Jesus.
Isaiah calls it repairing breaches. Jesus calls it following him.
Perhaps we cannot save the world. But we can follow the One who does. Let us begin anew with a holy Lent. Amen.