February 18, 2026

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Good Shepherd, Winnipeg

I think it was the summer of 1999. Our family was on a road trip out east, making the long drive from Estevan to Ottawa. I was tired from all the driving and, along with Val, being in charge. We ended up smack in the middle of downtown Ottawa, and I was the driver and was only halfway sure that I knew where we were going or even where we were, but I knew that the road was crowded and there were too many people and too much noise in this place where I’d never been.

Suddenly our six-year-old son called out from the back seat: “Hey dad, I think I just saw a hypocrite!” I responded with the appropriate stressed parent response: “What?” And he explained, “There was a guy on the street corner holding a sign about God and yelling!”

Yes, that broke the tension. And yes, I did wonder where he had come across that level of Biblical knowledge. Must have come from a Sunday School teacher.

I think back on that now and I see it as a fun episode in our family’s life. I’ve told the story more times than I might remember. Some of you here may have heard it two or three times. Our son has heard it more times than anyone should have to hear their parents tell a story about them.

But there’s something more to that episode and maybe to the way that I’ve heard this story from Matthew. On that street in Ottawa, after the sighting of the hypocrite, one of my thoughts was something along the lines of, “Man, am I ever glad I’m not like that guy.” And of course, as soon as I thought that I became, well, sort of like that guy.

In a few minutes we’ll join our voices in a Litany of Penitence. You’ll notice that it’s a pretty comprehensive confession. We’ll cover most of the bases, and as we go more deeply into the litany we might find that we are slowly giving up any grounds we might have to say, “I’m sure glad I’m not like them.” That really matters in a world where the lines between us and them are getting sharper all the time. We hear it when all the problems are blamed on immigrants or drag queens or liberals or conservatives. I’m sure glad I’m not like them. I see it when so many people who think just like me post everything they can find that proves that that guy and the people he has gathered around him are just so bad. And you know, I eat it all up, even if it makes me shake with righteous anger. Shaking with anger is no fun.

We’ll join our voices in a Litany of Penitence, and when we do that we’re not saying that we’re so bad or that we deserve punishment. We’re just being honest about a world that is broken, and we’re saying right out loud that we play a part in the breaking of that world. We’re letting go of that need to compare and divide, and our confessing together is a way of saying that we won’t play those “I’m so glad I’m not like them” games any more. There aren’t two sides – ours and theirs - to every story. It’s just that there’s one story: a story of a broken world; a story of a world that God so deeply loves; a story of a world that God will do anything to heal. Our quiet act of confessing together becomes a small part of that healing.

On this February evening, with whatever headlines are ringing in our heads, with whatever situations in our own lives we carry with us in our hearts, Jesus speaks a word that we carry with us through Lent. He talks about how we practice our righteousness, which amounts to how we practice our faith, and he speaks about three simple things that some of us may have learned to call “the discipline of Lent.” Acts of mercy, or almsgiving; prayer; and fasting. He calls us to a kind of privacy about these things, so that we don’t do them to draw attention to ourselves or to set ourselves apart somehow; to show how we’re not like them.

We’re just called to this Lenten living because there’s something right about it. We practice generosity, we give, because generosity works better than clinging to things, generosity sets us free from the power of our stuff, and generosity is good for our neighbours. It’s just the right thing to do.

We pray because it draws us closer to God. We pray because it draws us closer to the ones for whom we pray, even when they are strangers, even and especially when we pray for our enemies. We pray because it helps us remember the ones who are in our prayers. We pray because it helps us remember the one in whom we trust.

And we fast? Maybe we don’t all fast. Be honest. Or maybe we do, and we give up something for awhile because it helps us remember those who don’t choose to go without but who have no choice. Maybe we give up something, like with those old Lenten calendars where you’d put some money in a slot each day and then give it away because someone else needs what I’ve got more than I do. Maybe we fast so that every time we crave that chocolate we’ve given up for Lent it reminds us that life is not all about getting whatever we want whenever we want it.

Welcome to another season of Lent. The season might call you to contemplation, or it might call you to a deeper kind of action. But either way, Lent calls us all more deeply into one story: a story of a broken world; a story of a world that God so deeply loves; a story of a world that God will do anything to heal, even when that will mean a cross, and a dying, and a living again.

Welcome to the honesty, the ashes, and the new life of Lent.