Please join us for an imposition of ashes on Wednesday, February 14, at 5:00 p.m.

Presbyterians don’t like to talk about sin. Or we water down the idea of being bad people, ever. But you don’t have to be a murderer to be a sinner. To sin simply means to fall short; to turn away. In my own Statement of Faith that I wrote for my ordination in 2001, I didn’t even mention it – I called it “distortions of God’s will.” Too often talk of sin is accompanied by hell-fire and brimstone preaching, reminding us that we are all horrible people who will always tend toward depravity and darkness and our baser emotions.

That is not something I believe. I believe that God made us good, and that is our natural way of being. Being human however means that we have choices to make and needs to meet and find ourselves in situations where we fall so far short of any ideal that God had in mind for us. Sometimes we intentionally give up trying because life can get really difficult and we fall victim to circumstances that are not our own fault. Just like a baby or toddler might cry, “That’s not fair!” or “That’s not my fault!” we cry too. How many times have we said, “I just can’t do it today.” Or my favorite, “Why do I have to try so hard to do the right thing, when there are so many who don’t care and don’t try?” Then there are the circumstances that are of our own making, either out of weakness or anger or a life of self-protection and fears.

We are reminded of our shortcomings, not so that we can dwell on them, or so that we begin to believe that our shortcomings are the sum of us, but to remind ourselves to stay humble, to know that even our greatest selves are in need of God’s grace. While we often think of the penitence of Lent as a personal (private) and inward matter, a service of worship on Ash Wednesday gives us the opportunity to repent as a community, to pray together, to enact the ritual of the imposition of ashes with one another, to make our commitment to a Lenten discipline together, and to realize that no one is alone on the journey. We wear the ashes of sin and repentance collectively as well as individually.

~ Pastor Deb