Ash Wednesday
Sermon for Ash Wednesday - 2026
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty
Ash Wednesday is honest in a way that makes many of us feel uneasy.
We come forward, we receive ashes, and we hear the words we cannot soften: you are dust, and to dust you shall return. There is no metaphor there. No workaround. No spiritual loophole. Just truth.
It reminds me of Nick Drake’s quiet, haunting song “Pink Moon.” The lyrics are simple and spare.
Saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get ye all
The pink moon, named for the first full moon of spring, is a sign of renewal. Think of flowers pushing up through cold ground, branches budding new leaves, life beginning again. But Drake holds both sides together: renewal is coming, and so is the end. No matter how carefully we tend our lives, no matter how impressive or devout we appear, the pink moon comes.
Ash Wednesday exists in the same space.
The ashes tell us how the story begins and ends. Lent asks us how we will live in the meantime.
Jesus is clear in tonight’s Gospel: faith is not about being seen doing the right things. Prayer, fasting, and generosity are not performances. They are practices. They are meant to shape us quietly, slowly, honestly; often in ways no one else notices.
To be fair, Jesus isn't criticizing public religion because it’s public. He criticizes performative religion that exists only to be noticed. Religion that forgets that the end is coming, and lives as if applause or spectacle can save us.
Similarly, Nick Drake’s song doesn’t panic about the pink moon. It doesn’t fight it. It simply acknowledges it. It’s coming. When you know the moon will rise no matter what, you stop wasting energy pretending you’re in control. You start paying attention to what actually matters.
The ashes on our foreheads are not proof that we are faithful. They are a reminder that we are mortal. And that realization is not meant scare us, it’s meant to make us tender. Intentional. Awake.
Lent is not about impressing God before the moon rises. It’s about learning how to live knowing it will. The end will come, but the intentionality of our piety towards God and our love for our neighbor will help us make the most of it.
We pray not to sound holy, but to speak the truth of our heart. We fast not to punish ourselves, but to make room. We give not to be admired, but to loosen our grip.
Saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get ye all
Because the God who meets us in ashes is the same God who hangs the moon up over bare fields and calls that ending the beginning.
The ashes tell us how the story begins and ends. Lent asks us how we will live in the meantime.
