“The Good News Is…All Are Invited” a sermon on Luke 14:15-24

Luke 14:15-24
“The Good News Is…All Are Invited”
Preached Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Today you are getting the soft launch of our new Sermon series. I’ll introduce the theme again on Sunday morning as we’ll have more people there…but that’s not holding us here tonight back from starting our Lenten journey of rooting ourselves in The Good News.

Our sermon series this Lent is entitled, “Tell Me Something Good: Grounding Ourselves in the Good News this Lent.”

Lent is often viewed through a negative lens. Yes, it’s a season of fasting, of repentance, of turning back to God. Traditionally, Lent was a time for new converts or those who needed to be welcomed back into the fold of the Church, to study and learn about the core tenants of the Christian faith. It is a season of focusing on the Gospel. And the Gospel inherently means, “Good News.”

Perhaps like me, your soul is deeply longing for some Good News.

I think our world is deeply longing for Good News. And I think we all desperately need to hear the Good News of the Gospel. It is a tragedy of our current world that many non-churched people or folks who have left the Church, don’t see the Christian church spreading “Good” News - what they’re heard coming from the mouths of preachers or through the actions of people who confess Jesus with their mouths and deny him with their actions are anything but “good.” The Good News must be what the angels pronounced at the birth of Christ: “Good News of Great Joy for all people.” If it’s not that, it ain’t the Gospel.

I think people who already know Jesus and his Good News need to reconnect to the Goodness of the Gospel message too. In a world of so much “bad” - it’s all too easy to become disconnected from the core Goodness of the Gospel.

And so this Lent, we will focus on the Gospel. We will focus on news that is Good for all. We will repent of all that is not the Good News of the Gospel.

And so today we are going to perform two rituals to connect us to the Good News of the Gospel: the imposition of ashes and Holy Communion. Let’s talk about the meaning of each, the goodness inherent in them, and what practicing them together this Ash Wednesday has to say to us.

First: the imposition of ashes.

Throughout Scripture, ashes are used as a sign of repentance and humility. In the Old Testament they are regularly used to convey sorrow for one’s sins, a desire for forgiveness and return to right living with God. Part of humbling ourselves before God with the imposition of ashes, is recognizing our own mortality and relationship to God. The Divine Creator of the Universe formed us from dust - and when we die, our bodies are meant to be returned to the earth, decomposed, becoming one with the earth again - dirt, dust, ash. When our mortal bodies return to the ground, our eternal souls are in the presence of God, the one who created us and the one who is forever and ever our God.

I have always held that Ash Wednesday is one of the most counter-cultural traditions of the Church.

We live in a culture where humility is not seen as a virtue. We admire those and give positions of power to those who puff themselves up - who have endless wealth. Who get what they want and do whatever they want with little to no accountability. If we too could just do the impossible task of pulling ourselves up by our boot straps and become billionaires, we too could be like gods and so our culture tells us to puff ourselves up, to live large and in-charge, to move through this world with heavy footsteps as one determined to leave a mark of our own greatness.

We live in a world where we pretend that death and grief are not real. We hide death away - regulate it to hospital rooms where death is seen as the loss of a great fight, not a fate that eventually will meet us all. We embalm the dead bodies of loved ones, making them look as if they are just asleep and keeping their mortal forms from becoming one with the earth again. We expect people to mourn in private - especially after the funeral. And if it’s “too long” after to get over it, as if grief isn’t complicated and something we live with our whole lives after losing a loved one. And we don’t deal well with our own mortality - so often sticking our heads in the sand rather than dealing with eventual fate - whether that is our aging bodies or the fact that none of us are promised tomorrow.

A Christianity that seeks and admires worldly power, that is proud, that is focused on individual greatness is not the Good News of the Gospel.
A Christianity that hides away from death and grief, that pretends that we will live forever, that death will never touch us is not the Good News of the Gospel.

Ash Wednesday is deeply counter-cultural.

On Ash Wednesday we say we are not gods. We are not powerful. We are not great. One of the traditional readings for Ash Wednesday is from Psalm 22 that compares ourselves to worms before God. That might be too strong language for my tastes because each of us is beloved and special in the eyes of God. Each of us is called to love ourselves. We are to love God and neighbor as self - that means we need to love self too. That self-love though is a love that comes with a dose of humility. We are loved by God and held in the hands of God. The Creator of the Universe made us out of dust and to dust we shall return. We are mortal. Our time on earth is limited. We will die. And, we are not afraid of that death.

Henri Nouwen wrote this on accepting our deaths, “Death is such a mystery. Forcing us to ask ourselves - why do I live? How do I live? For whom do I live?
And also, am I prepared to die? Now? Later?...
…When you are no longer afraid of your own death, then you can live fully, freely and joyfully.”

And so Ash Wednesday causes us to pause and view our limited earthly lives in light of God’s eternal and Divine love for us. To move beyond fear of death to acceptance. That acceptance makes us ask questions: How are we to move through this world knowing that we are just passing through? How are we to live in this world knowing that God is ultimately in charge? How should we spend our precious days on this earth knowing that we will all stand before God - sooner or later - and we will be asked by the God who is Love how we loved God, loved neighbor, and loved self in this life?

This is what it means to put ashes on our foreheads. We are to repent from the norms of this world that would have us living in ways that are not loving, that are contrary to the Good News of the Gospel. This requires humility, it requires us grappling with our mortality, and it requires us - in light of those things, to commit to leading lives of Love - Love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. In our precious limited life spans, to choose a life rooted in love - this is the Good News of the Gospel presented to us on Ash Wednesday through the imposition of ashes.

The second ritual we are participating in today is Holy Communion.

There is so so so much Good News present in this holy ritual.

There is the Good News of Christ’s death and resurrection.
There is the Good News that through this meal we are empowered to be Christ to and for others.
There is the Good News that this table connects us to Christians in all times and places who participated or will participate in this meal.
There is the Good News that this table is just a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that we will all one day feast at.
There is the Good News that Christ is present in this meal through the Holy Spirit and participating in this meal is a guaranteed encounter with the Divine.

There is so much Good News in this meal - and the Good News I want to focus on right now is that all are invited.

In The United Methodist Church we practice an Open Table. That means we do not put hoops you have to jump through, barriers you have to climb over, in order to receive this sacrament. You do not have to be a United Methodist, you do not have to be a member of this church, you do not even have to be baptized in order to receive - all you have to want is to encounter our risen and loving Lord in the bread and the cup.

The invitation is truly for all - the question is, are we accepting it?

In this evening’s Gospel lesson we heard of a parable of a banquet feast where those invited did not accept the invitation - those who would have been on equal social standing with the host of the party make up excuses of other things to do. They will not be attending dinner. And so the invitation is extended - to the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Those who would have been considered - and often still are considered - the last and the least. The invitations, however, do not stop there. After that, the host then tells his servant to go into the streets and compel anyone and everyone - any who will accept the invitation - to come in and feast.

So often our invitations to the tables we sit at look like the first round of invitations the host sent out - invitations to those of the same social standing or sphere. So often our tables are full of people who look, act, and think just like us. This is not the Good News of the Gospel.

The Good News of the Gospel is that the invitation is truly to all.

At the birth of Christ the angels proclaimed “Good News of Great Joy for all people.” That is echoed in this parable - all are invited to come and feast with Christ, all are invited into the Kingdom of heaven - all - and especially the last, the lost, and the least. This is the Good News of the Gospel. This is the Good News we are rooting ourselves in today.

And so it is at this point where you may ask, Pastor Allison, where is the overlap? How do these two rituals we are participating in today overlap for us? Where is their interaction of Good News? I want to lift up three brief but very Good intersections between the two rituals.

One - Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality. The table reminds us that this is but a foretaste of the heavenly banquet table. Even in the midst of our world where there is so much grief, death, and general hopelessness - there is hope. There is something more. Remembering our mortality is not all doom and gloom and sadness - remembering our mortality reminds us that the life after this one is a big party with a generous and lavish table overflowing with food, laughter, and joy.

Two - That heavenly banquet table is more diverse and more beautiful in its diversity than we could ever imagine. People of every race, ethnicity, culture, gender, age, ability, social status, etc, etc, etc are surrounding that banquet table. This is something to celebrate and it also should give us a dose of humility - that same humility we accept when we receive ashes. We need to remember that we are but one guest at a table where all are invited. It should make us pause and to consider how we treat and love our fellow guests. And even who we are inviting to feast with us at our earthly tables?

And finally, three - just as the act of receiving ashes is extremely counter-cultural in a world that values pride and power and hides from death and grief, inviting everyone to the table, and even eating at a table full of every diversity under the sun, is highly counter-cultural as well. In The Moral Teachings of Jesus, David P. Gushee writes: “It is as if Jesus is looking at every social gathering that he witnesses as a rehearsal for that great messianic banquet in the upside-down kingdom of God. And he suggests that we had better start thinking and acting in this same upside-down way if we wish to be ready for that day.” Ash Wednesday and indeed the whole season of Lent is a counter-cultural or upside down way of life. It is repenting of the ways of this world and following the ways of Jesus. It is rejecting the Bad News of the World - that which is Power and the lie of Earthly Immortality. It is rejecting the Bad News of the World which limits who receives an invitation to the table based on social status, ability, or a myriad of other divisions. It is rejecting all that is not the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is Good News of Great Joy for all people.

The Good News that we are but dust - and in being dust, are eternally cared for and loved by the Creator of the Universe who is the God of Love who formed us out of the dust.
The Good News that we are all invited to the table.
The Good News that all of us can humble ourselves and accept that invitation.

Today, this Ash Wednesday, let us embrace the Good News by humbling ourselves through the imposition of ashes to accept God’s invitation - to the banquet feast and to a life rooted in the Good News.

Amen.

"What's Love Got to Do With It?" an Ash Wednesday sermon on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
“What’s Love Got to Do With It?”
Preached Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024

There has been much amusement and speculation about Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day falling on the same day. Now, the last time this happened was just a few short years ago - 2018. But before that the last time it happened was 1945. Pastor friends have joked about making ashes in the shape of a heart on people’s foreheads. Still others have been sharing memes or little comics about the coincidence. My favorite is the one where someone asks a pastor what their Valentine’s Day plans are. To which the pastor says, “smearing dirt on people’s foreheads and reminding them of their mortality.” To which the pastor is met with a face of shock.

I have particularly enjoyed the Ash Wednesday Valentine Day Cards that have popped up on my Facebook news feed. Who doesn’t want a romantic card that says, “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, being my Valentine, is an Ash Wednesday Must.” For others, they say they will give up chocolate for Lent….starting tomorrow. Others are bummed their Valentine’s Day celebrations will be filled with ashes and reminders of mortality…

But since Valentine’s Day isn’t just the Hallmark celebration of love but the Roman Catholic celebration of the Feast Day of St. Valentine ...which is the anniversary of Valentine being bludgeoned with clubs and beheaded so…I don’t think he’ll mind so much that his day is a day that is shared with reminders of our own mortality. It might not fit well on a greeting card - but it is apt for the religious reasons behind this day.

And I would say these days aptly go together for another reason: Because both days really are about love. For us Christians gathered together today to start our Lenten journey together, to repent, to remember our mortality, and to participate in the imposition of ashes - we might wonder what does love have to do with ashes? Or, in the words of Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it?”

Well, actually, everything.

While Valentine’s Day focuses on human love that has its barriers, faults, and limitations, Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent serve as reminders of God’s perfect, limitless love.

In today’s reading from Joel, the prophet reminds us that God is abounding with steadfast love. That steadfast love is with us in all seasons of the Christian year and seasons of our lives. And yet we often fail to recognize it or live our lives in accordance with it.

Enter the season of Lent. A time in the lives of Christians to repent and redirect our lives toward God - this is in preparation both for Easter, Christ’s resurrection, and Christ’s final, triumphant return and redemption of all creation.

Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, traditionally serves as a reminder of our mortality and our limitations and the need to repent in light of those things. We gather together to worship God, to read Scripture, to confess our sins, and to be reminded of our mortality, that from dust we came and from dust we shall return. This is one of the most counter-cultural observances of the Church. As a society, we like to pretend that we are infinite. We imagine ourselves like little Buzz Lightyears, all saying together, “To infinity and beyond!” We shy away from death - relegating it to hospitals, funeral homes, out of our homes, and every day sight. But it is an everyday occurance, it is part of our reality. It will happen to each and every one of us. And so, we need to be reminded of our humanness, our faults, our limitations, our mortality. We can think of Ash Wednesday as a test of our emergency broadcast system, as Joel said, “Blow the trumpet, sound the alarm!” It’s our yearly reminder that while we are yet alive, we came from dust and to dust we shall return.

And love is at the center of that statement.

God made us out of dust because God loves us.

The book of Genesis creates an image of a loving God. A God that takes their own spit, mixes it with the dirt on the ground, and with their own hands, fashions humankind in God’s image. This is a hands-on God, a God who puts their own self, their spit, their sweat, their blood into their creation. A God that looks at it and blesses it and says it is “very good.” This is our loving Creator God who made us from dust and watches over us.

And Scripture tells us that because God first loved us, we can love. And so the repentance of Ash Wednesday and of Lent is really a return to that love. We have stored up our treasure in earthly things. In things that are finite, in things that moth and rust consume, where thieves break in and steal. In titles, in money and other measures of success. In ourselves and our selfish desires. In our own insular circles. In things that don’t honor and glorify God. Ash Wednesday is a reminder that our treasure is where our heart is - and while we are called to love God, our hearts are often preoccupied with other earthly things.

And so Joel says to return to the Lord “with all your heart.” God wants all of our heart, of our love. And so on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are mortal. And that every life is a gift, no matter how long or how short that life is - and that God loves that life. And we need to use whatever finite time we have, to love God and to love neighbor. To live lives not for ourselves but to glorify God and to serve our neighbors. And so when we repent, when we lament, those are songs of love to God. As we turn from our sinful ways, from self-centeredness, from greed, from whatever is stopping us from loving others - we are moving toward the love of God.

So on days like Ash Wednesday, we mourn our own mortality. We lament our errors and sinfulness and we repent - we turn toward God, toward Love.

And so what form does this repentance, does this love take during Lent? Let’s take a look at the text from Matthew. This text is not telling us to not practice piety…

It is telling us that when we give alms, give not out of your own gratification, but give out of love.

When you pray, do so not out of wanting to look good, but for love of God and those we pray for.

And when we fast, when we receive ashes on our foreheads, don’t do it as a way to impress others with how religious you are, do it for your relationship with God. To prayerfully and purposefully deepen your relationship with a God who loves you and a God who desires you to return to God with all your heart.

And so today, ashes to ashes, dust to dust - What’s love got to do, got to do with it? Everything.

Amen.

"Is This The Fast I Choose?" an Ash Wednesday sermon on Isaiah 58:1-12

Isaiah 58:1-12
“Is This The Fast That I Choose?”
Preached Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2023

We’ve been here before.

We’ve been here before - the middle of February in Ohio. It’s gray and dark and sometimes we have to stop and think how many days it's been since we’ve seen the sun. We’re wondering if Spring will ever come again…and on those weird 60 degree days, we are worried about climate change rather than hopeful about Spring.

We’ve been here before - hearing Isaiah 58 in worship. Just two weeks ago we were here, in this sanctuary, talking about the fast we choose. Talking about the disconnect between our desires and our actions. The disconnect between God’s will for us and what we choose. Talking about choosing the fast of feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and removing the burden from the oppressed.

We’ve been here before - news of another shooting in the news. 3 dead teenagers at Michigan state. Diagnoses from doctors. Illnesses. Long covid and cancer. War is raging - threats of nuclear disaster linger. Closer to home we are worried about the devastating effects of the train derailment in East Palestine. Will our drinking water be clean? The air we breathe? Headlines detail a rise in despots, dictatorship, and fundamentalism. My friend’s synagogue is ordering metal detectors - again - as an anti-semitism rally is happening down the street. The world seems too dark.

We’ve been here before - the beginning of Lent. How will we mark this season? Will we mark this season? Do our fasts, our prayers, make a difference? Do our good works amount to anything? Is it really already Lent again? And will it make any difference?

We’ve been here before…

Let’s take a deep breath.

Ash Wednesday has a reputation as this kind of depressing day - we get ashes, burned from the palms we waved last Palm Sunday, we get ashes on our foreheads and we tell each other, “From dust you came and from dust you will return.” The non-sugar coated way of saying this is, “You will die.” But we already have a hard time getting people to come to church so we don’t say this - we use a little more pretty language. But why do this in the first place? Why this day? Why this ritual?

Is it because we are morbid and depressed? Because we’ve given up on this life and what we do in it?

No! It’s the opposite.

We do this because how we use our time here matters. In her book, “No Cure For Being Human,” Kate Bowler, when she was diagnosed with cancer and the doctor told her that her days were numbered, said this: “In my finite life, the mundane has begun to sparkle. The things I love—the things I should love—become clearer, brighter.” She grapples with the news that her days with her husband and son are numbered - she wonders, how many more nights will I have to read this boy in dinosaur pajamas a book before bed? But when confronted with her finitude, that her time was no longer the infiniteness that most of us go about thinking it is - how she lived her life in the present mattered more than ever.

Isaiah asks, “Is this the fast I choose?” Because the fast we choose does matter. It matters to us and to God. It matters that our heart’s desire for God and our actions of caring for neighbor match up. It matters what we do, here and now, this Lent.

We also do this ritual of ashes and of Lent because it reminds us that, ultimately, we are God’s. In Genesis we are given the metaphor of God lovingly forming humanity out of spit and dirt, dust, ash. The Psalms tell us that God knew us intimately before we were born, knit us together in the dark of our mothers’ wombs. And, when this life is over, we return to God. The maker of us and the maker of all the world who has plans to redeem all creation - we belong to that Maker God. And that God invites us into those plans for redemption, here and now, in this life. Redemption can seem so far away - so let’s work with God to bring that day nearer.

And so, as we say “We’ve been here before…” it is never hopeless and always worth it to say again: “This is the fast I choose.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a member of Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a professor at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her book, “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants” is one I’ve mentioned in preaching before and have talked about with many of you - for me, it was a huge perspective changing book and perhaps one of the most important works of non-fiction for our age. In an interview with the New York Times about her book and this path to environmental destruction that our world seems to be on, she says this:

“The story that we have to illuminate is that we don’t have to be complicit with destruction. That’s the assumption: that there are these powerful forces around us that we can’t possibly counteract. The refusal to be complicit can be a kind of resistance to dominant paradigms, but it’s also an opportunity to be creative and joyful and say, I can’t topple Monsanto, but I can plant an organic garden; I can’t counter fill-in-the-blank of environmental destruction, but I can create native landscaping that helps pollinators in the face of neonicotinoid pesticides. Which research has suggested is especially harmful to wild bees and bumblebees. So much of what we think about in environmentalism is finger-wagging and gloom-and-doom, but when you look at a lot of those examples where people are taking things into their hands, they’re joyful. That’s healing not only for land but for our culture as well — it feels good.”

In light of this, when we say, “This is the fast I choose” - can it be joyful? Can it feel good? When we say, “Is this the fast I choose?” we are saying that we will fast…

To fast from complicitness
To fast from apathy
To fast from cynicism
To fast from despair
To fast for hate
To fast from isms and prejudice
To fast from the destructive ways of this world
Using church language we would say, to fast from evil, to fast from sin

We live out this fast by choosing those things which are in line with God’s will, to love God and love neighbor.

To fast by planting a garden
To fast by saying thank you
To fast by writing our representatives on issues of gun control and war and discrimination bills so that we can live in a safer, more just and peaceable world
To fast by making peace in our own little corners of the world
To fast by working on healing our own trauma
To fast as Isaiah says: To fast by giving bread to the hungry, To fast by giving homes to the homeless, clothes to the naked
To fast by removing burdens from others
To fast by freeing others from oppression
To fast by doing whatever we can within our lives and our spheres to make this world more like the world in God’s plan of redemption, a day when every weapon is beaten into plowshares, there are no more tears, no more death - and peace and love reign.

We’ve been here before, asking - “Is this the fast I choose?” And it is always worth it to say, yes.

Amen.

"With All That You Are" an Ash Wednesday sermon on Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
“With All That You Are”
Preached Wednesday, March 2, 2022 (Ash Wednesday)

One of my mantras or rules of life that I often repeat, to myself and others, is that my worth is found first and foremost in God. The God who created me, knows me, loves me - unconditionally. Second - and this is even a very far second from number 1 - but second - my worth is found in my family, friends, and those who love me. And third - and this is waaaaay below the second one - everything else. My job, my accomplishments, the church, everything else.

Of course, maybe this is one of my mantras or rules that I repeat often to myself and others because…And I’m about to show my cards and get a little vulnerable here: caring what people think about me is something that I struggle with and I very easily slip into measuring my worth by my productivity, my resume, my accomplishments or what people think about me - the praise I did or did not receive, the criticism that’s been nagging at me…

While I strive to remind myself that my worth is in God alone - followed by my relationships with those I love and who love me - my natural default is to care too much about what people think. I work hard on keeping my focus of my inner worth on being a beloved child of God cause it’s all too easy for me to get lost in what others think of me.

And I won’t ask you to raise your hand if you’ve ever cared about what others think about you - for while it may ebb and flow throughout our lives - we’re all human, so of COURSE, at some point, you have cared too much about what others think of you.

So with that in mind - let’s turn our attention to today’s Gospel lesson.

Now, isn’t it kind of…ironic? That on a day where we literally put ashes on our foreheads - something that draws people’s attention and makes us stand out - that the assigned Gospel reading, every year, is this reading from Matthew? That tells us to not practice our piety before others. To not make a big deal when we give money. To not pray in public. To not fast before others….

Except that’s not actually what the Scripture says, right? Like, I know I’ve had conversations with some of you before about, “Is it okay to say grace before eating in a public restaurant cause the Scripture says to not pray in front of others?” But that’s not actually what the Scripture says.

The Scripture says to not practice piety in public if you’re only practicing piety in public so that you’re seen practicing piety.
It says not to make a big deal when you give money cause you shouldn’t give money just because you want to be praised for it.
The Scripture says not to pray in public…if you love to be seen praying in public. If you’re praying in public just so people will look at you and say or think, “Oh, what a good person.”
The same thing with fasting in public.

It comes down to the question - do you do what you do to have a right relationship with God? Or because you care what people think and say about you?

This passage ends with the famous line:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

And while we often talk about this line in stewardship and giving and material goods - I would also make an argument that it’s applicable to how we view ourselves, how we take stock of our worth.

If we place our worth, how we view ourselves, here on earth, well, it won’t end well. Moth and rust and thieves will obfuscate our worth, stealing it, hiding it, eating away at it - making it harder to see ourselves as the beloved children of God that we are. When we place our worthiness in the things of this world, too easily our hearts and lives follow, and the things of this world - what it deems as success, what it has to offer us, how it will treat us and talk about us - it will never be equal to the worth that God places on us. What God has for us is unconditional love, an unconditional love for all that we are, every part of us, God loves us. That’s our worth. And that alone. And it’s never ever too late to turn to God, with all that we are and place our worth in eternal things. As the Scripture from Joel says, “Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart…” With all your heart and all that you are…

So today, when we receive ashes - people will likely notice! Cause it’s a little strange - to get ashes on the forehead and walk around with them. But when we get ashes on our foreheads it’s a way to say, “the things of this earth, including myself, are not permanent. I remind myself that from dust I came and to dust I will return so that I will not get lost in the things of this world. Instead I will turn my mind to things eternal - like God’s eternal, undying love for me.”

This evening, I hope you will leave here not just with ashes but with this handout as a gift. Now, if you’re online, this went out as an attachment from the email with the Ash Wednesday bulletin. If you still need it you can email the office. But this is called a “Wellness Wheel” and it says it’s an assessment tool for expansive living.

So, when we care what this world thinks about us, it limits us. It places constraints on us. It keeps us from being the full and expansive person that God created us to be. Now, in Lent we often think about taking stock of our lives and giving something up so that we can focus on God more. And that’s okay if we do that. AND, I would like to invite you to take stock of your life, not just for a 40 day fast from something, but to take stock of your life so that, knowing that our worth is found fully in God, we can unabashedly and without fear, live the love-filled life that Jesus calls us to.

This wellness wheel is a tool for that. To consider all areas of your life: the emotional, spiritual, social, financial, physical, mental, environmental, and occupational areas of your life. To ask yourself: knowing that my worth is fully in God, am I living into that in *this* area of my life? What does a life where I know that God loves me, all of, unconditionally - what does that look like for me?

By recognizing our mortality today with the sign of ashes, I would pray that it would be an opportunity to focus not on the things of this earth, but to lay up our treasure, our whole selves, our worth, our wellbeing, our lives in heaven and in doing so, live more fully in this life, knowing that the only opinion that matters is God’s - and God loves us, each of us, you, me, all, unconditionally.

Amen.