Sermon for Ash Wednesday
Sermon starts at 15:18
Comedian Emo Philips tells a story about an encounter he had on a bridge with a man about to jump:
“I said, “Don’t do it!”
He said, “Nobody loves me.”
I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?”
He said, “A Christian.”
I said, “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me too! What franchise?”
He said, “Baptist.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
I said, “Die, heretic!”
And I pushed him off the bridge.”
Obviously, that’s a joke.
But it’s a joke about what happens when faith stays on the surface—
when being right matters more than being loving,
and religion doesn’t change the way we actually live.
Surface-level religion is about doctrines, laws, and rituals. It’s the kind of religion where people worry about who is really “saved” and who isn’t. Who belongs and who doesn’t.
The surface-level is where different religions clash and beliefs compete.
That’s where faith becomes something to defend, perform, or argue about.
It’s a bit like the spokes of a wheel:
Out at the rim, the spokes are far apart. But the deeper they go, the closer they come to each other.
When the spokes reach the center of the wheel, the distinction between one spoke and another has become less meaningful.
That’s something many of the great spiritual masters have pointed toward.
And that’s what Jesus means when he talks about “your Father who is in secret.”
The secret in which God dwells is the secret of existence itself.
I don’t have perfect language for this, but here’s the best way I know how to say it.
God isn’t an object we possess, and not really a thing we can point to.
God is something that happens—an event that unfolds.
And it almost always happens quietly, in secret, in the deepest parts of our lives.
So maybe another way to say this is that God isn’t so much a noun as a verb.
And if that sounds strange—or even a little unsettling—I’d point us back to Scripture itself.
Scripture says, in 1 John 4:16, “God is love.”
And love isn’t a thing we possess.
Love is something that happens.
It’s something we do.
So if God is love, and love is a verb, then God is a verb too.
That’s what I mean when I say: God happens.
Quietly.
In secret.
So when I say I believe in God, what I really mean is that I trust in love.
I trust that love is not wasted.
I trust in the power of love—to heal, to forgive, to repair what feels broken.
And I trust that when love happens, God happens—often quietly, often in secret.
This ought to reframe the whole idea of the Christian religion for us.
Our instinct is to turn the spiritual life into a project.
To ask, Am I doing enough? Am I doing it right?
But Jesus keeps pulling us back to a different question.
Not what am I doing?
But how am I doing it—and why?
Am I doing this to be seen by others?
Am I doing it to earn God’s approval?
Or am I doing it to make room for love to take deeper root in my life?
Because if God happens quietly, then the loudest things in our spiritual life may be the very ones getting in the way of our true spiritual growth.
The spiritual path that Jesus offers us isn’t about finding the perfect Lenten discipline.
Lent gives us many possible practices:
fasting,
prayer,
journaling,
walking,
volunteering,
caring for the body,
stepping back from habits that drain us rather than give us life.
All of these are potentially helpful.
But none of them is the point by itself.
The point is whether our spiritual practices help us attend to the depths—
whether they move us away from performance and toward presence,
away from the surface and into the quiet places where love can happen.
Jesus assumes we will pray.
He assumes we will give.
He assumes we will fast.
But underneath all of it, he keeps asking the same question:
Who is this for?
In a few moments, visible ashes will be placed on our foreheads.
But the reality they point to is not visible.
They point to the quiet truth that we are finite, and fragile, and loved anyway.
So maybe that’s the invitation of Lent:
not to add more religion to our lives,
but to descend.
To attend.
To trust that love—practiced quietly, imperfectly, often unseen—is where God is already happening.
May this be a season where we stop trying to prove our faith,
and start practicing trust.
May we choose paths that lead us inward,
away from the surface,
and into the secret places where love takes on flesh.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 