Preached on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, Ash Wednesday, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Little Rock.

“Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart…” (Joel 2:12)

Ash Wednesday is all about returning. But returning from where? And where are we returning to? Let’s take up each of those two questions.

So, first: returning from where? Notice that the prophet Joel does not address people who are mildly distracted. He addresses people who are totally lost, people who have drifted into the quiet but deadly illusion that they can manage their lives, their sins, and even their souls on their own. And if we are honest, that is exactly where many of us find ourselves today. 

We are returning from our isolation—not merely the isolation of loneliness, but the deeper isolation of self-reliance. We have convinced ourselves that, with enough discipline, enough sincerity, enough effort, we can straighten ourselves out. At its worst, Lent becomes one more self-improvement project: we give something up, we take something on, we make a plan, and we begin to believe that our clever Lenten disciplines might save the day.

The prophet will have none of it.

“Return to me with all your heart… rend your hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:12). In other words: God is not interested in our spiritual theatrics. God is not impressed by our carefully curated acts of devotion. The prophet is exposing something far more disturbing in us. We are very good at doing religious things while keeping our actual hearts at a safe distance from God. We imagine that a slightly more disciplined Lent will tidy everything up. It will not.

Ash Wednesday is not the Church’s annual reminder to try harder. Ash Wednesday is the Church’s annual interruption of the lie that we were ever capable of fixing ourselves in the first place. The ashes on our foreheads are not badges of spiritual seriousness. They are outward admissions of our helplessness. And that is where we are returning from: the weary, anxious, deeply ingrained illusion that we can help ourselves.

Which brings us to the second question: just where are we returning to?

Listen to the prophet Joel: “Return to the LORD, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:12b).

Notice the order. The prophet does not say, “Fix yourselves so that God might become merciful.” He says God is already merciful, already gracious, already abounding steadfast love. The entire possibility of repentance rests not on the strength of our return but on the character of the One Who calls us to return in the first place. 

This is the quiet scandal at the heart of Ash Wednesday. We can return because God has first turned toward us. We can repent because God is already disposed to mercy. As our collect for today puts it, “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made…” [1]

And this is where our Lenten disciplines finally find their proper place. Prayer, fasting, repentance, alms-giving: these are not ways of fixing ourselves as much as they are ways of returning, drawing closer to the God Who calls each of us back to Himself. They are simply the ways we stop running away from God to begin with. They are the ways we loosen our grip on the fantasy of self-salvation. They are the ways we allow ourselves to return.

And if we are honest, even that is hard. Many of us would prefer a Lent that feels more manageable, more achievable, more within our control. There is something deeply uncomfortable about admitting that even our best efforts cannot heal what is most broken in us.

But this is the strange mercy of the Gospel. God does not wait for our competence. God does not require our spiritual success. God calls us precisely in our inability. “Yet even now,” says the LORD––not when you have improved, and not when you have proven yourself, but even now” (Joel 2:12).

So today, we return, not as the spiritually impressive ones, but as the ones who finally know that we cannot fix ourselves, the ones who are beginning––perhaps for the first time in a long while!––to trust that God is already merciful enough and loving enough to receive us anyway. Amen.

[1] 1979 Book of Common Prayer, page 217.