2026 Lent sermons will all
begin with this quote from sculptor and environmentalist Anthony Goldsworthy.
We often forget that we are
nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have
lost our connection to nature, we have lost our connection to ourselves.
Ash Wednesday liturgy draws
attention to our nature and God’s nature via nature.
An invitation is offered this
evening to receive ashes in the form of a cross on your forehead. The ashes are
burnt palm fronds from a past Palm Sunday. The palms and the ash are nature, as
in creation.
We are marked with a cross
as we hear, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” In this marking we are
confronted with God’s nature - a God who out of great love dies on a cross so
that humans might grasp the unending lengths that God will go to love, and to
continue in pursuit of relationship with humanity.
We come face to face with our
human nature – in the bodily reality of death and decay, dust to dust. We too confess
that human nature holds a sinful rebellion, an inability to fully and
unconditionally love, that separates us from God, our neighbours, and creation.
Ash Wednesday liturgy is
like a turning over of sods. It is like a farmer plowing untilled land to make
a field to farm on. In the turning over of the sod, roots, rocks, worms,
insects, and soil are exposed. There is ground – earth- ready for intentional
tending and working: the rocks are removed; roots are loosened and withered;
sunshine and rain naturally soak in; and there is hoeing and weeding and the
adding of mulch. Before seeding the ground will be plowed again. The field will
be prepared with furrows ready to receive seeds.
Lent works the sods – the
ground- that we turn over on Ash Wednesday.
Lent is about Grounding. Through
the hearing of scripture, singing minor-toned hymns, reflection, disciplines,
and practices we tend and work the ground within. We pick out rocks – the items
no longer serving us; we loosen that which binds our spirits, soak in that
which gives us hope and the capacity for compassion; we hoe and weed our
opinions, understandings, and morals. Lent -especially in Northern climates- is
the time we start to long for spring, for soil, for blooming Easter. To get to blooming – first the sod is turned
and the ground is tended and worked with care – this journey reconnects us to
nature: our nature, human nature, God’s nature.
Sunday texts in Lent will
journey across and through various soils. We visit a garden, walk a caravan
route, find ourselves in the wilderness, stand in a grassy field, and end in a
dry river valley. Each soil story contains wisdom to help us ground ourselves, reconnecting
to nature – creation, our nature, human nature, God’s nature. You are invited
to work with ancient farming techniques (all found on the table at the back of
the sanctuary): finger labyrinths, an everyday prayer, and devotional booklets.
Come Holy Week we seed the soil with sandpaper, nails, and colour swatches.
It is hard to be grounded in
today’s world. There is so much that disturbs and poisons the soil: climate
crisis, wars and rumours of war, economic tariffs/trade disputes, instability
in pubic and government systems and institutions, the rise of AI, inundation of
electromagnetic waves … you know what untethers you, what untethers human
nature. We are like dust in the wind.
To be Grounded.
There is a recurring
experience for me – where every time it happens – I am 100% completely
grounded. The event connects me to nature, Mother Earth. The moment calms
everything in my own nature – my whole system resets and rejuvenates. The
experience breathes God’s breath and that which seemed lost is resurrected.
This grounding moment happens
when gentle rain falls on dry soil, causing geosmin – the compound created by
dying bacteria, mixing with plant oil – to spring into the air. That earthy smell
when the rain first hits the ground is called petrichor.
Petrichor is an
instantaneous grounding moment for me.
And it is not just me. The
human nose is sensitive to geosmin. Scientists speculate that the earthy odour
and taste is a nod to the past, when the scent of rain was important for
survival. It is in our nature to respond to petrichor. And it is not our nature
alone, the nature of camels in the desert is to rely on the smell of petrichor
to find oasis --- life-giving water.
Refreshed earth. Released
tension. Rehydrated. Nourished. Grounded.
The rituals of Ash Wednesday
and Holy Week act in a similar way. They reach that which has been buried,
grown over, malnourished, or is blowing in the wind, and instantaneously ground
the moment.
Grounded with ash is the
petrichor moment of this evening.
It is a moment of
grace-filled energy that springs up around us as we accept our human nature –
that we are dust – that we are poor farmers who require help. In admitting we
are ungrounded, in turning over the sod within us, God’s nature rains and warms
the soil. Reconnecting, refreshing, and in days to come resurrecting in us that
which is dry, disturbed, and disconnected.
Tonight, we turn over the
sod.
That is all that is being
asked.
We expose our human nature.
Trusting the response of God’s nature.
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