A Homily for Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Eucharist 

St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town

18th February 2026

Readings: Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51:1-17, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, welcome to this Ash Wednesday service. and to the beginning of our journey through Lent and Passiontide to the Glorious celebration of Easter. Lent is a time of preparation for that great feast, a time of penitence, of seeking humility, of finding and expressing our gratitude for God’s love for us and of facing our own mortality. It is, to sum up, a season in which we are called to embark on an earnest search for God, stripping away all in our lives which distracts us from God, and during which by the grace of God we can find hope and joy in our lives and those of our communities.

Our readings today – from David’s penitential psalm, to Isaiah’s classic ode to compassion and liberation, to Matthew’s prescription to the kind of prayer that comes from the heart and not merely from the lips – can help us to discover the true meaning and the potential impact of Lent on our lives in a time of moral uncertainty and confusion.

It is hard to overstate the depth of the sin that David was atoning for when he wrote Psalm 51, desperately appealing “Have mercy on me, O God,” “wash me thoroughly from my guilt,” and “do not take your holy spirit from me.” David was actually seeking forgiveness for what we describe today as gender-based violence – violence which he perpetrated on Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and which he then tried to cover up by orchestrating the death of Uriah.

In the context of the gender-based violence we experience in South Africa today, it needs to be emphasised that confession and contrition must include acceptance of the verdict of the judicial system. But accepting that, having confessed and shown repentance for our sins. what message does the passage from Isaiah have for us during Lent? Simply this: that the fast that is pleasing to God is one in which what others see reflects what is actually in our hearts. Our fast must be one in which we truly humble ourselves, in which metaphorically speaking, we wear sackcloth and ashes, to use the image which reflects how people showed repentance in Old Testament times. 

Such a fast promises us healing and restoration. But it also demands of us that we take the action so beautifully described in verses 6 and 7, and which played such an important role in the church struggle against apartheid: that we loose the chains of injustice, liberate the oppressed and provide food and housing for the poor. And underlining the importance of the outward observance of fasting reflecting a genuine inward faith, our reading from Matthew continues the emphasis on keeping a fast which reflects humility and integrity.

In a few moments we will have the sign of the Cross traced on our foreheads with ash. Ash has been  a symbol through the ages of our sad human reality, of our burnt-out lives, of our social realities, of the fires which rage and the shacks which burn in our informal settlements. In recent years, ash has represented, whether in Spain or Australia or the East Coast of the USA, the devastating fires that have caused such destruction as climate change and environmental squandering have made many parts of the world huge tinderboxes, not to speak of the ashes and rubble in Gaza, which represent the wholesale displacement of people.

Ash is indeed a symbol of fragility, vulnerability, poor choices and sin. That is true. But if it was the only truth, it would condemn us to a dark future. However, there is more to the ash you will receive today, because it is signed, not randomly, not as a smudge, but as a Cross, and that changes everything. The Cross reminds us that the ashes of our lives will be redeemed. As in nature, so too with us; scorched earth often yields new life, eco-systems re-activated and we rejoice in something better, more beautiful and bolder. 

Matthew understands that this hope, this renewal, our new humanity, is to be anchored in relationships. Thus he records Jesus reminding us of three traditional practices that we need to emulate in Lent if we are going to be open to transformation. Jesus reminds us firstly of the call to fast, which is all about our relationship with ourselves. Jesus then asks us to pray, which is about our relationship with God. Finally, Jesus challenges us to a generous giving of alms, which speaks to our relationship with others.

Christian fasting goes much deeper than the current fashionable practice of fasting linked to egotism and good health. It  reminds us that we are not sustained by bread alone, and speaks to the re-ordering of our desires. It exposes the subtle ways we attempt to assert an independence from God, and it creates space; space to listen, space to notice the hungry and those on the margins of society, space to rediscover and celebrate our dependence on God.

In his emphasis on prayer, Matthew calls on us to use it to help heal the wounds which cannot be seen. Wounds of abandonment, exclusion, racism, and patriarchy, all fester below the surface, in many people. In a nation that carries the residual trauma of apartheid, a nation that still experiences the very real trauma of violence – and especially the scourge of the abuse of women and children – prayer can never just be a private devotion. At its heart, prayer is fundamentally about transformation.

Finally, Jesus talks of alms-giving. In Biblical times, the giving of alms was more than making voluntary donations; it was a call to share justly. St. Augustine says that “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld”. Similarly, Madiba used to say that “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice.” We dare not forget that we live in a country marked by deep inequalities, by relentless hunger and thus a large part of our response must be responding to the challenge of those who have fasting forced on them and for whom Lent is a year-round hell. Some part of our fasting must speak into that reality, into advocacy for food security and a society where no one goes to bed hungry. In a country where informal settlements stand next to wealthy suburbs, where youth unemployment is at its highest, the giving of alms is a moral response to a shared humanity and Lent an opportunity to align our actions with our values.

Finally, listen to this insightful saying by one of the Desert Fathers: “We are dust, yes, but dust breathed upon by God.” Therefore we journey into this Lententide, not with the shadow of our ashes haunting us, but with indefinable hope. Go into Lent boldly filled with hope!

Amen.

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