Ash Wednesday The Rev’d Charles Everson Church of the Atonement February 18, 2026 On this Ash Wednesday [1] , as we kneel to receive ashes and hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the Church does not leave us in despair. She does not simply remind us that we are sinners and then send us home. She places before us concrete paths of repentance – tried and true paths that lead not to shame, but to life. Repentance is not a vague feeling of

Aaron Johnson +In the name of the loving, liberating, and life-giving God. Amen. Today’s lessons offer images of ascent: people climbing into the clouds and encountering God. In our first lesson, Moses is told to come up to Sinai to receive the law. The mountain is shrouded in cloud until the seventh day, when God appears to Moses “like a devouring fire,” and Moses stays forty days and nights. Scripture loves numbers; they carry symbolic weight. Seven speaks of completion or

Epiphany V – Isaiah 58:1-9a Church of the Atonement The Rev’d Charles Everson February 8, 2026 No one wakes up one morning and decides, on a whim, to run a marathon. No sane person rolls out of bed, laces up their shoes, and says, “Today feels like a good day to run 26 miles.” Marathon runners train. They stretch. They build endurance gradually, preparing their bodies over time for what lies ahead. To do otherwise would be foolish, even dangerous. And yet, that is often how w