One of the classic definitions of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." In that regard, we might understandably come to the conclusion that we live in a truly crazy world. Four or five thousand years of recorded history, filled with the same things, over and over again, and not surprisingly (or at least it shouldn’t be surprising), the same results. It’s like you can almost see the "great minds" sitting around brainstorming together: "Hey, I bet if we just have one more war, that at last that will put an end to violence and a millennium of peace will be ushered in." "Yeah," someone else agrees, "one more should do it. Let’s give it a try." Or, if we can just keep that one group in "their place," then life will be good. Or, maybe we can dump all this poisonous stuff in the water over there, and no harm will come from it. Or, maybe if we just let the free market do its work, everyone will work honestly and wisely and productively, and wealth will spread throughout the land, and greed will be no more. It’s insane.

You can often see the same insanity reflected on a more personal basis. A husband and a wife act as though they’re thinking, "If we just have this same argument that we’ve been having for the last ten years one more time, then surely we will come to a resolution." Or a parent thinks, "I know I’ve told my child this same thing at least a thousand times, but this time it’s bound to sink in and make a difference." And the child thinks, "At this point in the conversation, I always roll my eyes, go up to my room, and slam the door to make my point. I’ll try that again right now." It’s insane.

We replay the same conversations in our minds, some of them going back to our own childhoods. We act out the same responses to other people’s provocations. We do the same thing over and over again, no matter how unsuccessful or even hurtful to us and to others those actions have been in the past – but this time, we’re sure, we’ll get some different results.

Tonight we gather, and pray our Ash Wednesday prayer of confession: "We have sinned… by what we have done and by what we have left undone… We have not loved you with our whole heart… We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves…" We gather together and we confess our pride, envy, hypocrisy, apathy, self-indulgence, exploitation, negligence, neglect, indifference, prejudice, contempt, waste and pollution… Wait a minute, you say – didn’t we just confess all these same sins last year? Yes, we did. But we’re back again, so that our Ash Wednesday liturgy can question us one more time – "So," it says, like a liturgical version of Doctor Phil, "How did all that go for you this past year?" Did your pride and your prejudice get you anywhere different this year than in the past? Did your envy get you any better results this time around? Did your indifference and apathy manage to change anything for the better, any better than they did the year before or the year before that?

I can see why Ash Wednesday doesn’t bring out the crowds like Christmas and Easter do. Who wants to be brought face to face with their own insanity? – living life like we always have, and being surprised, somehow, that the results of it all don’t seem to change much from year to year.

You hear people say, "The world will never change. There will always be war." Well, yeah – as long as we continue to legitimize violence as a way of resolving conflict. "There will always be poverty and hunger." Well, yeah – as long as we continue to live in a way that celebrates greed as good and closes our eyes to the needs of others. "My life will never change." Well, yeah, probably not, as long as you stick to the same old ways of doing business.

Ah, Ash Wednesday! You know what they say – "Confession is good for the soul." And good for the psyche, too, because the first step in moving away from the past is almost always to admit to it, to name the good and especially the bad in it that needs to be named – to avoid avoidance; to deny denial; to embrace honesty honestly. For a new world to come into being, an old way of life has got to die.

Last night in the midst of the silliness and laughter of our Mardi Gras celebration, we took a few moments to set a fire. How’s this for symbolism? Remnants of the old palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration were set afire to create the ashes needed for this evening’s remembrance and repentance. I may read too much into these sorts of things, but this is what I make of it: it is as though we are saying, remember how we welcomed Jesus last year, on Palm Sunday, waving our branches in the air? How we said he was going to be our King? How we whooped and hollered at the thought of how glorious life would be? Our enemies defeated. Our troubles gone. And we ourselves, people of power and privilege and prestige, seated at Jesus’ left and Jesus’ right. Hosanna and Hallelujah!

But a funny thing happened as the year progressed. We turned out not to be quite the loyal subjects that a king might demand. And the King turned out not to be the sort of ruler we thought we would want. Our hopes and dreams were not exactly Jesus’ hopes and dreams. Our visions and expectations were not exactly God’s. And so our false hopes, our unrealistic expectations, our empty dreams, our out-of-focus visions, have to be reduced to ash. Our pride and envy, our prejudice and indifference, and all the rest - an old way of life let go, so that a new world might arise.

There’s something of the phoenix in our faith – a necessary burning, and a death of the old, so that out of the ashes, something new might come to life.

On Ash Wednesday, we name what it is that needs to change; and we discover that the first change that needs to happen is in us. The old, unproductive ways of being human, that we seem to love so well, need to be let go.

But the good news is this: they can be let go. Ash Wednesday may seem to be all about the Law to some, and therefore a heavy and unhappy day; but even more so it is all about Grace. It is about the grace of God that invites us, year after year and hour after hour, into a new way of life that is real life; the grace of God that invites us to look at the past – our past - right square in the eye - all our sins and failures, even the ones that you think any sane person, any person with any sense, would have gotten beyond by now - to bring them into the presence of God and lay them out and lay them down. And in the grace of God, we find that all is forgiven. The slate is wiped clean. And we stand before God with another opportunity to start again, to escape the fruitless and the faithless ways that always lead us in to trouble, and to embrace a new way of doing, and a new way of being.

We’re invited in Lent into a way, a way of spiritual discipline and devotion that is described in our liturgy with these words: "self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love – strengthened by the gifts of Word and Sacrament." It’s not, of course, that these are meritorious things; not that if you clean your plate you’ll get dessert; not that if you suffer through these forty days, trying really hard, that a reward will await you on the other side. No, these are the new way of being and doing that God wants to bring alive in us – honest repentance instead of self-justifying defensiveness; listening instead of talking; giving instead of hoarding; loving instead of hating; centered on God instead of centered on self.

We come again to Lent, reminded that if we just keep on doing the same old things over and over again in the world, and in our lives, we can expect the same old results. But by the grace of God, there is forgiveness, and renewal, and hope, and even change. We don’t have to be caught in the spiral of history; we don’t have to be trapped in the familiar and comfortable dysfunctions of life; we’re not victims of circumstance or prisoners of the past. There is an off-ramp called grace that can lead us to a different destination.

God offers that grace again, to you and to me. Again and again. It might make us wonder if God isn’t the one who is crazy. Seeing our sin, again and again; forgiving us all, again and again. Yes, God must be crazy.

Crazy about you.

Thank God.

Amen.