Lenten discipline
21/02/16 05:20
Growing up I had close friends who were Roman Catholic. I remember thinking that their brand of Christianity was a bit more harsh than ours. My friends had to find something to give up for Lent. I was unaware of a similar demand in our particular congregation. In fact, we didn’t make much of Lent in our church. The annual One Great Hour of Sharing offering took place in Lent. We had special services for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Easter. There was a community service on Good Friday. For the most part, however, life went on as usual in our corner of the world.
My Catholic friends had special disciplines, however. In addition to selecting one thing to give up for Lent, which usually wasn’t much of a burden, they “fasted” on Fridays. Their fast wasn’t a day without food, but rather a day without red meat. Our friends always ate fish on Fridays. I like fish. I didn’t see it as giving up anything. In fact, in the middle of the winter when all of the fish in the freezer had been eaten, fish was a rare treat in our house. It was expensive to buy fish in the store and our family’s version of fish in the winter consisted of frozen fish sticks, tuna fish sandwiches and the occasional salmon loaf made from canned salmon. Over at our Catholic friends’ home there were some pretty nice filets served up. Frequently they had shrimp.
Traditions change and one of the things I have observed over the course of my career is an increased emphasis on the traditions in the church among mainline Protestant congregations. We pay more attention to the seasons of the year than was the case half a century ago.
I’m still not much on giving something up for Lent - at least in the sense of a temporary discipline that is adopted for six weeks only and abandoned on Easter.
Lent is, however, an opportunity to make changes in lifestyle. Six weeks is long enough to practice a new way of living that can stick. I have used Lent as a way of making some changes in my life. I try to take the opportunity to live more intentionally during the season. Most of the year I fall into a pattern. I don’t pay enough attention to what I am eating. I fail to sustain exercise disciplines. I go from activity to event to meeting to obligation without being as intentional about how I invest my time. Lent gives me a specific season for paying closer attention and making conscious decisions about how I want to be living my life. Then I have a time to make those changes.
The story of our people includes some very dramatic instances of God’s direct involvement in human history. There have been times when returning to life as usual simply was not an option. Those moments of intervention have challenged our people to look at the world from an entirely different perspective.
God called Moses to lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. As soon as they had crossed the Red Sea the people discovered that things had permanently changed. They no longer had the restrictions of slavery, but they also no longer had their food given to them by their overlords. They had to learn to take responsibility for a myriad of community decisions. They found themselves arguing and doubting. Forty years of wandering stood in stark contrast to the years of living in the same place in Egypt.
It is interesting to note how God brought about that change. God didn’t change things by appearing to the powerful leaders of the day. Pharaoh was among the last to learn of the dramatic transformation that was taking place. Moses wasn’t even one of the leaders of the Jewish community of his day. Although he had been raised in the halls of power, he had abandoned that part of his heritage. He wasn’t even able to live among the slaves, but had fled from Egypt entirely by the time that God called him. Outcast from the slaves, his response to God’s call contains a very good question: “Who am I to talk to Pharaoh?”
That pattern is repeated when God intervened in human history in the life, ministry, healing, death and resurrection of Jesus. There is no flash of insight in the halls of power. There is no special revelation for the Roman overlords. Herod has to ask foreign visitors to find out where the child was born. The baby wasn’t born to the leaders and people of power, but rather to a poor woman in an obscure village. The first to hear the news weren’t the community leaders, but shepherds who lived on the margins of Jewish society.
The experiences of our people teach us that God doesn’t work in a top-down fashion. If change is needed, it comes from the bottom up.
We need not look for huge and dramatic changes to experience the depth of Lent. Sometimes a small change is the beginning of something big. Just taking a few more minutes for prayer, or participating in a bit more of the life of the community, or making a small change in lifestyle can be deeply meaningful.
I’m not sure, but I seem to be experiencing a renewal of energy this Lent. It is my usual pattern to put in a few extra hours during the season. There are extra services to plan, extra classes to teach, and a host of special events. The schedule of the church is a bit more intense than some other times of the year. This year I seem ready for the activity and refreshed by the sense that we are doing meaningful work. I’m finding myself to be a little less tired and a little more energetic for the activities of my life.
So, I’m not giving anything up for Lent this year. There aren’t any external changes that you can observe. The small changes that come from within remind me that Lent is not an obligation. It is an opportunity.
My Catholic friends had special disciplines, however. In addition to selecting one thing to give up for Lent, which usually wasn’t much of a burden, they “fasted” on Fridays. Their fast wasn’t a day without food, but rather a day without red meat. Our friends always ate fish on Fridays. I like fish. I didn’t see it as giving up anything. In fact, in the middle of the winter when all of the fish in the freezer had been eaten, fish was a rare treat in our house. It was expensive to buy fish in the store and our family’s version of fish in the winter consisted of frozen fish sticks, tuna fish sandwiches and the occasional salmon loaf made from canned salmon. Over at our Catholic friends’ home there were some pretty nice filets served up. Frequently they had shrimp.
Traditions change and one of the things I have observed over the course of my career is an increased emphasis on the traditions in the church among mainline Protestant congregations. We pay more attention to the seasons of the year than was the case half a century ago.
I’m still not much on giving something up for Lent - at least in the sense of a temporary discipline that is adopted for six weeks only and abandoned on Easter.
Lent is, however, an opportunity to make changes in lifestyle. Six weeks is long enough to practice a new way of living that can stick. I have used Lent as a way of making some changes in my life. I try to take the opportunity to live more intentionally during the season. Most of the year I fall into a pattern. I don’t pay enough attention to what I am eating. I fail to sustain exercise disciplines. I go from activity to event to meeting to obligation without being as intentional about how I invest my time. Lent gives me a specific season for paying closer attention and making conscious decisions about how I want to be living my life. Then I have a time to make those changes.
The story of our people includes some very dramatic instances of God’s direct involvement in human history. There have been times when returning to life as usual simply was not an option. Those moments of intervention have challenged our people to look at the world from an entirely different perspective.
God called Moses to lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. As soon as they had crossed the Red Sea the people discovered that things had permanently changed. They no longer had the restrictions of slavery, but they also no longer had their food given to them by their overlords. They had to learn to take responsibility for a myriad of community decisions. They found themselves arguing and doubting. Forty years of wandering stood in stark contrast to the years of living in the same place in Egypt.
It is interesting to note how God brought about that change. God didn’t change things by appearing to the powerful leaders of the day. Pharaoh was among the last to learn of the dramatic transformation that was taking place. Moses wasn’t even one of the leaders of the Jewish community of his day. Although he had been raised in the halls of power, he had abandoned that part of his heritage. He wasn’t even able to live among the slaves, but had fled from Egypt entirely by the time that God called him. Outcast from the slaves, his response to God’s call contains a very good question: “Who am I to talk to Pharaoh?”
That pattern is repeated when God intervened in human history in the life, ministry, healing, death and resurrection of Jesus. There is no flash of insight in the halls of power. There is no special revelation for the Roman overlords. Herod has to ask foreign visitors to find out where the child was born. The baby wasn’t born to the leaders and people of power, but rather to a poor woman in an obscure village. The first to hear the news weren’t the community leaders, but shepherds who lived on the margins of Jewish society.
The experiences of our people teach us that God doesn’t work in a top-down fashion. If change is needed, it comes from the bottom up.
We need not look for huge and dramatic changes to experience the depth of Lent. Sometimes a small change is the beginning of something big. Just taking a few more minutes for prayer, or participating in a bit more of the life of the community, or making a small change in lifestyle can be deeply meaningful.
I’m not sure, but I seem to be experiencing a renewal of energy this Lent. It is my usual pattern to put in a few extra hours during the season. There are extra services to plan, extra classes to teach, and a host of special events. The schedule of the church is a bit more intense than some other times of the year. This year I seem ready for the activity and refreshed by the sense that we are doing meaningful work. I’m finding myself to be a little less tired and a little more energetic for the activities of my life.
So, I’m not giving anything up for Lent this year. There aren’t any external changes that you can observe. The small changes that come from within remind me that Lent is not an obligation. It is an opportunity.