I asked my best friend at school, "What are you giving up for Lent?"
"I'm not giving anything up. My mom says that if you give something up for God, you should do it all year round."
She had me stumped.
Then there were my college friends who gave up sugar, carbs, fried foods. Lent as a diet plan. It didn't quite sit right with me.
And, finally, there were all those discussions about whether it was "cheating" to break the fast on Sundays. Somewhere in high school, I gave up Lent altogether.
Decades later, I'm back (see Lenten Reflections: Disruptive Grace for more on that decision), and those school-years questions have surfaced again. Is this practice about keeping rules rather than recognizing God's grace? Why only forty days? And what's the deal with Sunday?
Turns out that forty is a Biblical number of completion. The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days. So Lent is meant to be a barren time, a time of preparation for Good Friday and Easter. But if you take out a calendar and count from Ash Wednesday to Easter, you'll notice there are forty-five days. Sundays aren't a part of Lent, after all. We celebrate Jesus' resurrection every seven days, Lenten fasting or not.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer explains Lent like this:
The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church...
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.
My 4th grade friend was right. Lent is a human creation. It's not necessary. It's not an obligation.
And yet, my liturgical roots have something to offer as well. This Lenten season, I will continue the fast. And I will continue to recognize the abundant grace of God through a weekly feast. And I will trust that these forty days provide an opportunity to set my heart towards Easter, the culmination of the Christian year. These forty days reorient me toward celebration and gratitude, towards grace.
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3 comments:
I appreciate and agree with much of what you say here, Amy Julia. Thanks!
What would you say to those who warn that this Lenten practice is potentially dangerous precisely because it is much easier to fast from certain foods, say, than it is to turn from idols of the heart? It is easier to give up a practice (and feel good about ourselves for awhile, knowing we can go back to it in just a little while) then to really reflect on the desires of the heart.
I appreciate that the Book of Common Prayer mentions sin - and notorious ones at that - because the point of Lent is not of course to give up chocolate or even to fast; it’s to give up sin. And yet we often reduce sin to eating chocolate, and never really deal with the real sin of the heart. When that happens, well, then grace will seem abundant!
I am very weak when it comes to food: I can't leave without chocolate, dessert, wine or any of my favorite foods.
I try not eat them in between meals (still very hard but more doable) and I concentrate on the other focal points of Lent: Almsgiving and prayer.
But then again fasting doesn't have to be only about food.
You could fast from bad habits or from luxury or from excess.
These are things that I try to do through out the year and Lent just helps me stop and reflect if I've been doing a good job and gets me to try a little harder.
As a Catholic I am reminded every Sunday of the sacrifice that Jesus made to save us and every Sunday, Lent or not, I commit myself to sacrifice a little more, a little harder: Lent is my "check list", my starting point for the rest of the year.
David,
Thanks for your question. That's the crux of the matter isn't it? Spiritual disciplines are only good if they actually direct our hearts back toward dependence upon God's grace and not if they lull us into thinking that being right before God relies upon our own efforts. It's easy to try to save ourselves through doing, but God has saved us from needing to do anything.
So, yes, Lent is potentially dangerous. But also potentially a practice God can use to help us identify those deeper spiritual issues, to recognize our need.
Alessandra, thanks for your reflections too. Lent is a time to help us concentrate on Jesus' death and resurrection, and spiritual practices can be a great help to that. I was reading Galatians this morning, and I was reminded of Paul's insistence that it isn't what we do that saves us, but what God has already done for us and our faith in his work. I'm certainly grateful that giving up chocolate or wine, or taking up more prayer, aren't the things that save us. If so, I'd be in trouble!
Amy Julia
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