Changes for Lent?

Maybe you have noticed that there is a change since Sunday. After all it is only Wednesday and here you are back in the church building again for another moment of liturgy. And this is a moment that is dramatic enough that it draws us here in the middle of the week.  So what has changed since we were on the mountain top with Jesus on Sunday? We make the turn towards the city of Jerusalem now and head to towards that little hill with a cross on it; forward to that grave and what will happen beyond it. There is a purpose in where Jesus wants to lead us.

And yet the lessons we have for the day are not dramatic. It is something that could be read and taught on at anytime of the year not just as we begin to move to the cross and the grave. What is there in this that we need to learn? Lent is a time to learn and that is where our observance of the Lenten season comes from. It was a time when those to be baptized at Easter began their final phase of preparation for the Paschal mystery. We still do and remind ourselves of these things. But why these lessons; why the Sermon on the Mount at the lead into the journey towards Easter.

The Gospel calls on the believer to three things: prayer, almsgiving and fasting. Prayer is, or at least should be, something that we find easy to do. In our quiet places, in our rooms and maybe in the closet we are fine to talk to God, just so long as it is just one on one. What about prayer when we are gathered? That is more risky. I am not talking about the prayers that are taken from the internet or the long laundry list of things that we ask. That too we should find easy. What about being quiet long enough to let people really pray? What about having a liturgy that allows space to have silence so that we can together pour out what is on our hearts to God? What about earnestly talking time to pray as a community for the community and for things in the world that we need to draw God into? Prayer is more than the muttering of a few simple lines written in a book – it is the attitude that we keep when we move from within those sacred walls of the church building and from those places and spaces where we feel close to the divine presence. We need to remember that we have come back down the mountain and we know who it is that we are following. We need to practice the presence of God amongst us and earnestly pray so that in turn God might use us as an answer to prayer because some of them might be our own.

We are called in Lent to fasting and there is the inevitable call to give something up for the season. I cannot help but wonder, if we can do without whatever it is that we give up for Lent then why do we take it back at Easter? Fasting should help us to retune and refocus our lives on God and help us to let go completely those things that take away from God and what God desires in us and for us. Fasting should allow us to renew our devotion to God and to one another. We find ways to give up things but put nothing there to replace the void that helps us to renew and enable the development of the relationships that are vital to us. What if we, instead of giving up chocolates and sweets for Lent we gave up gossip. What if we gave up desiring what someone else has in favour of helping someone who needs help with something in our lives. What if we choose to pray for someone we know needs the touch of the presence of God in their lives instead of worrying about how much time we spend on our electronic devices or how much hydro we use? What if we turn the forty days of lent into a journey into a joyous trek to the resurrection instead a drudging to duty to the cross? Wouldn’t that be a walk worth taking?

We are also called into almsgiving in Lent. Now begin a younger person and not know exactly what “alms” were, I decided to do some investigating. Giving “alms” means doing a material favour to assist someone in need because you are prompted by love (charity). It means that we render an offering to another human being in the name of Christ for the sake of serving Christ himself. IN order to do that we need to be near those are in trouble and in need, to come alongside people in their pain and suffering and know something about it and give real assistance to those who are in need of it. And in giving to them, we need to draw them closer to the mercy of God almighty. Making them aware that God is here and present in what you are trying to do. Our faith and our blessings that we have received from God demand that we share what we have been given. And this is not an unhappy duty that we must perform. It is a movement of love from God through God’s people into the world that God so very much loves.

The purpose of this season is to help ourselves through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, to come closer to living the cruciform life that every believer needs to live. The question isn’t about what you are going to give up but rather where do we need to be washed and cleaned?