This Lent feels different.
I wrote to the parish yesterday saying, in some ways I’m not ready for Lent. I feel the world is heavy enough. Why do I need all that music in a minor key? Why do I need to remember my sins? (Surely I participate in the sinful structures that empower some at the cost of others, but that all feels a bit intangible, and the prayers we say this day are so focused on individual sinfulness) Why do I need to give something up, when these days it feels like I have to give up on so much?
I think Jesus is there too in this Gospel. I always get a chuckle about the Gospel on Ash Wednesday. Jesus tells us not to disfigure our faces, and what do we immediately do afterward but smear ash across our foreheads. Jesus is asking us to pay attention to our hearts, to remember that faith is an inward journey.
So how will we encounter Lent this year?
After praying about it, I realized I can’t cancel Lent. I can’t tell you we’re going to opt out. A rector simply doesn’t have that much authority. What I can say, is that I think this year it may be helpful to shift our expectations. I’d like to invite you this Lent to prayerfully consider what you consume. I’d like to invite you, this Lent, to shift your perspective. Finally, I’d like to invite you to engage in hopeful community.
Consider your Consumption
First, a word about consumption. So many of us grew up thinking of Lent as a time for giving up certain foods. I always share a word of caution on Ash Wednesday. Lent can be dangerous. I worry, in Lent, about all the disciplines we tend to take on around food. So many people struggle with food. So many of us are unkind to our selves when it comes to our bodies. Please don’t add a layer of toxic spirituality into the mix. If you struggle with food, please pick a Lenten Discipline that doesn’t involve food.
The best advice I have ever heard about Lent came from an old Jesuit chaplain at my college. Fr JJ. O’Leary was famous on campus as the shortest preacher. He often finished a homily in just two or three minutes. He’d ask a question, invite the congregation to “go into your hearts” to answer the question. He’d wait just a few seconds, and then go on with the service.
One Ash Wednesday, during the noon service, Fr. J.J. said simply that when we give something up for Lent, God doesn’t want us to give up things that make us happy. If we enjoy chocolate or a martini at the end of a long day we shouldn’t give them up. God wants us to give up something that made us sad. He then said. “I invite you go into your hearts to consider what you might give up this Lent that makes you sad.”
In that Spirit, I do want to invite you to consider your consumption. Last week many participated in a “buy nothing” day. Some are boycotting online retailers and big box stores because of their business practices. I would encourage you to consider what, and how, and where, and why you consume. Is there a way this Lent to make your economic life more a reflection of your values? Do you need to buy as much as you do? Are there things you own you could give away? Is there a way to shrink your carbon footprint? Is there a way to support your local community with your dollars? Could a practice which introduces more intentionality around consumption make a good Lenten Discipline for you this year?
Practice Shifting your Perspective
The shift from thinking about Lent as all about food to thinking more broadly about our consumption is an example of the kind of shift of perspective I’d also invite you to practice this Lent.
One of the realities of being a preacher is that I’m often preaching a sermon that I need to hear. I would venture that shifting my perspective is a big part of what I need this Lent. I’ve been waking up in a funk more than I like. The state of our country, the state of the world, has got me down. The other morning, it took most of my half-hour walk with the dogs before I felt the clouds start to lift. But they did. Listening to a podcast where Mirabai Starr talked about mysticism on my walk helped. As she spoke laughingly about finding the spark of the divine within everything, I started to remember my own beliefs and hopes. When I take the time to shut off the news and connect with my body, with my heart, with the earth, I find it helps me to lift my gaze and to remember the God Jesus says we find in secret. For me the best prayer is often that which helps me to change or broaden my perspective.
A shift of perspective can be subtle and even literal. I once heard of a church where, just for Lent, the parishioners decided to intentionally change where they sat for worship. I know, it’s radical. When I visit the parish where I grew up, I can still locate the pew where my grandmother sat for 50 years. But just for a season, this church changed it up. It messed with everyone. The parishioners yes, and also the clergy. I know mostly where to look for folks on Sunday.
What the church reported was that they heard, and saw, and smelled, and experienced the worship just slightly differently. They were caught by a different line in the liturgy, even heard a hymn with a slightly different set of voices, and it made the experience just a bit more fresh. Some even said it helped them to remember what it was that brought them to that church in the first place. Now, I’m not going to do it for you. I hear my predecessor once shifted all the pews around in the church, and the experience was almost universally disliked. So I’m not doing it for you, but if you want to try moving around, I’ll try and handle not seeing familiar people in familiar places.
You might try this kind of practice beyond the church too. Maybe take a slightly different route for your walk. Or shop in a different grocery store. Try taking the bus somewhere you need to go (if you don’t take the bus regularly, doing so can be an eye-opener). You might ride your bike. Find a way to upset your normal patterns. Notice what is new. Notice if you see signs of the Spirit of God around. Notice if you learn something new about your neighborhood. See if you meet someone you wouldn’t have met. I invite you this Lent to practice shifting your perspective. Especially if you’re feeling tired, or hopeless, this Lent, try looking from a different angle. You might find God is present in ways you hadn’t imagined.
Find Hopeful Community
You know there was one more thing they learned in that church where everyone sat somewhere other than their usual pew for Lent. They found they got to know a different set of people in their congregation. It brings me to my last invitation for you this Lent: engage in hopeful community.
It is important that we gather to worship God. It’s important to pray. It’s important to spend time with scripture and tradition. But you know, if that’s all we do. If all we do is tune in for the sermon and the sacrament, I think we’re missing the most important part of church.
We need community. In times like ours, we need communities that practice hope. We need people we can gather with to make a difference. We need places, to quote that old sitcom Cheers “where everybody knows your name,” or at least a good number of people know your name.
I would invite you, this Lent, to lean into communities that bring you hope and to lean out of places that bring you despair. If you’re new-ish to this congregation, think about lingering on a Sunday for coffee after or before the service. Join us for the food pantry or another service opportunity. Come to a formation conversation. Be bold, ask your neighbor in the pew if they’re going that concert you saw advertised in the eNoticias. And if you’re a longtime parishioner here, make it your mission to get to know the names and stories of three or four new people. Help them navigate their way into the life of this community.
For me, the place God most regularly shifts my perspective, the place where I find hope when hope seems hard to find, is in this community. I’m grateful for the invitation to show up with you to pray, to laugh, and to work to make a difference. I’m convinced that God most often interrupts our despair with hope by sending hugs, and casseroles, and people who have been this way before. Find that hopeful community.
So this Lent, if you’re like me and struggling with the world as it is, I’d invite you to keep Lent simple. Be intentional about your consumption. Find practices which help you to shift your perspective, and lean into hopeful community. Three simple ways to sanctify the fast, to give up what makes us sad, three simple ways to set aside these 40 days to orient our hearts back toward God.
Mike Angell 