Most bloggers covet their subscribers and feed off the statistical attention. Why would any blogger encourage loyal readers to leave?
Well, this blogger took an inventory of just how many words he had been sending to his readers—many of them free, some of them for pay. He wondered if the heart of his message might be lost in the abundance of words.
He was moved by Paul’s closing words to the people of Philippi, with whom Paul had shared some trying times.
“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
It’s Lent, he concluded. Take a break from listening to me, search your hearts, and put what you might have learned into practice.
Devoted Christians choose something to deny themselves. It’s supposed to be something we miss and it’s supposed to be something done in secrecy.
The tradition is intended to create a sense of sacrifice in honor of the sacrifice of God’s Son. This started out much more grandly than it is typically practiced today. It was a season of serious fasting. But that was just too hard.
Fridays were once like that, too. Friday was a day of Christian fasting in a regular remembrance of Good Friday. When that became too difficult, the custom shifted, with the Church’s permission, to shunning meat. Fish didn’t count. Whew!
Lent has been similarly compromised from its original intent. The things most people sacrifice in secrecy are things we want to give up anyway—cigarettes, liquor, sweets.
We are not very good at this sacrificial stuff, are we?
Perhaps it would restore a sense of Lenten sacrifice to do something proactive for the 40 days of Lent. Perhaps our sacrifice should be our time and self-centered attention.
Instead of dwelling on ourselves and our suffering for atonement, perhaps it would be more helpful to sacrifice in ways that would benefit more than our personal state of grace. Instead of NOT doing something this Lent, think about what we CAN DO to help others.
Instead of not eating meat or ice cream or chocolate, feed someone.
Instead of spending time on our own entertainment, take an hour a day and do something with family.
Instead of shopping for a new Easter outfit, clean out the closets and give good clothes to the needy. If you want a real sense of sacrifice, give away a favorite outfit!
Instead of checking Facebook five times a day, send one greeting card a day to someone who needs to know they are loved.
If you’ve neglected your God-given talents, use them daily during Lent to write, paint, sing, sew or practice the piano.
Create a new faith discipline. Start a faith journal.
Doing something for others — and thereby sacrificing self-interest — just might make for a more meaningful Lent.
We celebrated Epiphany last week. The season of revelation of Christ as Messiah is short this year.
Just four weeks from now we will embark upon the season of Lent.
In our analytics of our website, we noticed that beginning on Christmas Day, our readers were searching for resources for Easter. So we are going to try to provide some resources to help with Easter’s prelude—that mixed-up season of Lent.
Lent is confusing. It is the season of repentance. Didn’t we just go through this a few weeks ago in Advent?
It is also a season of mixed messages. Centuries of tradition have become muddled with modern sensibilities.
Ash Wednesday has always been a puzzle. We routinely read the passage from Matthew which tells us repeatedly to NOT make a show of our repentance and NOT distort our appearance. Then we defy the gospel we have just read and make a show of our repentance and distort our appearance.
Then some well-intentioned theologian came up with the concept of “burying or sealing the Alleluias”—banning the utterance of the traditional word of praise during the season of Lent. This flies in the face of the fact that Lent is structured to observe 40 days of repentance (modeled from Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness) and those 40 days EXCLUDE Sundays. There are NO Sundays in Lent. Every Sunday is reserved for a celebration of Easter. Alleluia!
We never sealed the Alleluias at Redeemer. The custom was unknown to us until we shared a pastor with a neighboring congregation. Their pastor surprised us when he announced during the service that the Alleluias were now sealed.
Our worship service for the next Sunday had already been planned and it was to feature an adaptation of Leonard Cohen’s mournful song Hallelujah—which repeats the Hebrew version of Alleluia countless times in a way entirely appropriate for Lent. (Rules tend to hamper creativity!)
Except for the fact that this was preplanned it would have given the impression that we were defying our pastor, which was in no way our intent. We tabled our plans for a year.
The pastor apologized for making the assumption that this was our custom. No conflict resulted.
But every year since, we have used this song, which retells the story of Christ’s temptation. Here’s a link.
12 Jan 2013
Undercover Bishop: A Parable for Today’s Church
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
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On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
