March 2009
What are you taking up for Lent?
Beloved in Christ Jesus:
We are now in the season of Lent. The ashes have been distributed and spiritual growth opportunities are hugely available in most if not all of our congregations. I commend you for using this season in the Christian calendar to “pay attention” to God and your own maturity in Christ.
One of my experiences and observations about the season of Lent is that it is often a time of self sacrifice in the service of living more deeply into the sacrifice and suffering of our Savior Jesus Christ. It often begins with the question “what are you giving up for Lent”? I get that. I understand it.
But I want to ask and I want to be asked “what are you taking up for Lent”? In other words whatever I “give up” if anything ought to set me free to “take up” something else, namely the cross. For example, if I give up a particular food group during Lent, how does this particular abstinence help me to pay attention not only to my body but to the food insecurity of so many of God’s children near and far? Spiritual practices are intended to shape us in the likeness of Jesus Christ so that his life may be more fully seen in our life. Our Lenten disciplines should help us to serve rather than to be served. My abstinence from food or a particular activity in Lent or at any other time is not about me but about the glory of Jesus Christ and the healing of the world.
In one of the readings from for Ash Wednesday from Isaiah 58 we are challenged to the hollowness of our fasting if we fail to pay attention to the poor and to injustice. Listen in on what God says through the prophet:
"Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:3-7)
The Isaiah text goes on to say that light and hope for us is in the intersection, the weaving together of personal and corporate spiritual growth with the brokenness, pain and injustice in the world. In Wesleyan terms it is the call to both personal and social holiness.
We are in a time of great challenge and unprecedented opportunity for mission and ministry. May these lengthened days (Lent) help us to embrace the cross of Jesus Christ anew for our good and the sake of the world.
I am your servant for the sake of the cross,
Gregory Vaughn Palmer