Lent part 2

Thanks to so many of you who have taken time to respond to my post on lent a few weeks ago (make sure you read the comment from Noelle on that post--it has a link to a great article). Below is a blog from a pastor that another friend sent to me recently, and I thought it was really insightful. Don't let the absence of a picture keep you from reading! I'd love to hear more thoughts on lent...especially now as my Lenten resolve is waning.

Lent Reconsidered
"So, what are you giving up for Lent?" I imagine most all of us have been asked this question at some point in the past few weeks. Sometimes, Lent almost becomes a game of who can make the biggest sacrifice, as if our holiness is in direct proportion to our level of discipline. But what is the purpose of giving up chocolate, or meat, or TV for forty days? Is self-denial for its own sake what Lent is all about? As we enter the season of Lent, this time meant to prepare the Church to celebrate the resurrection, consider the following suggestions for how we might practice Lent with renewed purpose.
1. Link physical practice with spiritual significance.
Fasting, while an important spiritual discipline, can become a mere mind game ("Can I hold out until Easter?") or a strategy for weight loss. However, with intentionality, the physical practice of fasting can show us our own spiritual frailty. You might find that fasting reveals your impatience and a quick temper, for fasting tends to bring up the inner "junk" that hides itself when we are well fed. So, use the discipline of fasting as a way to bring before these Lord the sins that emerge when you are hungry. You might also reflect on the many material things we rely on (food, money, etc.) for our well-being, thank God for his provision, and ask Him to help us trust in Him more than in those material things.

2. Let Lent drive you toward community, not away from it.We often tend to think of Lent as a time for deep introspection, to do business with God. Lent is certainly a time for personal reflection, but it is also a time for community reflection, to seek together the ways in which our community falls short before God. In addition, sometimes our sense of our own sin drives us to isolate ourselves. However, God has made us to be in relationship with others, to know and practice his love with other people, not just in our "prayer closet." So, perhaps this year we might use Lent as an opportunity to draw closer to those in our families, neighborhoods, and church, repenting of keeping other people at a distance rather than actively loving them.
3. For each thing you give up, seek to "put on" something righteous in its place.
Self-denial has its place, but true fasting is more than simply "giving up" something. In the Ash Wednesday service, we read from Isaiah 58, where the Lord reminds his people that fasting is worthless if we are still trapped in our quarrels, refusing to repent of our deep heart attitudes, and lacking compassion for the needs of those around us. True fasting is more than ascetic, it is proactive: caring for the needy, feeding the hungry, seeking justice for the oppressed. So, this Lent, rather than simply focusing on what you will give up, begin to consider what God might want to "put on" in its place.
4. A few suggestions for creative ways to enter into Lent more deeply:

• If you give up watching TV or other forms of entertainment, spend your extra time praying, reading, volunteering at a local shelter, or simply enjoying your family.
• Participate in the 40 Days of Water project. This project, organized by Blood:Water Mission, is designed to link the fasting and service aspects of Lent. Participants drink only water during Lent, then donate the money they would have spent on other beverages to provide clean water for people in Africa who currently lack access to safe drinking water.
•  Fast from clothes shopping and donate money or used clothing to a shelter in the area.
• Invite a newcomer at Redeemer to your home for dinner, practicing hospitality and active love.
• If you are a disciplined person already, practice patience with those less disciplined than yourself.
• Read a book such as Not the Way It Is Supposed to Be, available from the church for $15, which explores the nature of sin and its deep effects on our lives and our world. (On a personal note, this book was life-changing for me, and I highly recommend it.)
• Give up complaining and "put on" gratitude.
• Give up judging and "put on" loving.
• Give up criticizing and "put on" encouraging.

Lent is not a self-improvement project. It is impossible for us to "put on" righteousness on our own. Lent is a time during which, even as we practices disciplines that God can use to refine us, we remember that we cannot make ourselves holy. Our Lentan practices - prayer, fasting, giving - must be soaked in prayer; prayers for repentance, prayers for strength, prayers for the Spirit to refine us, prayers for the Spirit to convict us, for in prayer we acknowledge that we are powerless on our own, that only God can transform us.
So, during this new season of Lent, let's rephrase that common question. "So, what are you seeking to put on for Lent?"
— Amanda
Amanda Holm, M.Div.
Pastor for Worship and Congregational Care
Church of the Redeemer
amanda@redeemernorthshore.org