Happy. Lent.

The below is a guest post from my friend, Craig, who went through the same training as I did: first exploring the Ordained path to Ministry, and then deciding to go the path of Licensed Lay ministry. Craig is a member of Holy Innocents in Atlanta and is licensed for Evangelism as well as Preaching. The below is from the sermon he gave on Sunday February 18th, which you can also view from their livestream here:

https://www.facebook.com/hiecatlanta/videos/354848417382184

Three agnostics and a Jew (or person of Jewish faith*) walked into my office on “Pancake Tuesday” morning. I have worked for the same small software and consulting firm for nearly 19 years, so our group dynamics, and our collective sense of humor follow long-established patterns; let’s just say we know each other quite well, for better and for worse. The guys were aware that I was headed to church directly from the office that afternoon. After all, I couldn’t help but extend an invitation to 3 agnostics and a jew to join me for Shrove Tuesday pancakes, the burning of palms, and the burying of alleluias. As I packed up my bag to get ready to leave, the boss piped up from his office and said “enjoy National Pancake Day, and Happy Lent!” That sort of banter in our office is typical, and I could tell by the smirk on his face that he was enjoying the exchange. In his perspective as a person outside the Christian faith, he had a very surface-level understanding of Lent, and he was of the belief that lent is only about penitence and sacrifice and self-denial and sorrow and guilt.

“Happy” and “Lent” are two words not usually featured in the same sentence. But as I made the short drive from the office to church, I thought about those two words being used together, and I specifically wondered if it was possible to do Happy and Lent at the same time; Is there room to hold space for both? In this season of turning our reflection inward, and honestly assessing the ways we distance ourselves from God, I wondered if there can’t be small glimpses of resurrection joy along the journey through Lent.

Typing a single 4-letter word into a Google search bar can take a person on quite the journey. There are huge volumes of writings out there about Lent. They exist in numbers higher than I can count, and come from all sorts of faith traditions, academic institutions, and organizations interested in church history. There seem to be as many opinions about the origins, meaning, and correct ways to observe Lent as there are people to write about them. One digital rabbit hole I jumped into even suggested that there are different beliefs about when Lent starts and ends, and what days are included. Our tradition of Lent starting on Ash Wednesday, not counting Sundays, and ending with the easter proclamation on Holy Saturday, is not the only way to mark Lent on a calendar. The point on which all traditions seem to agree is that it is to be a wilderness of 40 days, as we read in today’s Gospel passage. 

I was glad to see the offerings on one site I visited. I don’t remember the organization, but I liked what they had to say. They suggested that there are “3 pillars to the proper observance of a holy Lent:” Prayer, which they described as Justice Toward God; Fasting, described as Justice Toward Self, and Almsgiving, or Justice Toward Neighbor. So, I wonder… Is there any room for small glimmers of joy while we travel through the wilderness of Lent, loving God, loving ourselves, and loving our neighbors?

The Prophet Martha Sterne was the first person to ever explain 

Lent to me in a way that I could comprehend. I remember it vividly. It was a noontime Ash Wednesday service in the nave, in 2013.  “God doesn’t care if you give up chocolate,” she said. “God wants your love and your honesty and your commitment and faith.” In my view, God wants us to live our Lent and live our lives in ways that put God at the center, and prioritize the wellbeing of others over the superficial happiness and comforts of middle-class first-world living. For some, that may well mean giving up chocolate, or desert, or Facebook, or television. In my case, it means revisiting my frequent afternoon trips to Starbucks for a “Venti Decaf Iced Peppermint Mocha with whip.” The point is to minimize luxuries that prevent us from treating our bodies and our minds and our hearts in ways that help us more fully and intimately love God and care for ourselves and those around us. Is it possible to do this from a state of joy? For me, Fr. Bill said it perfectly this morning when he said “context is everything.” He was talking about the re-use of today’s Gospel passage, in the context of both holy Baptism and for the Lenten Wilderness. If the context of our Lenten journey is self-denial for the sake of saying we are denying ourselves luxuries, then there is every good chance we will feel sad and disappointed. If we are casting ourselves into the wilderness of Lent for the sake of finding a better way to Love God, honor ourselves, and serve our neighbors, then I can’t imagine a more joyous reason for the journey, even if there are some unpleasant bumps along the way.

Now, let me be clear. I don’t mean to confuse the tediousness of giving up my afternoon Peppermint Mocha with being cast out into the wilderness of grief, loss, ruin, addiction, and other things that test every ounce of faith we have within us. Many of us have had periods of dark wilderness in our lives. Sometimes we travel down these roads intentionally as one might do in Lent. Sometimes our journeys down these dark and winding roads are sudden, unplanned trips that take us into places we never intended. Maybe even places of pain and sadness and even hopelessness and despair. I have been down both of these roads, as many of us have. One of my most difficult trips into the wilderness lasted for years, and there were times when it felt dark and miserable and endless. But the self-knowledge I gained and the resulting steps I took completely changed my world and my daily actions, and actually gave me a whole new purpose in life, pointing me in a direction that I never could have predicted or even imagined possible for myself. If you had told me 5 years ago that I would be here in a white alb, preaching the good news, I would have thought your mind had gone ‘round the bend. Admittedly, in my wilderness journey, there were not many glimmers of hope along the way. Sometimes it is said that “the only way to it is through it.” The only way I made it to the Easter joy at the other end of that journey was to go directly through the darkness, fully present to the realities it showed me, and totally willing to see those realities for what they were, and re-orient myself toward something new and different, and not self-destructive.

One piece of good news to hold on to is that not every journey into the wilderness of lent has to be filled with sadness and hopelessness. Sometimes the needed self-realizations come more easily, and the new directions we need to take may reveal themselves more quickly. And when we hold the real reason for the lenten journey close to our hearts, there can possibly be unexpected moments of happiness along the way. We just have to be willing to see them.

Another bit of good news is that the Lenten wilderness does not have to be entered into alone. Self-discovery may require private, inward reflection, but you can share pieces of the journey with your families, your friends and neighbors, and in some cases like mine, maybe even the guys at the office. And always remember that you can be in community with your Holy Innocents’ family. The Gospel was never meant to be lived alone, and neither are we. 

So, friends, “Happy Lent.” Or, more precisely, may you enter into this season of self-discovery and reorientation with open minds and willing hearts. And may you emerge on the other side of this journey prepared to celebrate the joy of the Resurrection, and be ready to love God, love yourself, and love your neighbors in new, life giving ways. And if you experience any glimpses of Easter joy along the way, that’s ok too. Amen.

*both the original author and I were unsure if it was best to say “Jew” or “person of Jewish faith”, when I went to Google to be sure I found this from the Washington Post which seemed to help:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/05/jew-not-slur/