Lent Is Coming
When I was in elementary school, my dad packed my lunch everyday, so I rarely had the cafeteria food. I liked the homemade lunches, but I coveted the school food on Friday, when they always served pizza. When one of the other kids told me that the cafeteria had pizza on Fridays (always a choice of cheese or pepperoni) because Catholic kids couldn’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent, I had no idea what she was talking about.
I didn’t know what Lent was, but I wondered if I could qualify for this special pizza dispensation.
The nondenominational church my family attended when I was a kid didn’t place any emphasis on the historical church calendar, and until the Sense family went Episcopalian, I regarded Christmas, Easter, and Palm Sunday as the only real Christian holidays. Last year was the first time I went to an Ash Wednesday service.
To prepare for my first official observant Lent as a newly minted Episcopalian last year, I did some research on the late Rachel Held Evans’s blog. Over the years, she wrote extensively about Lenten practices and I wanted to know what this season is all about. She suggested a few scriptures for meditation, and I decided to memorize Isaiah 58 during the forty days.
The constant refrain from Isaiah in my brain made an impact. Bible memorization is so helpful; having a mental library of hope, joy, and love wherever you go is invaluable. Isaiah 58 is just long enough that I had to practice a little each day to get it down pat before Easter. I copied it over and over again in a notebook and listened to it on repeat on my Bible app during walks. Mr. Sense gamely sat through my recitations multiple evenings a week while he checked me.
Isaiah 58 talks about fasting, which is why it’s a popular passage to think about during the Lenten fast. The prophet admonishes people for using fasting incorrectly as a way to gain favor with God. Fasting isn’t supposed to be about denying yourself food or water while we continue living however we want. Instead, God desires us to give up something much more difficult than chocolate or caffeine: to give up ourselves in the service of others, truly loving our neighbors as ourselves. Isaiah says, “‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of the oppressed and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?’” (Is 58:6-7).
This kind of fast is more demanding than giving up a bad habit for a month or two. It’s not passive; this is a call to action that will certainly take a long time, a whole lifetime. But God makes clear that the fruits of this work will be glorious. The imagery Isaiah uses is breathtakingly beautiful. Those who honor God by helping the poor and oppressed “will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail” (v. 11). Our society values self care and cautions us against getting burned out from taking care of others before ourselves. In contrast, these verses challenge us to love and help our neighbors without worrying about ourselves, trusting God to continually renew us and give us more and better than we could ever store up for ourselves.
Our faith demands we make sacrifices for others that are beyond our comfort zones. We can’t satisfy the command to defend the oppressed just by showing up to political protests against some of our neighbors we disagree with– not that that’s necessarily wrong, but we have greater responsibilities to deal with first. C.S. Lewis lays out what the virtue of Charity looks like for Christians in Mere Christianity. He explains both the biblical mandate: “Charity– giving to the poor — is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns” as well as what our practice must look like: “if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.” In short, God calls us to use our resources to protect the vulnerable and provide for the poor, leaning on our faith so we are willing to forget ourselves and our desires and be conformed to God’s will for us instead. Our hope in eternity with God convinces us that any sacrifices we make are gifts through which God is building us into the people we are meant to be.
The last two verses of Isaiah 58 switch focus somewhat, commending us to keep the Sabbath. This isn’t a day for just “doing as you please”-- we are called to take the Sabbath seriously, to call it “a delight” and “honorable” (v. 13). Our day of rest is a weekly break from labor for God to bless and strengthen us, not just a chance to sleep in.
Our neighbors and the Sabbath are both gifts from God; God has given these to us to draw us to Himself and make us joyful. Lent is a season for us to get ready for Easter– the amazing gifts God gives us are so beyond our comprehension that we need to fast and pray, recalibrating our hearts and minds, in order to prepare for the intensity and greatness of the joy that awaits.
On Ash Wednesday, we will start this preparation by remembering who we are in relation to God and the inalterable truth that our bodies will die one day, and all our “stuff”-- physical possessions and also our worries and ambitions– will die, too. Lent is a time to remember that our lives are short, and while God has not yet completed our sanctification, so we continue to struggle with selfishness and confusion, we are given finite opportunities on earth to really try to imitate God’s love. The time is now to work at loving God and our neighbors.
This year, I’ll continue to meditate on Isaiah 58 and knock the rust off my memorization. I also plan to commit Psalm 139 to memory, and while working at it, to meditate on the meaning and wisdom of this familiar passage.
