Call to Lenten Practices

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. While we talk about the 40 days of Lent, there are actually 46 days if you count the Sundays. But, we don’t count the Sundays because every Sunday is a “little” Easter and so they exist outside of Lent. Normally when I say that someone will then ask, “Does that mean I don’t have to do [whatever it is they are doing for Lent] on Sundays?” And my response is that if you are looking for ways to get out of it, loopholes as it were, then perhaps you might not be doing whatever it is for the right reason.

While people often think of Lent as being a depressing time of the church, it doesn’t have to be. After all, as Richard Foster, the author of Celebration of Discipline, probably one of, if not the, best book written about the disciplines, says, celebration is a discipline. Additionally, since every Easter is a little Sunday, that means that we gather to praise God and celebrate what was accomplished through Christ’s resurrection every single week. Although we don’t sing or shout alleluias in Lent until Palm Sunday.

In our worship series for Lent we will be looking at a few of the spiritual disciplines, which are those things that we do in order to deepen our relationship with God. And while most often we talk about the personal disciplines, there are also corporate disciplines, things we do together, and so we will be looking at a couple of those as well. That, hopefully, well help us encounter some of these practices in a new or different way.

So, while Lent doesn’t have to be depressing, it should be intentional. It should be a time for us to intentionally take on a spiritual practice in order to deepen our relationship with God and/or to make us better disciples. But, here’s the catch , which I tend to say every year, once you start something don’t stop. Make it a permanent behavior.

I knew someone who stopped eating red meat every year for Lent, and in doing so he would talk about how red meat is not really good for your body in the amounts we eat it. Plus, it’s not good for the environment. But, if it’s healthy to stop for 40 days and not good for the environment for 40 days, isn’t it also unhealthy and not environmentally unsustainable for all of the 325 other days? So why not keep going?

Several years ago for Lent I decided I was going to be a more patient driver and not yell at other drivers who were doing dumb things around me. And you know what? It was a great experience and I kept doing it. Now I’m not as dedicated to it as I once was, but I still think about it and try and check myself when it’s getting to be too much, and I hope it’s made me more patient not just in driving but in other areas of my life. That was a successful Lenten practice for me.

And so I would encourage the same for you. Find something in which you need some improvement, or try something entirely new, and then keep doing it. They say you need to do something for at least 28 days for it to become a habit, and now you have potentially 46 days in which to make something a part of your life.

I would also recommend using the daily devotional that some of the churches, including ours, put together for Lent. We have hard copies, including large print, available at the church, or you may use the electronic version which you will find in this newsletter.

I also hope you will join our Ash Wednesday service tonight at 6 pm. Since we are not together for worship, you can make your own ashes either by burning up some paper, or old palms if you have them, or take some ashes out of a fire and grind them up into fine particles and have them available during worship, possibly with some olive or vegetable oil available as well, and I will give some instruction on how to apply them.

I pray that you will have a meaningful and purposeful Lenten season this year.