A Re-LENT-less Obsession

 

Three days in – how’s it going for you, this Lent thing? I missed the smearing-in-ash misery (and, probably, a cracking sermon from my favourite Curate!) as I was at another church gathering that was having a lively discussion which was, co-incidentally, about Matthew 6:16-18 – “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they distort their appearance so that they will be noticed by people when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by people, but by your Father who sees in secret; and your Father who sees you in secret will reward you.” If this is not the antithesis of the religious performance, encouraged by our obsession with sin during Lent, I don’t know what else it is!

Obviously, the question of Lent, and of what it might mean, came up in the conversation. ‘What is the origin of Lent?’ we wanted to know, and ‘When was it invented?’ No one knew, not even the professionals!

My eye caught what used to be known as a “Tweet” (an ‘X’?) from Church historian and insightful preacher, Diana Butler-Bass: ‘Listening to the Ash Wednesday service makes me wonder if God is just tired of all the begging.... That can't be very much fun: "We beseech Thee this; we beseech Thee that..." Maybe, just maybe, God would appreciate a genuine conversation once in a while…’

It’s true: our re-LENT-less obsession with our sinfulness; our miserable begging and pleading, every time we engage in liturgical worship – and most egregiously at the travesty that is “Holy Communion” (aka “Eucharist,” “The Lord’s Table” and so on ["True humanity," writes John de Jong citing George MacDonald, "inheres in renouncing vampirism - the blood of a counterfeit Eucharist - and accepting the true Eucharist, the bread and wine of Christ." From "The Theology of George MacDonald" p9] – is at its most obnoxious level of self-pitying religiosity during this alleged festival in the Church’s liturgical calendar. (Most non-established denominations, especially Evangelical or Charismatic/Pentecostal, don’t follow the Church Lectionary or Calendar, but many do engage in some form of Lent-ism. Go figure!)

Lent is an illusion. It is a fiction that has no Biblical basis, origin, or precedent, whatsoever. As a penitential preparation for Easter, it got its first reference in the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. As Christopher Hunt explains: “Historians generally agree that the 40-day period before Easter, known as Lent, emerged shortly following the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Earliest observances of Lent seem to have focused particularly on the practice of fasting. Council records suggest that the fast applied at first mainly to new converts as a period of repentance and reflection before baptism at Easter. In any case, Lent quickly became a general practice churchwide. The actual 40-day period varied region-to-region, even church-to-church; some including weekends, some not; some fasting Sundays, others not. But in every case, the fast was strict: one meal a day after 3 PM with no meat, fish, or dairy. It was Pope Gregory I (590 - 604) [sic!] who finally regularized the period of the fast churchwide, to begin on a Wednesday 46 days before Easter with a ceremony of ash, and not to include Sundays, which were perennial days of celebration.”

So, the rot set in quite early. I’m usually a fan of Athanasias, but I was disheartened to read he had got into justifying Lent, too! According to Luke Wayne, writing on the CARM website:  In Athanasius’ first “festal letter,” (letter announcing the feast) he wrote:

“We begin the holy fast on the fifth day of Pharmuthi (March 31) and adding to it according to the number of those six holy and great days, which are the symbol of the creation of this world, let us rest and cease (from fasting) on the tenth day of the same Pharmuthi (April 5), on the holy sabbath of the week. And when the first day of the holy week dawns and rises upon us, on the eleventh day of the same month (April 6), from which again we count all the seven weeks one by one, let us keep feast on the holy day of Pentecost,” (Athanasius of Alexandria, 1st Festal Letter).

*Sigh!*

You can read these articles for the nitty-gritty of it all, but, frankly, we really should never have got into this mess. It derives, church history would suggest, from a relatively early departure from the Son-consciousness of the followers of Jesus (who called themselves The Way) who had the guidance of the Apostles to encourage them in the joy, liberty and lavish extravagance of Grace as revealed through the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, into a completely erroneous Sin-consciousness that became a manipulative weapon in the hands of an increasingly power-obsessed, controlling, Ecclesiastical institution. By the time of Constantine’s kidnapping of Christianity for his own militaristic and vainglorious ambitions, the previously beleaguered and persecuted church, sheltering in the shadows of the Catacombs, was only too grateful to be complicit in the Imperialization of a State-sanctioned Christianism and enjoy the sunshine of Imperial patronage up in the Basilicas. An institutionalized Church has been the Chaplain to Empire ever since. (Witness the conflation of Christianity with American Nationalism that enabled Trump, for example).

Historically, not every follower of Jesus has been embroiled in this fiasco. Although Luther and the Lutheran church maintained the tradition in some form, Calvin, Zwingli and other extreme Reformers would have nothing to do with it, as the articles referenced above attest.

“The Kingdom of God,” Paul asserts, “is not eating and drinking, [or, indeed, also “not not eating and drinking”] but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14:17 NASB) Indeed; and as I have wrestled with this issue, I have been advised by Paul’s wider counsel earlier in this same chapter 14: Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions. 2For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

5One person regards a certain day above the others, while someone else considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who observes a special day does so to the Lord; he who eats does so to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

7For none of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9For this reason Christ died and returned to life, that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

Amen, and Amen.

However, if you are at peace, joy, and unity in yourself, and in your confidence in Christ in you, your hope of glory; if you are certain of your full and absolute forgiveness for all sin – past, present, and future – as affirmed in the Scriptures, then according to your own conscience may you engage with the true, joyful Spirit of Lent, rather than the miserable, legalistic Letter. May the time be of value to you as you train your mind and heart upon the Man and Message who is Jesus: The Good News of our full favour with God, our Father. May it encourage Christ to dwell in your hearts richly, bringing you into ever more transformation from glory to glory.

On the other hand, may Lent be of nothing to you if all it does is reinforce your guilt, shame, and blindness. If you are pushed into performance and behaving as a beggar for Grace already given to you, or to pleading for the power and wonder of resurrection already yours in Christ; If by repentance you remain stuck in the lie of “doing penance again and again,” then please; STOP! The word, wrongly translated as “repent,” is Metanoia, and it is all about changing your mind. It’s about turning around and beholding your heavenly Father, who calls you, always: “My Beloved!” Let Lent, if you will, be a time of re-turning with grace and gratitude to the One – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who loves you more than Themselves, for as He (Christ) is in this world, so also are we!

A dear sister, Jessica Boudreaux, writes this week in her blog entitled “Re-learning repentance”: “Repentance marks the starting point of our journey [toward salvation]. The Greek term metanoia [repentance]... signifies primarily a change of mind. Correctly understood, repentance is not negative but positive. It means, not self-pity or remorse, but conversion, the re-centring of our whole life upon the Trinity… And so, we must sometimes find ourselves repenting of our ideas of repentance, too. We know from the Parable Jesus tells us of the Prodigal Son how our Father views repentance. He only desires that we would be always turning, and returning, again and again and always, back to the Arms of the One Who never turns from us- Who is running toward us eternally to embrace us, without even really wanting to hear even our best apologies.”

Jessica also looks closely at the Penitential Psalm par-excellence, Psalm 51, and it is to this Psalm we will go next, melding our observations with hers.

Go well, Wayfarers – for what we have in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not Lent, but Freely Given!

EXTRA! EXTRA!

From the collection by Mercy Aiken who works with the Network of Evangelicals For The Middle East, and who co-wrote Yet in The Dark Streets Shining – A Palestinian Story of Hope & Resilience in Bethlehem with Bishara Awad.

But don't be surprised by pain. Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.” ― Henri J.M. Nouwen