Lent
So Lent starts today and honestly I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve been struggling with the whole thing. I didn’t grow up in churches that observed Lent. It was only in college that I was even exposed to the whole concept. I would hear my friends discussing what they wanted to give up for the season – chocolate, TV, soft drinks – as well as hear them complain about how Easter couldn’t arrive soon enough. But in truth it all seemed strange. I didn’t really understand Lent, but the whole give up something you like was just an odd observance.
I totally understand the idea of being disciplined and of using one’s extra time or craving to draw closer to God. That’s in theory at least how its supposed to work. But it all seemed sort of hollow to me. What lasting spiritual effect is there of not eating chocolate, complaining about it, putting others out who happen to serve it, and then resuming consumption come Easter? Or what’s the point of giving up TV when you know that you’ll just catch up on those episodes of Lost on TiVo or DVD after Easter?
What confuses me even more is the tendency to give up relational things for Lent. I’ve had friends give up using a cell phone – which just made it really annoying for us (or their employer) to reach them. Others give up going out with friends and others give up the whole Facebook, Twitter, blog thing. While I understand how such things can be addictions, but it just seems counter-intuitive to the ideals of Lent to separate ourselves from community.
So this is where I’m sure I offend, but its something I’ve been struggling with. I just don’t see the purpose of Lent to be this perfunctory elimination of some random thing we like whose loss we endure simply until Easter. It’s just too individualistic – it’s all about me, my sacrifice, and (hopefully) my relationship with God. And while I admit to and am grateful for the personal message of the gospel, this perspective seems to forget that part of the message of the gospel (and of Lent) is that of righting relationships. The gospel is not just about us – it’s not just about getting our own butts into heaven or making sure we feel close to God. It’s also about loving our neighbors, seeking justice for the oppressed, and being part of the body of Christ.
So that’s why I am uncomfortable with reducing Lent to chocolate or a few episodes of American Idol. During Lent we are called to right our relationships with God and with others. So I’m more inclined to instead of giving up Facebook use it more deliberately – trying to be more aware of the simple everyday parts of my friends lives. I don’t want to give up food simply for the sake of giving it up – I want to instead show love to others by eating food that was ethically sourced. I want to discipline my life to be more aware, more involved, and more loving. I want the season of Lent to transform me in ways that extend beyond Easter.
That said, I’m at a loss how to proceed this season. I want to love others and build community, but right now I’m still struggling to figure out how. It would be easy to simply eliminate something from my life, but I’m beginning to understand that perhaps it is better to build. But of course, that’s a lot messier. So I’m still trying to figure it out.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
Good thought, thanks for sharing it.
I haven’t been a part of a Christian community that observes Lent, though I did go to a Roman Catholic school for several years in Houston, have some Catholic family members, and married a lapsed Catholic. So I’m not unfamiliar with it either. But my perspective has always been of one from the outside looking in.
These past several years, I have been reading and listening to the differences between the modern, Western practice of Lent and the Eastern practice. (I’m aware that the Western practice used to be more like what the Eastern practice remains, though not identical.) As you noted, the Western practice is highly personal and individualistic. But it’s more than that. It’s not just that ‘I’ pick out my own thing to ‘give up’. It’s a bit deeper. When I decide what I will or won’t give up, I’m still in control. Not only am I off on my own in my private religious sphere, but I’m determining the shape of that sphere.
The Eastern approach remains antithetical to both the individualism and the personal autonomy and control. The whole community follows the same pattern and discipline of fasting, repentance, and preparation, at least as best as each is able. While you are always admonished to mind your own fast and pay no attention to what another eats (to avoid the trap of pride, judgment, and legalism) nevertheless it is a shared experience unlike anything we have left in the West.
Before the fast begins each year, there is also a service called Forgiveness Vespers. This is an integral part of the preparation. I first heard about it in a podcast a couple of years ago. I remember that tears came to my eyes when I first listened to it. Here’s the link:
http://audio.ancientfaith.com/closetohome/forgiveness2.mp3
There’s nothing particularly special about the podcast, but there was a deep recognition within me that this sort of recognition and care for our communal life in the West has largely vanished.
Oh, and rather than a single service or day, the Orthodox follow the 40 days of fasting with a 40 day feast. That rhythm seems to me to have more balance.
coming out of lurking to not only tell you what a find your blog has been for me, but to share my experience of Lent…
I was raised in a liberal Catholic household, and on top of “giving up” things for the season, my parents felt that Lent should be spent learning something about our faith or sharing our talents with others. It was during the Lenten season that I became a lector at my church growing up and during Lent that my sister studied the Book of Ruth in its entirety with my grandmother.
Since leaving the Catholic church many years ago I have not celebrated Lent in any meangingful way. But now that my son is a little older, I find myself thinking about using this time for spiritual growth and understanding and feel like thanking my parents for imbuing that feeling into the season…
I hear you, Julie (though I have altered my diet during Lent on occasion, and found it both beneficial individually and toward my life in community, strange though that may sound).
In our church community, we’ve taken an interesting journey to honor the sometimes disparate themes of simplicity, sacrifice, and community. For several years, we have foregone our normal lunch after church (there’s a Chipotle next door to the place where our church meets). Instead, we put the money we would have spent (plus a bit extra, I suspect) into a jar and give it to someone we have a relationship with who faces some kind of financial need (like, as in we don’t count it, but deliver the whole wad of cash to them each week during Lent). But we didn’t want to forego the breaking of bread together (hehe, hear my Evangelical baggage?), so we gather instead at someone’s home to eat something very, very simple together. Cheap, too: ramen noodles, PB&J, bean soup, dumpster-dive food, etc.. The gatherings are a reminder of the true value of community, apart from fun food and spending money.
I like Scott M’s comment. Similar to his reaction, I was reminded by your post of Frederica Matthews-Greene’s account in “Facing East” of Forgiveness Vespers, followed by the communal 40 day Lenten fast and season of repentance, followed by the joyous celebration and feasting of Easter. That rhythm and communal pattern was and is highly attractive to me, much more so than the individualistic western “so what are YOU giving up for Lent this year?”
I guess I am in actuality a lurker, since I have been reading your blog for almost a year now and I think I may have commented once before?
Lent is always an interesting time for me. My grandparents are devout Catholics, but I was raised in denominations that did not really focus on Lent. Now I attend a church that is interested in exploring the liturgical calendar and the connections it gives us to the greater body of Christ globally and historically.
In general I’ve viewed Lent as a time of reflection and preparation. Some years that requires additions to my life (read through the entire Bible once, practicing more hospitality, additional service opportunities, etc.) and some times that requires subtractions (sugar/sweets, time on the computer, phone, TV, etc.) My parents encouraged me to pray and ask God what I needed to do to prepare during Lent and every year it has been different.
This year, is a subtraction and addition year. I am giving up eating out in order to use more of my finances to support friends working as missionaries overseas. I am hoping that this time of denial and restructuring will result in permanent changes in my habits and budget for God’s glory and the encouragement of his body.
One thing that my beloved Catholic grandma reminded me of in a previous year of subtraction: Sundays are not included in Lent because they are always to be times of joy and jubilee. Fasting is often a wearisome discipline and it is good to remember that the Sabbath is a day for rest.
Am interested to hear more from you on this.
I grew up as well in churches that did not follow the liturgical calendar. I now serve as pastor in a church that does (United Church of Christ).
I have always found the idea of “giving up this or that for Lent” a rather strange notion, too, but I do believe the intent of Lent and Lenten discipline is something quite different. It is not about self-denial or self-deprivation or about self at all. It is a community discipline and a community observance, creating space, and paying attention, so that we can hear again and be transformed again by the fundamental story that makes us what we are.
I think in many ways, the “low church” practices of my upbringing are much more individualistic, focussed on personal faith and individual piety. Lent brings us as a community to a place where we walk the path of obedience with Jesus — all the way to the cross — grappling with the implications of taking that path, and renewing our hope in where it leads!
I think that Lent carries with it a lot of symbolic baggage. The season of Lent is calculated back 40 days before Easter (not including Sundays), and that number 40 represents the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness after his baptism. So fasting and Lent have always gone together, though we have cheapened the notion of fasting by turning it into the rather simplistic exercise of giving up chocolate or ice cream or what have you. But there are people who fast for real during the season, giving up meat, alcohol, sometimes even dairy…or those who give up meat on Fridays…
But regardless of whether we fast or how we fast (even if it is just giving up coffee), we’d do well to remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 6, where he warns us against bringing our piety into the limelight.
I agree that there are a range of faith practices that infuse Lent with deeper meaning – in fact, I’m preaching on that tonight – and so I would encourage people of faith to find some sort of practice that draws them into the community and helps prepare their hearts for the tragedy of the crucifixion and the joy of the resurrection.
This all being said…I gave up coffee this year, and while it might be a fairly empty gesture, I know that every time I have to choose tea over coffee, or every time I pass up a coffee shop instead of going in, I will be reminded of what I have been given through Christ precisely because I will be reminded of that which I have given up. So maybe giving something up for Lent can function like a string tied around your finger?
I like Melissa’s reminder of Jesus’ warning against bringing our piety into the limelight. Reading Julie’s description of her observation of others’ experiences with lent, brought that passage to mind for me as well.
The “point” of lent, even in the western tradition, isn’t to TELL everyone else what you’re giving up for lent, nor to spend lent complaining about what you’re missing out on. If that’s someone’s experience of lent, I think they’re missing out on what lent is supposed to be about. I like this from Frederica on lent:
“In the ten years since I became a member of the Orthodox Church, that’s been the biggest surprise to me: the unfolding joy of repentance. Every year about this time we get onto the long on-ramp to Lent, which will begin March 10 and last for seven long weeks till Easter (we call it Pascha). It’s an intensely penitential time, marked by many extra church services and intensified fasting. I can’t wait.
“That doesn’t make immediate sense, I know. It’s hard to explain. When I first became Orthodox, Lent was simply baffling to me. I went out and bought a case of tuna, not knowing that we try to abstain from fish along with meat, cheese, and other dairy products. The extra services were poetically beautiful but weren’t they, well, a little redundant? If we say “Lord, have mercy” once, isn’t that enough? Why do we keep begging?
“Gradually it began to make sense. As someone said to me, “We say ‘Lord, have mercy’ forty times in a row because we don’t mean it till the 37th time.” All these spiritual disciplines are for our own benefit, not God’s. God doesn’t need us to grovel. But we need our view of reality corrected, because it tends to be self-flattering and askew. When we see things clearly, repentance comes naturally, and strangely enough, it feels like a relief.
“. . . In the first years, Lent was bewildering to me. Later, it just seemed hard. Last year, it was a spiritual mountaintop. I don’t know how to explain why repentance is a path to joy, or how to make it appealing. I think you have to come find out for yourself.”
Entire Article including more on Lent, here:
http://www.frederica.com/writings/time-to-repent-whoopee.html
I’m with ya sister. I just wrote a long really quite negatively toned journal entry that I may or may not post on my blog that is essentially what you just said but with even stronger sentiments. I’m at a loss this year and I’m not sure what to do about it.
wow – so I’m offline all day and find all this great comments!
First off – Makeesha, I totally understand. This was the mild version. At this point I’m just thinking that I’ll do my best not to be a selfish bitch during Lent…
but to address the other ideas
for those that brought up the Orthodox tradition – that is something that makes more sense to me. It is the community of the church participating in an act of worship together. If the church has seasons, it just makes sense that they should celebrate them as one. The deep fasting and lifestyle rhythms make this time apart more communal and less individualistic. Not that I haven’t heard complaints of “this is so hard” from them as well, but at least they are all doing it together.
To me this whole doing it together for the sake of others is key. So I have no problem with the telling and having it out in the open. The journey should be all together imho. I like what Mike said about choosing as a group to give up eating out – it was a communal act that pushes beyond the self.
I may have implied something other than I meant when I typed that IMO the point of Lent, even in the western tradition, isn’t to tell others what you are giving up for lent.
While I think Jesus’ admonition to not perform our acts of piety just for the sake of being seen doing them IS apt here, I didn’t mean to suggest a hard and fast rule that one should keep it a secret what one is giving up for lent. Like Julie, if the attitude and spirit is right I have no problem with “the telling and having it out in the open,” especially if what I am giving up and why, and how it is affecting my faith, is something that others can be edified by. But so often it doesn’t seem to be about that – it seems like “what are you giving up” or letting others know what I have given up, becomes the whole point, or the main point rather than an almost ancillary point to participation in the lenten season. If the main focus stays on what I’ve given up, what someone else has given up, and how much it sucks to give it up, then the point of lent is missed.
The fact that we miss what we’ve given up is inescapable, and of course we’re supposed to miss it. I’m not saying we’re not supposed to notice the absence and acknowledge that it’s hard. But once we get very far into the “what have you given up this year?” discussion it seems like it’s hard to pull back out and make sure the focus is where it belongs. I think the desired trajectory of experience for those who celebrate the discipline of fasting during lent is that described by Frederica M-G: “. . . In the first years, Lent was bewildering to me. Later, it just seemed hard. Last year, it was a spiritual mountaintop. I don’t know how to explain why repentance is a path to joy, or how to make it appealing. I think you have to come find out for yourself.”
I agree! There’s something about Lenten disciplines (whether it be giving something up, adding something in, or creating new habits) that begs to be done in and shared with community. But at the same time, there’s something about Lenten disciplines that tricks us into thinking that the discipline itself is the important thing, instead of remembering that the discipline is supposed to point us to God. We don’t have to keep our disciplines secret, we just have to keep from letting those disciplines (and our associated hopes, griefs, and fears about them) become the only focus of the season.
Lent is like the second-chance at a slimmed-down New Year’s resolution. It comes after the resolution went down in flames. And, it’s shorter, giving you a better chance of succeeding.
What I don’t understand, like you, about both these things is why they have to be things that we take away from our lives. I liked the idea of eating communally instead of eating out, too. I was thinking why can’t for Lent, a bunch of folks get together and host a game-night or some other white-bread fun activity that I love so much.
Like you said, it seems like it would be so much more productive to build something into life than to take things out.
That said, I’m horrible at even remembering liturgical stuff. Completely forgot yesterday was Ash Wednesday. And I’ve been in the Episcopal church for six years now!!!
Lent is very important to me this year. It is not important every year, but some years it has been transforming. For example, the year my second son was born (right before Lent) I decided to give up reading the New York Time every day until I had read the bible that day (until this point, I didn’t read the bible very often). I never had time to read both, so I ended up giving up the Times and adding the bible. I have never given up the bible (though, I can’t read it every day of course) and I do read the Times, but not as an addict any longer. That small act has transformed the away I allocate my time. A small change, yes. But, an important one.
The Christian way combines contemplative practices (praying, meditation, silence, gratitude, sabbath, etc) with communal ones (worship and church/community activity) to yield missional work like justice, charity and evangelism. Lent is individualistic for a reason. We need to acknowledge our weaknesses and turn back toward God in order to serve the world, to promote justice and to love all of what God created. Sometimes the biggest roadblocks are within ourselves and those might be overcome by a Lenten observance.
Back in the day, there were years when i gave up alcohol for lent… and years when i gave up lent for alcohol.
this year i’ve been thinking (like your post captures) that God is about relationships, so i started what I’ve called “40 days of lent – Facebook Style”. Each morning I post something about someone I’ve encountered in my life, and I spend the day with that person in my thoughts and prayers. posting on facebook helps me because I am reminded to stop, reflect and reach out to God everytime I log in. Plus, i get to connect with some people, including people haven’t heard from in a few decades.