February 2008
On what must have been the First Sunday of Lent, my third grade Sunday school teacher,
Mrs. White, introduced us to the theology of self-denial during the season of Lent. She asked us to write down on a piece of paper some of the things we were going to “give up” for Lent.My mother had provided us with a variety of vegetables and I grew fond of beets, spinach, and turnips. They were not on my Lenten self-denial list until a girl I really liked decided she would give up beets and spinach for Lent because they tasted “yucky.” My best friend John said the same thing, as did others in the class. We very piously voted to give up all the yucky vegetables we could name. That Lent I unknowingly made a Lenten sacrifice.
I don't recall hearing anything about temptations, sacrifice, or even resolve as being a part of a Lenten “Discipline” (another unspoken word) until I was an adult. By that time I was an Episcopal Lenten traditionalist and only the yucky stuff (meaning the easy stuff) was on my list of Lenten “sacrifices.”
Our journey through the Lenten season will carry us with Christ through the wilderness places in our lives. It will be a journey that will even take us to that place where ultimately we come face to face with Jesus' Lenten denial and discipline on Good Friday. It is the image of that hard wooden cross that can teach us about our Lenten self-denials. I believe that our Lenten question begins with wondering if we too were there when they crucified our Lord?
Let me suggest to you that this Lent you resist the temptation to fall back into an old and easy habit from the past but seek to look at those temptations in your life and your understanding of them, and then to seek a means of denying those temptations for a season.
One of my great temptations is procrastination. Therefore, during Lent I am going to take on all those things I have been putting off until tomorrow, such as a complete physical, a review of my funeral plans and my living will, a diet and exercise plan, and on Fridays a day of fasting from sunup to sundown and then using the money saved from eating to put in my mite box. The money saved during Lent will then be given to the church's outreach ministries.
If you are struggling with a Lenten self-denial plan, come and see me. I think together we can come up with a some good ideas.
May you have a blessed Lent,
Fr. Ken †
