It is the season of Lent, a time when believers of a wide
variety of faith backgrounds determine to spend the forty days leading up to
Easter focused a bit more than usual on
things spiritual. Obviously the idea of Lent is a human invention – in terms of
where it comes from – but I find it difficult to think that spending 40 days
with a renewed focus on my relationship to God can be anything but good! If I
suggest that God was providentially involved in the shaping of our New
Testaments – as I do in my college classroom every fall – then why can’t God be
providentially involved in the lives of those who, in ancient times not that
different from the process of canon, created some of these “man-made seasons”
of the Christian calendar?
Of course I would never suggest not observing Lent, or other
seasons of the Christian calendar, is a sin. Neither would I suggest that
having church buildings, musical instruments in worship, paid ministry staff,
Christian colleges, and a whole host of other “man-made” activities that we
have determined can help advance the kingdom are sinful. I’m certainly not a
church history expert. But I suspect that the connection between Orthodox and
Catholic believers and Lent is roughly the same as the connection between
buildings dedicated to the glory of God in which Christians meet to
worship and Orthodox and Catholic
Christians.
In one of the Lectionary texts for the second Sunday in
Lent, Paul makes a very plain statement about what it means to be a believer.
In Philippians 3:17-4:1, he describes the contrast between those he calls
“enemies of the cross” and those to whom he is writing with bold language. None
of it is more bold than the contrast between those whose “minds are set on
earthly things” and those whose “citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there
that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
What could be more transformating in my life than spending
these days leading up to Easter trying, with the help of God’s Spirit, to not
be so focused on earthly things and to live my life as a citizen of heaven?
What could happen among believers all over the world if somehow, by Easter
Sunday, we were more focused on our real citizenship and not so focused on the
earthly, not real in ultimate terms, things we are so easily caught up in?
I remember hearing the late Frank Harrington comment on how
tired he became of people using as an excuse for less than their best by saying,
“Preacher, you just don’t understand the real world, you work for the church.”
Harrington said he always replied, “I am living in the only real world there
is, you aren’t!”
I think Paul might offer a hearty “Amen!” to that. But I
think sometimes I’m prone to forget that the “real world” is God’s world where
heaven and earth overlap, to use a phrase from N.T. Wright. That’s the world
where Jesus taught us we can live out the Sermon on the Mount, the world where
our prayer is that “God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
I understand that such an attitude should be my focus every
day, not just the forty days of Lent. But I’m not sure spending 40 days
especially focused can’t be a good thing! And one that could have long-term
impact on my life.
Right now I’m very focused on losing about 15 pounds. I’m
counting calories, walking more than I have in quite a while, and avoiding red
meat, saturated fats, potato chips, and all that other “good stuff” that is the
reason I need to lose 15 pounds. I’m confident I can lose the weight – but
keeping it off will depend on how adjusting my eating and exercise habits will
continue once the 15 pounds are gone.
What if I also allow Lent to be a period when I adjust the
spiritual bad habits – “the earthly things” that are so often as attractive as
a New York Strip Steak at Long Horn Steak House? Even more, what can happen if
I allow the better spiritual habits I develop in these 40 days – “the
citizenship is in heaven” things that truly are “the real world” – to continue
after Easter?
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