Not very long ago I was riding the subway in Toronto and, as is usually the case, was wearing my clerical collar. I’m a big fan of “representing”. A young mum and her daughter were sitting next to me and suddenly the little girl touched my arm. “Could I ask you a question?” she said very politely. Yes, of course. “You know in Lent when you give something up,” she said. “If you tell someone what you’re giving up, will it not come true?”
“You mean like those wishes you make when you blow out the candles on a birthday cake,” I said. “Yes,” she replied, “just like that.” They didn’t teach me that one in seminary but having raised four children I think I managed to rescue the situation relatively well. Yet her version of Lent wasn’t especially unusual. Those people who still observe the season sometimes have a strange view of a time when we should be sacrificing so as to feel solidarity with Christ or to refine and define ourselves to become better Christians. So, using the Lenten period to lose weight or give up smoking isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do wonder if the focus might not have become just a little blurred.
I’m hardly one to criticize, because I’m still trying to work it all out. Having said that, God save us from those who do think that they fully understand and know exactly what they’re doing. But as we enter these Lenten lands, these Paschal paths, we need to remember some fundamentals of the faith and remind ourselves why Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert. To put it bluntly, let’s grasp the fact that ours is the God of losers. As Freud said, if we all got what we deserved we’d get a good beating, and when I consider how I’ve sometimes behaved over the years I cringe in embarrassment and shame. Lent reminds us of sacrifice and suffering, and that God loves us not because we’re perfect but because we’re the opposite. The divine quintessence of the Jesus narrative is a paradox. In death there is life, in giving there is receiving, in sacrifice there is completion. What Christianity shouldn’t be is a moral thermometer. It’s too profound, too pristine, too radical for that.
In fact, perhaps in Lent, we can work on building a great new prejudice. Pause as readers wonder “What on earth is going on?” I mean the prejudice of love. Prejudge people as souls, made in the image of God, full of goodness and beauty. Of course, we’ll sometimes be let down, but if we haven’t realized that reality as followers of Jesus, we haven’t been paying attention!
The determination to love runs so dramatically counter to the morbid fashion of judging others and then taking comfort in the fact that we’re not like them. When the truth is that we’re usually not very different at all. It is at its most vile on social media and the front pages of the tabloids, and due to the influence and size of the constantly multiplying social media platforms, we’ve seen graphic judgmentalism turned into an art form. First, force the chosen victim to close their account, then have them fired, then ruin their lives, and even in some gruesome cases have them self-harm or even kill themselves. This mob hatred once involved villages and pitchforks, but now it’s performed on a keyboard. That’s so contrary to the Jesus of Lent, who was fully God but also fully human and who went hungry and thirsty to fulfill a divine mission of salvation for all of us—yes, all of us—who have fallen. Observe Lent in whatever way you want but never forget that the purpose is to learn to love.
By the way, 20 years ago, I decided to fast for Lent, something that might not be healthy, could be dangerous, and I’m certainly not recommending it. For 44 days I drank a glass of V8 every morning, and swallowed a vitamin pill, but ate absolutely nothing. It all seems a distant memory now and there’s no way I would ever do it again. The result was that I had extraordinarily clear and vivid dreams, a certain spiritual awakening, a loss of weight that didn’t last very long, and incredibly bad breath. My wife is a very tolerant woman. I’ve been asked in the past if this was my most memorable Lent. The answer is no. My most memorable Lent was 11 years ago when I became an Anglican, and decided to devote 40 days trying to jettison all that I thought was keeping me from pursuing the true love of Christ Jesus.
As for the details, I can’t tell you because they might not come true…
Lent Beyond Sacrifice: Discovering the Prejudice of Love
Not very long ago I was riding the subway in Toronto and, as is usually the case, was wearing my clerical collar. I’m a big fan of “representing”. A young mum and her daughter were sitting next to me and suddenly the little girl touched my arm. “Could I ask you a question?” she said very politely. Yes, of course. “You know in Lent when you give something up,” she said. “If you tell someone what you’re giving up, will it not come true?”
“You mean like those wishes you make when you blow out the candles on a birthday cake,” I said. “Yes,” she replied, “just like that.” They didn’t teach me that one in seminary but having raised four children I think I managed to rescue the situation relatively well. Yet her version of Lent wasn’t especially unusual. Those people who still observe the season sometimes have a strange view of a time when we should be sacrificing so as to feel solidarity with Christ or to refine and define ourselves to become better Christians. So, using the Lenten period to lose weight or give up smoking isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do wonder if the focus might not have become just a little blurred.
I’m hardly one to criticize, because I’m still trying to work it all out. Having said that, God save us from those who do think that they fully understand and know exactly what they’re doing. But as we enter these Lenten lands, these Paschal paths, we need to remember some fundamentals of the faith and remind ourselves why Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert. To put it bluntly, let’s grasp the fact that ours is the God of losers. As Freud said, if we all got what we deserved we’d get a good beating, and when I consider how I’ve sometimes behaved over the years I cringe in embarrassment and shame. Lent reminds us of sacrifice and suffering, and that God loves us not because we’re perfect but because we’re the opposite. The divine quintessence of the Jesus narrative is a paradox. In death there is life, in giving there is receiving, in sacrifice there is completion. What Christianity shouldn’t be is a moral thermometer. It’s too profound, too pristine, too radical for that.
In fact, perhaps in Lent, we can work on building a great new prejudice. Pause as readers wonder “What on earth is going on?” I mean the prejudice of love. Prejudge people as souls, made in the image of God, full of goodness and beauty. Of course, we’ll sometimes be let down, but if we haven’t realized that reality as followers of Jesus, we haven’t been paying attention!
The determination to love runs so dramatically counter to the morbid fashion of judging others and then taking comfort in the fact that we’re not like them. When the truth is that we’re usually not very different at all. It is at its most vile on social media and the front pages of the tabloids, and due to the influence and size of the constantly multiplying social media platforms, we’ve seen graphic judgmentalism turned into an art form. First, force the chosen victim to close their account, then have them fired, then ruin their lives, and even in some gruesome cases have them self-harm or even kill themselves. This mob hatred once involved villages and pitchforks, but now it’s performed on a keyboard. That’s so contrary to the Jesus of Lent, who was fully God but also fully human and who went hungry and thirsty to fulfill a divine mission of salvation for all of us—yes, all of us—who have fallen. Observe Lent in whatever way you want but never forget that the purpose is to learn to love.
By the way, 20 years ago, I decided to fast for Lent, something that might not be healthy, could be dangerous, and I’m certainly not recommending it. For 44 days I drank a glass of V8 every morning, and swallowed a vitamin pill, but ate absolutely nothing. It all seems a distant memory now and there’s no way I would ever do it again. The result was that I had extraordinarily clear and vivid dreams, a certain spiritual awakening, a loss of weight that didn’t last very long, and incredibly bad breath. My wife is a very tolerant woman. I’ve been asked in the past if this was my most memorable Lent. The answer is no. My most memorable Lent was 11 years ago when I became an Anglican, and decided to devote 40 days trying to jettison all that I thought was keeping me from pursuing the true love of Christ Jesus.
As for the details, I can’t tell you because they might not come true…
The Reverend Michael Coren is the author of 20 books, several of them best-sellers, translated into a dozen languages. He hosted daily radio and TV shows for almost 20 years, and is now a Contributing Columnist for the Toronto Star, and appears regularly in the Globe and Mail, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Church Times, and numerous other publications in Canada and Britain. He has won numerous award and prizes across North America. He is a priest at St. Luke’s, Burlington. His latest book is Heaping Coals. His website is michaelcoren.com
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