As February slides behind us with the excitement of the installation and the Lifesingers tour and final performance, March hits us right in the face with Lent. What a comedown! Have you thought about what you are going to give up for Lent this year? From the old Catholic tradition that comes to us from the middle ages, we would start with meat. Beef and chicken are out salmon and crab are OK! (Figure that one out.) This kind of thinking was based on a theology that told us the flesh or body was bad and needed to be constantly kept under control. Yet Christianity at its very earliest stage did away with the Jewish food laws and hotly contested the Greek idea that the flesh was evil and only the spirit was good. So how did we get from there to monks going without food and beating themselves in their cells?

It has more to do with human nature than it does with theology. Jesus taught us a balanced way of life in which body mind and spirit were all considered positively. Think about it. In Jesus Christ God took on human flesh that is lifting it up not tearing it down. He ate and drank with his friends (sinners) and did so in such a way that he could continue to fulfill his calling and keep the respect of all but the most hidebound church people of his day. He also fasted and prayed to build up his relationship with the God he called Father, which is the other side. Unfortunately when human beings start to go out of balance it is almost always toward the party hardy side of our nature, the flesh. This has created a pendulum swing between license where anything goes and abstinence where nothing goes at all. This conflict outlines what we know as Lent. It swings from Mardi Gras to Good Friday and asking where the beef is in between those two times is considered bad manners.

I believe we need to return to an earlier Lenten tradition if we are to regain the balance Jesus taught and lived and make it meaningful to our culture. It is not that there is not a time for penitence, but that is something based in our personal walk with the Lord and not the calendar. We also still need to honor the story of Jesus’ trials and passion that are taught in the church on the Sundays in Lent. So how can we still honor the true spirit of Lent and make it a meaningful positive experience in our time? In the early church Lent was the time when those who were going to be baptized on the Easter Vigil prepared for their baptism. They needed to be taught the values and the content of our Christian faith. It was important that they be given the tools they needed in order to develop a personal relationship with Jesus, the only thing that would give them the balance they needed and preserved their faith in those perilous times. The only things they were asked to give up were those things not needed in their new life in Christ. Instead the main emphasis was picking up new habits. These were the Spiritual Disciplines. Things like prayer, worship, spiritual reading or Lectio Divina even fasting, just to name a few. I propose we change our Lenten emphasis from one of depravation to one of intentional preparation for the ministry God has prepared for us at Resurrection Lutheran Church. To help with that there will be a short teaching on a number of Spiritual Disciplines at the Wednesday Vesper Services. If we are truly to be the people of God we have been called to be we must be intentional about it. The long and short of it is this: If you want to be disciples you must be disciplined. No one does this without help. That is why Jesus talked about teaching when he told us to go and make disciples in the Great Commission. I think there is no better way for us to begin our ministry together than to spend our lenten time picking up new skills for the new ministry God has prepared for us as Resurrection Lutheran Church.

Pastor Jim Bliss
March, 2001