Since Ash Wednesday this past week, I've been pondering the practice of Lenten Disciplines. While I was unable to attend our church's Ash Wednesday service due to my current contagion, my family went. And Rob came back on fire! "Did you know," he queried, "that it's not just 'giving something up for lent?' That there's also prayer and almsgiving involved?"
Yes, I knew this. Of course. "But no one does the other two!" says he. "I've never even heard that before! Only giving something up! So, I'm going to make a really concerted effort this year to do all three!"
Good on you, Rob. Good on you! But within a few days, he said "yeah. Giving stuff up is hard. I'm going focus on almsgiving and prayer instead." But his preconceived notion got me to thinking about how many people really do think Lent is all about "giving something up" and nothing else. Or one or the other, like a multiple choice thing. And why Lent is most fruitful when it's all three.
I envision it like this. WE, here on this planet, our sole PURPOSE FOR LIFE (spoiler alert) is to be conduits for God's grace. To be HIM on earth. In a very real, physical sense. To transform our own lives in preparation for being in His presence one day, and to facilitate that transformation in others. Thus the Great Commandment "Love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself". Bottom line. Salvation of souls, my friend. It's all about salvation - for ourselves and everyone who wishes it. Simple, really, this meaning of life.
In order for that to happen, you need three things: a connection to God, the discipline of spirit over body to assent to the will of God, and then the fortitude to carry out what He wants you to do. In essence... a conduit! Like the electrical cord of a machine, really. So, PRAYER is our connection with the Almighty (the plug-in to the electrical source). FASTING is the insulation on the electrical cord - it gives us the spiritual strength over our frail human bodies to ensure that God's signal travels where it is meant to go. And ALMSGIVING is the "machine", or that electrical impulse transformed into a definitive action on the world. It's all part of the same process, to have a physical, real, concrete output on our physical, real, concrete world, from a spiritual source. "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me." ACTION. The electricity itself, obviously, is all God's grace, working through to animate the whole thing... lest anyone think it's the electrical power cord itself doing the work. That's obviously not the case at all. And that gets in to the whole "faith vs works" argument that I've addressed ad nauseum on this blog, which is such a false argument in and of itself because it's not versus but and, and through... which seems so clear to me it makes me wonder why it's an issue at all any more in the church. But anyways... I digress.
So, one Lenten discipline without the other is good, and definitely a step in the right direction, but very incomplete when the end goal is to BE GOD IN THE WORLD. "…whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me."
Clarity.
ADDENDUM: This was part of my daily reading today, by Paul Thigpen. It's pertains to this musing, so I'm adding it here....
"Throughout Sacred Scripture, we find that when God's people fast, the power of their prayers is increased, especially when they are engaged in spiritual warfare. In the Old Testament, the Lord told Isaiah that a fast properly undertaken would 'loose the bonds of wickedness ... undo the thongs of the yoke ... let the oppressed go free' (Is. 58:6) ... In the New Testament, we find that Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the wilderness in preparation for His battle with Satan, who came to tempt Him (see Lk 4:1-2) ... If prayer is a spiritual weapon, fasting is the spiritual whetstone on which it is sharpened. It's the spiritual muscle that, when exercised regularly, strengthens the thrust of that weapon to pierce the Enemy and drive him away."
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