Giving Up...

Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Lenten season. For those of us who observe the 40 days of Lent, this often means we more intentionally practice the disciplines of Lent.

Fasting, almsgiving, worship, prayer, and contemplation.

While our Catholic siblings often abstain/fast from meat at certain points during Lent, many Protestants have shifted the practice to other forms of "giving things up".

My first year of college was the first time I had spent any amount of time around others who weren't Roman Catholic but also gave something up for Lent. It usually involved food, so things like sweets in general or chocolate in particular, soda/pop, alcohol as we became of drinking age, swearing, and so forth.

My friends explained it as a way of honoring the sacrifice of Jesus by sacrificing something of their own, and to be honest it never quite made sense to me. Jesus dying on the cross and me giving up chocolate seemed like wildly different sorts of sacrifices. Also, wasn't the point that Jesus already made the sacrifice? 

Fast forward to parish ministry and I have a better understanding and greater appreciation for the practice of giving things up for Lent. For us Christians of the Lutheran persuasion, giving something up = fasting. One of our Lenten disciplines is fasting. And while we may not regularly fast from food and drink as a practice, we do fast from those things that may distract us from our relationship with God. 

In the Old Testament reading from Isaiah 58, God asks the Israelites what they think their fasting is going to get them. They were demanding a reward from God, an acknowledgement of how good and right they were because they were fasting. God looks at their actions but sees their hearts, and it is in the hearts of the people that the truth of their fast comes out.

They weren't doing it because they loved and honored God, but because they were hoping it would distract God from their other actions. They were abusing and mistreating the poor and vulnerable in their community, denying food and housing to those who needed it most, fighting one another with words and fists, treating their employees poorly--in other words, they were NOT living righteous lives! 

Giving something up for the sake of participating in an annual tradition isn't the worst thing we do, but it is absolutely counter to God's call to fast when we then live our lives without care or consideration for the very people God tells us to care and consider! This is not the fast that God wants from us. 

Through Jesus, God invites us to acts of righteousness that are for the sake of the body of Christ. To love in word and deed through almsgiving (i.e. giving offerings to the church and other caring ministries), through feeding and housing and clothing people (which can be done through almsgiving), through prayer for God's loving will to be done in the world, and with fasting from all those things which truly separate us from God and one another.

The fast that God desires is one that focuses us on our relationships, first with God and then through God with one another. When we fast like that, then we become repairers of the breach. We are active participants in the work of healing and reconciliation that God has already started, and that Jesus is making his way to the cross for. 

What then are you giving up for Lent this year? What is the fast that God has called you to?