Mark 12:28-34
Have you ever been asked the question, “what is Lent?”. Maybe it was a friend of yours who practices another faith tradition, maybe it was a co-worker who wondered about the “dirt on your head” on Ash Wednesday, or perhaps it was your clergy asking you to reflect on the meaning and reason for the season. Luckily there is formation for that!
How did you answer that question? I am sure many of you would probably provide the text book, or Google answer “Lent is a 40-day period of reflection, prayer, and fasting observed by many Christians, particularly Catholics, leading up to Easter, commemorating Jesus' 40 days in the desert before his public ministry”. However, Google’s definition, and the use of the three words “in the desert” doesn’t quite explore all that went on in that time and space for Jesus. There is no allusion to the extraordinary clash between our Divine Savior and the evil one! They left out the angst, the temptation, Satan’s attempts at deception and trickery. Talk about your classic underreport!
So how do we do that? Part of what we are called to do in our observance of Lent is to pray, reflect, repent, and return to God and live a life in union with God in upholding our Baptismal Covenants. Maybe you are picking up a new prayer practice such as: praying the daily office, saying the Great Litany, listening to pray as you go, reading your clergy’s daily Lenten meditation e-mail, participating in the Lenten study or stations of the cross at your church, gave something up that is really hard for you to do (I chose Facebook), or agreed to write a Lenten meditation for the diocese. All in the hopes that we would make more space and time for God in our lives, and in those moments we would think about what Jesus endured on our behalf, to reconcile us all to God.
Seems pretty straightforward, but I want you to take a moment and place yourself in the shoes of parents, clergy, God-parents, and Sunday school teachers everywhere, and imagine that the person asking you about Lent, is in elementary school. Their little heart and soul is on fire with the Holy Spirit and questions about God. They expect answers and they expect you to provide them.
Many of these kids, can sum up what they know about what it means to be a Christian, from today’s reading: Mark 12:28-34, when Jesus was asked about which is the greatest commandment, and answered: “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Many of these kids can sum up what they know about Lent, by trying to figure out the answer to the question, “What are you giving up for Lent..i.e. chocolate, video games, etc?” After all, it’s what they hear the grown-ups talking about as well. The practice of us sacrificing a pleasure of our own as a way of showing understanding that Jesus paid the ultimate price for all of us in his suffering and death on the cross. The struggle of Lent for a child is often boiled down to deciding what to give up, and trying to stick to that for all 40 days of Lent.
As grownups we know that Lent is deeper than that, but do they? As I reflect on today’s reading, I keep returning to a part of this passage that I have previously overlooked in Lent, “To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” It reminds me that Lent isn’t just about what we give up, but more importantly what we give of ourselves, to God, and others. In giving more of ourselves to God and others; we are returning to God, and observing the truest spirit of the season of Lent. So my question for all is not what did you give up, but what will you give of?
Meditation by Tiff Campbell
Intern, St. David’s Church, Cranbury
Diocese of New Jersey