Ash Wednesday
Sermon by Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
February 26, 2020
The Lenten Fast
Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are all atwitter about something concerning Lent, and I know it’s true because yesterday it made it to the pages of the Chicago Tribune. Part of Roman Catholic Lenten practice is to fast from eating meat on Fridays. But a crisis has come with the advent of plant-based proteins that have been engineered to look, taste, and feel in your mouth just like meat – the Impossible Burger and such. Things like this have been available at Walt’s for a couple of years now, and are presently coming online even at fast-food places.
So whaddya think? If for Lent you’re fasting from meat, is it okay to go through the Culver’s drive-thru and get something that looks like a burger, smells like a burger, tastes like a burger … but ain’t, technically, a burger? Or how about stopping in at one of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants, which this year is offering as a Lenten special – I am not making this up! – a Hatch Green Chili Impossible Burger, topped with white cheddar and sriracha mayo? It’s the Lenten special! Just right for your fast!
Or does that violate the spirit, if not the law, of the Lenten fast?
That raises the question: What *is* the spirit, the purpose, of the Lenten fast? The Tribune reporter interviewed somebody at the archdiocese office who holds the title of – ready for this? – Director of the Office of Divine Worship. During Lent you go without, this person says, “to be in solidarity with those who are hungry.”
My word, I thought; and that’s someone who serves in the archdiocese office? That’s so much more than just historically and factually inaccurate; that is offensive. My choosing to go without something I can well afford, in no way does that bring me into solidarity with someone who is poor. You’re not standing with the poor; you talk like that and you’re behaving like something of a tourist among the poor.
So what *is* the spirit, the purpose, of the Lenten fast? Because Roman Catholic friends are not the only ones who are all atwitter. We ask each other, too: what are you giving up for Lent? Forty days Lent is, because forty is one of those Biblical numbers that means a long time and is linked to periods of trial. Think of the 40 days and nights of the Great Flood in the days of Noah; the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in the desert after escaping the clutches of the pharaoh; or the 40 days Jesus was fasting in the wilderness.
Jesus fasted, and so we fast. Why? To create a little emptiness in your life. Because every time you remind yourself of that little place you have emptied in your life – no chocolate for you!; or no alcohol; or no dessert; whatever – you remind yourself that your life in Christ is about so much more than the stuff we find to stuff it with. We live in a world that is full of so much. It’s spiritually good, then, to remind ourselves – and our fasting will do that! – that our life does not depend on that stuff. Not so much.
One more word of advice about this business of spiritual discipline and Lenten fasting on which we set out tonight. Lately I’ve seen a lot of writing about how going without – giving up something for Lent – is really meaningless, and what you should do is add something to your life – 40 days of a yoga class; or 40 days of regular exercise – that will really improve you. This came out a little in the Tribune story as well, in the reporter’s interview with another Catholic priest. Giving up meat is just a “superficial law,” he says, much to my surprise. I’m guessing that was a surprise to his cardinal, too, when that paper landed on his porch this morning with that line in it. No; what you’re looking for instead, this priest said, is something that will “really help me concentrate on becoming a better person.”
Again, fundamental misunderstanding of the spirit of the Lenten fast. This is not about you, and it’s not even about your mental or physical development or moral achievement. God doesn’t come to you because you are in better shape, or because of your morally virtuous improvement. But God will come to you if you make some space for God. If you quiet your life – not jazz it up even more. If you turn the activity level not up, but down; turn the volume of your life down … so you can really listen. God will come, in the still, empty space.
Whatever you might give up for this Lenten time, don’t let that fast of yours be stuffing into your life one more thing you gotta do. I repeat: empty is the word. Think of Lent, then, as a time of rest for you, and think of Lenten disciplines not as oppressive, but as opportunities for refreshment for you. Don’t forget how when you prepare yourself for a time of refreshing rest, it’s important to empty your pockets, before you go to bed. In a world in which it seems you are asked to do more and more and more, how wonderful it is to set aside a time to not do, not more, but less.