I Fast Twice a Week

So says the Pharisee when he catalogs his list of noteworthy acts of dedication as he prays alongside the less respectable tax collector. The parable of him told in Luke 18:9-14 reminds me of a modern day joke:

A grandma and her grandson are at the beach.
He's playing in the water, she is standing on the shore not wanting to get her feet wet, when all of a sudden, a huge wave appears from nowhere and crashes directly onto the spot where her grandson was wading.
The water recedes and the boy is no longer there, he had been swept away.
The grandma holds her hands to the sky, screams and cries: Lord, my ...GOD, how could you? Haven't I been a wonderful grandmother? Haven't I been a wonderful mother? Haven't I kept a kosher home? Haven't I given to charity? Haven't I lit candles every Friday night? Haven't I tried my very best to live a life that you would be proud of?
A voice booms from the sky, "All right already!"
A moment later another huge wave appears out of nowhere and crashes on the beach.
As the water recedes, the boy is standing there. He is smiling and splashing around as if nothing had ever happened.
The voice booms again. "I have returned your grandson. Are you satisfied?"
She responds, "He had a hat."

(thanks, LeLane, for the story.)

 

If we make Lent about the fasting, we miss the point. Lent should be more like taking a pumice stone to the places in our souls where our gratitude has gone callous.  It should be like draining the fluid of self-exaltation off the joint of spiritual gifting when that joint gets too bloated to function properly.

 

For me, this year, Lent takes the form of giving up red meat. It's never taken that form before and may never again because the reason for the choice is full of God's timely intentionality, my own listening heart and the symbolism the very world carries about the mysterious and invisible nature of God. It would be easy to be offended if someone dismissed my choice as being just me deciding to forego hamburgers for 40 days. But I am not offended because I know they do not see what I see in each meal. What I'm actually doing is making room for something better to fill the empty space that gets called a fast--and by that I don't mean the chicken or the fish or the "vegetarian option" that replaces the red meat.

 

Isaiah advises "not to hide yourself from your own flesh..." when he speaks of fasting, and that is exactly what Lent does for me. I stop hiding from myself, and I ask the hard questions. Forty days at this task is strenuous but doable. The question this year runs something like this:

Do I exalt myself--mostly without realizing it--in the name of...

...prayer?

...warfare?

...justice?

...peace?

...prosperity?

...diligence?

...honor?

...faithfulness?

...efficiency?

...sacrifice?

 

 

Each day, God might bring one of these before me to consider, making this list a quarter of the season sitting right here in this post. Most of the time the answer isn't a simple yes or no. It is more likely answered on a scale of 1 to 10.

 

I have to give the Pharisee in the parable a little credit because I see now how easy it is to hide from your own flesh when you've structured a life that appears so God-pleasing, a life that gets "results." 

 

 I wonder if the real test of whether I'm doing this thing that seems appalling when it appears in parables and jokes but looks so "right" in my own life would be to ask myself: how much is faith the measure of what keeps me walking in all those good things questioned above?  If it is not by faith alone that all these are mine, then I need (in some form or another) the blessings Lent brings me.