How to Make Lent an Easy Journey in 3 Easy Steps!
A Sermon based on Luke 4:1-13
Lent is that journey that lasts for 40 days, reminding us of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness in preparation (according to the gospel writers) for his earthly ministry. At the end of those 40 days of solitude and fasting, he faced temptation to fulfill his ministry in various ways--to satisfy his own human desire for food/stuff, power, and comfort. He made the hard choice...the one that ended in crucifixion, mind you, but Lent doesn't have to be that hard for you. As you face these same temptations today, here's how to make Lent an easy journey in three easy steps.
1. Give up candy or something as a pious religious act instead of really contemplating what it means to be hungry and seeing the physical and spiritual hunger of those around you and sitting in the dirt with those who suffer and grieve and hunger. Use your religious beliefs as an excuse to feed yourself on the hope of a better world some day and ignore the hope of a better world today. Lent is an easy journey when you make it all about what you can get out of your religion.
2. Make Lent all about you being in control of your life instead of giving up any kind of advantage you might have in order to serve others. Worry more about what other people think about you and live in a way that will put on a good face for the world. Give your life as an offering at all the right temples the world has to offer...make your life one big Facebook timeline that you control the status updates for so that people never have to know the you that struggles, that slips and falls, that grieves, that loses...that way, you'll never have to stop your pursuit of power and fame in order to help someone else. Unfriend sinners in the Easy-Lent-Facebook of life--surround yourself with people that make you look like the person you want everyone to think you are. Don't check in at the hospital when you're sick, at the rehab center when you are in recovery, at the thrift shop when you are poor, at the soup kitchen when you are hungry. You worship control, advantage, and influence now...don't let down your guard this Lent to acknowledge that you don't have it all together. If you do that, you might find yourself surrounded with other people who don't have it all together either--and you might have to hug someone who isn't very loveable, feed someone who isn't very nice looking, share your story of redemption with someone who desperately needs redemption too. Lent is an easy journey when you just make it all about how your religion can help you put on a good face for others.
3. Avoid the cross. There's an easier path. The temptation of Jesus to fling himself down from the pinnacle of the temple was an invitation that was echoed again when people at the foot of the cross mocked him saying "he saved others, let him save himself!" Make your Lent devoid of all of the harsh realities of life...don't let doubt, questions, hardship, or sacrifice be a part of your Lenten journey. Take the easy answers and insist that everyone else around you do it too. We don't ask the hard questions. Dismiss the idea that you might have to endure pain or suffering in this life...do everything you can to avoid it...if you always try to do what is right, loving, humble, and just, you may have to pay a price for it. If you try to REALLY follow Jesus and really be a disciple, you might say or do things that will make your end like his. If you insist on the way of peace, you will face violence. If you eat at the table with Samaritans and lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors: the outsiders and heretics, the untouchables, the unholy, and people with a past, they'll think your just like them...and worse yet, they may start treating you like they treat them. Constantly remind people that you aren't like "those" people. Lent is an easy journey when you live your life as an attempt to do things that are easy rather than things that are right.
But if you insist on making the hard journey of Lent...the journey that leads to the cross...
1. Be willing to hungry. To be dissatisfied with the hunger in the world. To be upset that your neighbors are neglected and mistreated and poor and marginalized. Be willing to give up some of your food, your power, your influence, your privilege to make things better for others. Don't turn stones into bread just to feed yourself, go dig up stony ground to plant a garden that can feed others.2. Worship God instead of your own self-interests. Realize that God's agenda in the world goes against the grain, and be willing to give up the recognition and religious acclamation that comes with maintaining the status quo in order to see God's will done on Earth as it is in heaven. Be willing for people to see the real you and be willing to share that authentic self with people who are more like you than you may be comfortable admitting. Don't bow down to those things that will give you all the power and fame you ever dreamed of, bow down to the God who became "Emmanuel"-God with us-and dream different dreams that include all of the "US" in the world.
3. Embrace the cross. Stop looking for shortcuts to glory and realize that sometimes, in the process of pursuing glory, there will first come suffering. Be willing to be called different, but more importantly, be willing to BE different. Be willing to be accused of being dangerous, but more importantly, be a real danger to the status quo of a world full of violence, hatred, grudges, discrimination, and religious elitism. Be willing to be like Jesus...and pay the price for being like Jesus. Be willing to be hated for loving, called a heretic for preaching truth, be called a sinner for inviting sinners like you to the Lord's table.
And here's why you should choose the hard journey of Lent. Both journeys will end in death...But only one will end in resurrection.
