2/5/67

Scripture: I Corinthians 1: 21-31.

Lent begins this week. I don’t know how it has been with you, but I paid very little attention to Lent when I was a child, and then a youth. I belonged to one of the Protestant traditions which left Lent to the Roman Catholics as if it were theirs alone. In a general way, I supposed that it was a time when Catholic people gave up something, like smoking or dancing or chewing gum or attending movies --- no matter what, just so the faithful one could point to something that he or she was willing (or felt compelled) to do without for a few weeks.

We Protestant kinds of that neighborhood paid no attention at all to Lent, so far as I can remember. And I do not recall that it was emphasized at all in the church that I then attended. Easter -- yes indeed! But the six weeks before Easter? I do not recall that they seemed different from any other similar period of time. It was not until I was well grown that I perceived that the Lenten period could have some significance for me, and that I became part of the life of churches in which it has had a positive meaning. I think I still need reminding -- and I suspect that many of us do, that this is a season for the expanding of our spiritual understanding; a time for growth; a time for preparing for a greater Easter.

We do not lack for activities and interests to which we can turn. The season for skiing is still in full swing. Schools keep members of our families in a full round of study and activity. The community calendar is well filled. Business and manufacture proceed at a lively clip. The world’s news demands our attention. And plenty of other activities appear.

Somewhere a sidewalk sale is advertised, and people are expected to flock to it -- else why have it? After all, many people do think of clothes -- new clothes, by Easter time -- and that is only a few weeks away. Of course, Easter is not just a style parade for the showing of one’s new clothes and for the seeing of them by others. But clothes do wear out, or get monotonous, and the approach of spring is an opportune time for change, isn’t it? Probably a style show does have this practical point to satisfy. But is it a part of Lent?

Well, what is Lent? Is it the time that is ushered in with a spot of ashes on the forehead of the High-Church faithful? For them, it is a symbolic reminder. If the ashes be from the burning of the palm branches of a previous holy week, it brings a sense of continuity. At any rate, it is no end or aim in itself. It is a reminder of deeper meaning for living.

Is Lent a time for more activity? more programs? more variety? more “busyness?”

Is Lent, this year, just six weeks more of winter --- since the mythical, traditional “groundhog” is said already to have seen his shadow and dived back into hibernation for another month and a half? True, we shall likely be snowbound for quite a while yet. But surely Lent is more than just waiting for the “lengthening of days” since the first day of winter! (Incidentally, the “lengthening of days” is one of the quite literal meanings of the word, Lent).

Much of what Lent means depends upon the meaning we put into it. Here is what one spiritual leader [Paul Olson] has suggested for himself and his people. He says that Lent should, first, (1) be a time of contrition. One looks out upon the world’s hatred and unbrotherliness and it is hard to be complacent. I know a young couple who lived for a while in an integrated neighborhood in Chicago near a great university. It was an uneasy kind of life. This couple tried to live on friendly terms with the neighbors -- all of them. But there lurks always the sub-surface frustration and resentment that could erupt at any time when someone loses self control with a few drinks, or when some crisis fans the emotions. One evening, after this couple had returned from a trip, there was an unusual uneasiness about the place. The husband heard a bottle crash against the outside wall of the apartment building -- then another crash. Startled, he pulled his young wife away from the window near which she had been standing, pushed her through the door to the next room and placed himself between her and the window. At just that moment, another bottle came, hurtling through the window, shattering the glass, tearing the shade and spattering sharp fragments of glass all over the room. The young couple escaped the probability of glass cuts and possibly serious injury by only the 2 or 3 moments it had taken them to step to a safer spot.

Policemen were called and made out a report, but apprehended no one. And the incident just had to be charged up to the resentments that boil up between disadvantaged people and those whom they spitefully suppose to be more fortunate. The tensions, the suspicions, the hatreds, the misunderstandings that prevent brotherliness, increase separation, and plague the common life are one thing to bring us all to contrition. But that is not all, for it is but a part of the world’s sin. Looking in upon ourselves, we see the attitudes and misunderstandings that separate. Looking on one’s church, one may find them. Sometimes they mar family life. In the light of this, how merciful to our contrition is Christ’s understanding sacrifice! Lent can be a realistic preparation for the risen life if there is contrition -- a realistic recognition of our personal sin and corporate sins, a sorrowful confession of them before God, a frank facing of our responsibility.

(2) Secondly, says this leader, Lent should point up faith. Most of our life is lived with some kind of faith. When we eat, we have faith that our hunger will be eased. Usually, when we approach meal time, we trust that the hundreds of people who have had a part in bringing food to production and who transport and distribute it, will have done their part for us. When we play a game, we have a kind of trust, or faith, in the rules of the game. We have faith that our paycheck will come through to compensate us for our work. When we exchange our check for money, for food, for clothing and shelter and transportation, we are exercising a kind of faith in the validity of those transactions. Such faith we take for granted.

We find life much more dependable and assured if we have faith in God than if we try to get along without it. Lent is a time for pointing up that faith through the disciplines of worship and study and meditation and service. This has put a lot of meaning into Lent for hosts of Protestants as well as for faithful Catholics. It is vastly more than a gesture or a program of events.

(3) Thirdly, says this leader, if Lent is to be adequately significant for us, we must be willing to sacrifice for it. This is much more than the giving up of things -- candy, cigarettes or the like. God asks rather for self-forgetfulness. We need to know who we are, but not to dwell on it, for true life is the spending of self in unselfish effort and attention. It is giving forth in loving kindness toward others. The record says deny yourself; take up your burden, your responsibility, your cross, and follow Christ. This kind of Lenten observance is much more than a gesture.

(4) In the fourth place, on the leader’s list of meanings, is the need in Lent -- or at any other time, for that matter -- to share our gospel with others; to be witnesses to the resurrection and continued presence of Christ, and to all of the changes which that makes in us. “This Jesus, God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.” [Acts 2: 32]. This was the vital kind of testimony that the first New Testament Christians made to the people of their time.

Contrition, faith sacrifice, and witness --- these are stuff out of which discipleship is built. Lent is no mere gesture in the light of these -- says one of our own contemporaries. After all, Lent is not for our own glory, but for the glory of God. Another way of putting it is to point out that Lent is our reminder of God’s call to a life of steadfast love.

When Paul was writing to those Christian people of Corinth, he got to talking about wisdom. It was no idle reference, for Paul was a highly trained man himself, far more advanced educationally than many of the other disciples. And he knew that there is a kind of wisdom that is better than the wisdom of the pragmatist or the debater --- the kind which intrigued the Greek intellectual mind. He himself had found Christ to be what he called the “wisdom of God” and the power of God. Not many of those earliest Christians were especially wise according to the world’s standards. But they had a wisdom that proved a profound and transforming experience. This is an area of proper inquiry for us Christians of our own contemporary time. What do we think is wise? For one thing, we do think quite a bit about money. It is the stuff of life. It is stored up effort, exchangeable for things that we want to do or to have. It represents possession, and the more we possess the wiser we have been, supposedly. We live in this kind of culture. We are ambitious to be its master --- we are prone to be its slave, if we don’t guard our consciences.

For many of us, wisdom is power. As the rich person may glory in his riches, so the mighty man glories in his power, always arranging his moves so as to gain more power. Wisdom, to such a one, is to be as strong and influential as possible even though one gets there by ruthless measures and attitudes. It is “heady,” and the Adolph Hitlers of history are not the only ones who are easily drunken with it. There is a streak of that in most of us which we do well to recognize and keep under God’s control.

Again, to many of us wisdom is status. Much of the commercial world knows this and plays upon its appeal. A televised advertisement for furniture calculates that you and I will feel that we have really “arrived” in this world if we own and use a certain kind of mattress or display the right kind of drapes and carpeting in our house or office. One’s car is the status symbol of many a man or household. I once heard a fairly shrewd business man speak of the status necessary for a representative of his firm. Its business representatives must drive a late model automobile. The make or mechanical condition of the car were definitely considered secondary to the impression that it was new. Probably we are a generation of status seekers. Anybody who is somebody should have traveled; north, south, east or west or abroad. Whether he learns any more about people or places or history is quite secondary to the fact that he had “been around.”

To some, the neighborhood where he resides is a status symbol. The style and cost of his house confers a status on him and his family which is more important than ability to work and serve. Do not many of us have to wrestle with these worldly notions of wisdom? Perhaps Lent is as good a time as any to consider anew what is really wise.

Paul referred to it in his letter to those Corinthian Christians. “Consider your call, brethren,” he says. “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards; not many were powerful; not many were of noble birth.” Perhaps few of them had much about which to be exclusive. But God chose what may look foolish to the world to be real wisdom “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” For “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. --- Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord,” says Paul.

In what then do you and I glory? Over what do we boast? Is it our rank, our status, our possessions, our accomplishments, our connections, our programs or prowess? This question concerned not only Paul and the New Testament Christians, but sensitive spirits in the Old Testament times as well. The prophet Jeremiah was sure that he was speaking the word of the Lord when he proclaimed: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices kindness, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight’ says the Lord.” [Jeremiah 9: 23-24].

True worth is in knowing God, His love, His justice, His mercy, His rightness in the earth. And how shall we know God and His ways for us? Perhaps Lent is a good time to be about the search, to become receptive to Him. For the goodness of God is always around us and about us -- always ready to break through our understanding.

The minister of a neighboring parish in this state put it in this way: “Whatever interpretations we give in terms of our faith in God,” he says, “I am confident that most of us agree that we believe in God because we believe in certain people who believe in God -- people whose faith is expressed in such glowing loyalty to God that we cannot help but believe in Him through them. After all, more than we realize or admit, our faith is faith in someone else’s faith. Our fathers and mothers, every honest person in our circle of friends, all the unnumbered saints who have touched our lives in personal contacts or through history, great literature or music -- all these have left in our souls a precious deposit of their faith. By their faith, we have found the power and readiness to believe. Through their lives, God ‘breaks through’ into our lives.”

Here is what the faith of one man has done for the faith of another who gladly testifies of it. “In the life of my friend,” he says, “I have seen a glowing example of faith-evoking power. From the moment we first clasped hands I knew he was a man of character. Through years of friendship, his faith strengthened mine. I learned to understand his faith in the quiet, disciplined ways of his thought. I have been amazed at his acts of thoughtfulness. He never said in words what he could first do through his acts. He lived what he taught, and taught what he lived.”

If this be true, that one person’s faith strengthens the faith of another, how surely may the faith of Christ strengthen the faith of his friends and followers! Lent is a time for learning and reviewing the teachings of Jesus. It is a time for awareness of Christ’s spirit. It is a time for discovery and dedication. If we have dared to become his followers, his disciples, it is a time to enter life with a new commission -- his commission to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and, in His name, to love neighbor as well as self.

Let Lent mean something to you and to me this year!

(Let us pray -- Lord, receive the searching of our lives. Break through upon us with thine insistent presence that we may learn joyfully to serve in Thy name. Amen.)

-------------------------------

Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 5, 1967.

Also at Waioli Hiu’ia Church, March 3, 1974.