Lent - A Tithe Of Days
Sermon
Tears Of Sadness, Tears Of Gladness
Gospel Sermons For Lent/Easter
Many of us feel that our lives are out of control. Hurried and hectic, frantic and frenzied - this is the way we describe the craziness of our daily lives. One woman spoke of her dilemma with words like these: "I never thought I'd be living like this. Somehow I imagined my life would be simpler, less complicated. I'm forty years old and I really should have my life together, but everything seems chaotic and out of control." Then with a sigh, she added, "This in not how I intended to live my life."1
Sometimes we look to modern technology to provide our salvation. But often, the very technology we depend on to simplify life does just the opposite - it complicates life. For example, the cell phone meant to give us freedom instead ties us to the office like some unseen umbilical cord. The lap top computer designed to allow us to work wherever we like, often means that we work wherever we are. Even e--mail, intended to speed communication, is not without its problems. A recent article wonders whether you're either rude or inept if you fail to answer a client's e--mail within thirty minutes. Sometimes, the source of our craziness is the very technology we once believed could save us.
But at other times, the chaos of life is of our own making, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We want a nicer home with a bigger yard so we move farther out, thereby increasing our daily commute. We want our children to be well--rounded so we sign them up for scouts and soccer and school band, but what we lose is the dinner hour as we wolf down our food and then pile into the car to get to practice on time. We show up at a community meeting wanting to get involved, but grow resentful when they ask us to chair the next fund--raiser. There are only so many hours in a day, and our time is no longer our own. No wonder that woman speaks for many of us when she says in frustration, "This is not how I intended to live my life."
The Christian faith offers us a remedy for the craziness of life, and the season of Lent lies at the heart of it. Lent is the forty--day season of the church year, which extends from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday just before Easter (not counting Sundays). Lent is patterned after the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness at the start of his public ministry, as well as after the forty years the people of Israel wandered through the wilderness until they arrived at the Promised Land. As such, Lent is a time to ponder the profound issues of life and faith, to look into the very depth of our own soul,
to examine our priorities and commitments, to come to terms with our own mortality, to get in touch with the chaotic wilderness of our own life, and then resolve to begin to do things differently.
In one of his books, the noted Presbyterian minister and writer Frederick Buechner points out that the forty days of Lent correspond to approximately one tenth of each year's days.2 In other words, Lent is something like a tithe of days. Just as people of faith set aside a tithe - one tenth of their income - for some holy use, so Lent invites us to set aside one tenth of the days of the year, to spend them on God and on God's work in the world. Buechner suggests a number of questions to ponder during Lent. Here are several: If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why? If you had only one last message to leave to a handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in 25 words or less? If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?3
Lent, a tithe of days. What a fascinating way to think about this forty--day season of the church year, and what a marvelous investment opportunity. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. How then will we spend it?
The Gospel reading from the sixth chapter of Matthew offers a model for Lenten devotion by suggesting several specific faith practices: giving alms - that is, giving to charitable causes which minister to the poor and the dispossessed, prayer, fasting, and evaluating your financial priorities. In other words, Jesus suggests several specific things to do to enhance our devotion.
However, if the truth be known, most of us don't need anything more to do. Our plate is already full. Life is much too chaotic as it is. We don't need anything else to cram into our already--too--busy lives. Yes, it's true, we desperately want to grow in our faith, but not if it means more work to do. We want a deep and abiding experience of the living God, but we want it the easy way with little or no effort or discipline. Leonard Sweet, the Methodist seminary professor, observes: "Wanting to be rich without working, smart without studying, and holy without giving up any vices is how one New Age critic characterizes the reigning mentality [of our day]."4
But experience suggests that improvement comes through practice. The piano student will spend hours working on her scales before she can master Bach. The weekend golfer will hit buckets and buckets of practice balls to knock a stroke or two off his handicap. The high school student preparing for the SATs will study and study and study some more until all of those obscure vocabulary words become familiar. Practice leads to improvement in all areas of life, including the religious life.
You notice that the emphasis here is not on "giving up" something for Lent, a form of self--denial that has much good in it. Rather, the emphasis is on "taking on" something for Lent. In a book called Reformed Spirituality, seminary professor Howard Rice writes:
It is the discipline that we take on ourselves more than the discipline of removing something from our lives that may most determine our spirituality ... a contemporary list of religious acts would probably include:
1) Moral living including breaking bad habits;
2) Prayer and private devotion;
3) The use of devotional literature including the Bible as daily reading;
4) Regular church attendance;
5) Service to others, including both witnessing and acts of charity and love.5
Many churches invite their members to practice their faith through a variety of Lenten spiritual disciplines. This Lent please consider one or more of the following faith practices: using a daily devotional booklet; learning how to sense the presence of God in the midst of your daily life through prayer and meditation; participating in a Bible study; attending church services each Sunday; contributing to a special offering like One Great Hour of Sharing; performing weekly some act of kindness and mercy for someone in need.
Think about this Lenten season as a tithe of days; you will be surprised how God can become real to you, more than you ever imagined.
Of course, the risk of taking on some Lenten practice is that we might become puffed up with the pride of our own accomplishments. There is nothing more glorious than someone whose spiritual life overflows with the love and grace of God. And there is nothing more gaudy than someone who feels the need to brag and boast about it, "to stir it and stump it and blow your own trumpet,"6 as a phrase from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera suggests. Maybe that's why Jesus cautions us not to become spiritual showoffs. "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. So," he says, "whenever you give alms, do not sound the trumpet ... and whenever you pray do not be like the hypocrites who love to be seen by others ... and whenever you fast do not look dismal so as to show others that you are fasting." No, says Jesus, when you give alms and pray and fast, do so in secret. Do it for God and do it for yourself, but please don't parade your piety in public. As Jesus suggests, "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:6).
Some years ago Dan Wakefield, the novelist and journalist, wrote a wonderful spiritual memoir called Returning. In the preface of the book, he describes the changes that came over some of those who attended a class on the spiritual life:
I watched some of my fellow seekers grow and change, and in deep and quiet ways experience the power of healing simply through becoming closer to the spiritual element in their lives.7
It's a wonderful phrase: in deep and quiet ways their lives were changed, just as your life can be changed, as well as mine, from chaos to calm and from stress to serenity by the grace and power of God.
____________
1. See Craig Dykstra and Dorothy C. Bass, "Times of Yearning, Practices of Faith" in Practicing Our Faith, Dorothy C. Bass, ed. (San Francisco: Jossey--Bass Publishers, 1997), p. 1.
2. Frederick Buechner, Whistling In The Dark (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 82.
3. Ibid.
4. Leonard I. Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, A Postmodern Apologetic (Dayton, Ohio: Whaleprints Publishing Company, 1991), p. 282.
5. Howard L. Rice, Reformed Spirituality (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), p. 186.
6. Quoted in Roger L. Shinn, The Sermon On The Mount (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1962), p. 9.
7. Dan Wakefield, Returning: A Spiritual Journey (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), p. xii.
Sometimes we look to modern technology to provide our salvation. But often, the very technology we depend on to simplify life does just the opposite - it complicates life. For example, the cell phone meant to give us freedom instead ties us to the office like some unseen umbilical cord. The lap top computer designed to allow us to work wherever we like, often means that we work wherever we are. Even e--mail, intended to speed communication, is not without its problems. A recent article wonders whether you're either rude or inept if you fail to answer a client's e--mail within thirty minutes. Sometimes, the source of our craziness is the very technology we once believed could save us.
But at other times, the chaos of life is of our own making, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We want a nicer home with a bigger yard so we move farther out, thereby increasing our daily commute. We want our children to be well--rounded so we sign them up for scouts and soccer and school band, but what we lose is the dinner hour as we wolf down our food and then pile into the car to get to practice on time. We show up at a community meeting wanting to get involved, but grow resentful when they ask us to chair the next fund--raiser. There are only so many hours in a day, and our time is no longer our own. No wonder that woman speaks for many of us when she says in frustration, "This is not how I intended to live my life."
The Christian faith offers us a remedy for the craziness of life, and the season of Lent lies at the heart of it. Lent is the forty--day season of the church year, which extends from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday just before Easter (not counting Sundays). Lent is patterned after the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness at the start of his public ministry, as well as after the forty years the people of Israel wandered through the wilderness until they arrived at the Promised Land. As such, Lent is a time to ponder the profound issues of life and faith, to look into the very depth of our own soul,
to examine our priorities and commitments, to come to terms with our own mortality, to get in touch with the chaotic wilderness of our own life, and then resolve to begin to do things differently.
In one of his books, the noted Presbyterian minister and writer Frederick Buechner points out that the forty days of Lent correspond to approximately one tenth of each year's days.2 In other words, Lent is something like a tithe of days. Just as people of faith set aside a tithe - one tenth of their income - for some holy use, so Lent invites us to set aside one tenth of the days of the year, to spend them on God and on God's work in the world. Buechner suggests a number of questions to ponder during Lent. Here are several: If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why? If you had only one last message to leave to a handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in 25 words or less? If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?3
Lent, a tithe of days. What a fascinating way to think about this forty--day season of the church year, and what a marvelous investment opportunity. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. How then will we spend it?
The Gospel reading from the sixth chapter of Matthew offers a model for Lenten devotion by suggesting several specific faith practices: giving alms - that is, giving to charitable causes which minister to the poor and the dispossessed, prayer, fasting, and evaluating your financial priorities. In other words, Jesus suggests several specific things to do to enhance our devotion.
However, if the truth be known, most of us don't need anything more to do. Our plate is already full. Life is much too chaotic as it is. We don't need anything else to cram into our already--too--busy lives. Yes, it's true, we desperately want to grow in our faith, but not if it means more work to do. We want a deep and abiding experience of the living God, but we want it the easy way with little or no effort or discipline. Leonard Sweet, the Methodist seminary professor, observes: "Wanting to be rich without working, smart without studying, and holy without giving up any vices is how one New Age critic characterizes the reigning mentality [of our day]."4
But experience suggests that improvement comes through practice. The piano student will spend hours working on her scales before she can master Bach. The weekend golfer will hit buckets and buckets of practice balls to knock a stroke or two off his handicap. The high school student preparing for the SATs will study and study and study some more until all of those obscure vocabulary words become familiar. Practice leads to improvement in all areas of life, including the religious life.
You notice that the emphasis here is not on "giving up" something for Lent, a form of self--denial that has much good in it. Rather, the emphasis is on "taking on" something for Lent. In a book called Reformed Spirituality, seminary professor Howard Rice writes:
It is the discipline that we take on ourselves more than the discipline of removing something from our lives that may most determine our spirituality ... a contemporary list of religious acts would probably include:
1) Moral living including breaking bad habits;
2) Prayer and private devotion;
3) The use of devotional literature including the Bible as daily reading;
4) Regular church attendance;
5) Service to others, including both witnessing and acts of charity and love.5
Many churches invite their members to practice their faith through a variety of Lenten spiritual disciplines. This Lent please consider one or more of the following faith practices: using a daily devotional booklet; learning how to sense the presence of God in the midst of your daily life through prayer and meditation; participating in a Bible study; attending church services each Sunday; contributing to a special offering like One Great Hour of Sharing; performing weekly some act of kindness and mercy for someone in need.
Think about this Lenten season as a tithe of days; you will be surprised how God can become real to you, more than you ever imagined.
Of course, the risk of taking on some Lenten practice is that we might become puffed up with the pride of our own accomplishments. There is nothing more glorious than someone whose spiritual life overflows with the love and grace of God. And there is nothing more gaudy than someone who feels the need to brag and boast about it, "to stir it and stump it and blow your own trumpet,"6 as a phrase from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera suggests. Maybe that's why Jesus cautions us not to become spiritual showoffs. "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them. So," he says, "whenever you give alms, do not sound the trumpet ... and whenever you pray do not be like the hypocrites who love to be seen by others ... and whenever you fast do not look dismal so as to show others that you are fasting." No, says Jesus, when you give alms and pray and fast, do so in secret. Do it for God and do it for yourself, but please don't parade your piety in public. As Jesus suggests, "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:6).
Some years ago Dan Wakefield, the novelist and journalist, wrote a wonderful spiritual memoir called Returning. In the preface of the book, he describes the changes that came over some of those who attended a class on the spiritual life:
I watched some of my fellow seekers grow and change, and in deep and quiet ways experience the power of healing simply through becoming closer to the spiritual element in their lives.7
It's a wonderful phrase: in deep and quiet ways their lives were changed, just as your life can be changed, as well as mine, from chaos to calm and from stress to serenity by the grace and power of God.
____________
1. See Craig Dykstra and Dorothy C. Bass, "Times of Yearning, Practices of Faith" in Practicing Our Faith, Dorothy C. Bass, ed. (San Francisco: Jossey--Bass Publishers, 1997), p. 1.
2. Frederick Buechner, Whistling In The Dark (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 82.
3. Ibid.
4. Leonard I. Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, A Postmodern Apologetic (Dayton, Ohio: Whaleprints Publishing Company, 1991), p. 282.
5. Howard L. Rice, Reformed Spirituality (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), p. 186.
6. Quoted in Roger L. Shinn, The Sermon On The Mount (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1962), p. 9.
7. Dan Wakefield, Returning: A Spiritual Journey (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), p. xii.
