So, what have you given up for Lent?  I found a couple of fridge magnets on my filing cabinets which give a clue as to what I have decided to give up – and this will come to no surprise to some of you.  The first magnet says:

Forget love, I’d rather fall in chocolate.

Now I wouldn’t want to take after the Vicar of Dibley this Christmas, but I do rather like chocolate.  The other says:

I’d give up chocolate, but I’m no quitter

Well, I am and I have.  This year for Lent I have decided to give up chocolate and some other naughty fattening things.  Why?  Not because of some great religious motive or as an ethical response to the abuse of cocoa farmers in developing countries, but for totally selfish reasons.  I am desperate to be able to get back into the lovely clothes that I have in my wardrobe which I have not been able to do up for some months now.  Sheer vanity.  And if I do succeed and say no to the chocolate I shall be offered at a girls meal on Friday and all through Lent, how good will I feel and how self righteous and restrained.  And how wrong!

For some time now I have been a strong advocate of doing something extra for Lent rather than of giving something up.  And there is so much that we could do if we chose to.  I think members of the TG congregation may be a little tired of me saying – do something extra – and come to one of the Lent study groups, but of course they are there on offer.  Charity shops are always desperate for help and what better time to offer our services than in Lent.  With the days drawing out and the mornings becoming lighter there is little to stop us getting up 15 minutes earlier to spend time in prayer for our world or our church.  Some people choose to spend a day in Lent fasting or eating frugally – Friday of course is the traditional day.  And there is always the opportunity to give to charity and perhaps to add a bit more during the Lenten period.  There are good ‘christian’ books to read and sermons to listen to – on tape even while we are driving along.

So much extra that we could do that we might be spoilt for choice, and whatever we end up doing we can feel really good about it and smugly think to ourselves, well, I’m preparing well for Easter, what  a good Christian I am.  How pleased God must be with me.  That is certainly how many of the Pharisees felt in Jesus’ time – they made their religious acts with great show and open piety – yet inside they were unmoved by the reality of what they were doing.  And their motives were certainly questionable.

And so for us, there is even a danger with the doing of something extra as well as the giving of something up in Lent.  To some extent it is down to motive and certainly my desire to loose weight is not an appropriate motive for the giving up of chocolate as a Lenten observance, helpful as it may be to my health in the long term.  I find it very easy to be superficial about what I will do during Lent to help me prepare for the great celebration of Easter – how and why I will reflect on God’s love for me and seek ways of being more self disciplined.

Which is why the words of the prophet Joel are so important for me to listen to at the start of 40 days of self reflection and searching.  These next 40 days mirror the 40 years that the Israelites spent in the desert as they slowly made their way to the Promised Land, learning all the time by their mistakes.  So I need to learn about my mistakes and to be aware of them and seek ways of addressing them, and I have just 40 days to do it in.

God spoke very clearly through Joel hundreds of years before Jesus’ attack on the Pharisees.  He says, ‘Come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning’.  But this is not the sort of empty ritual observance that Jesus speaks of, Joel says, ‘let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn….’ And so Joel speaks to us too – our self denial or our religious actions will be empty if we do not allow God to touch our hearts in the next 40 days.  And that is far more difficult than simply giving something up or doing something extra. 

Allowing God to touch our hearts and to affect us deeply inside ourselves involves our whole being and is taking a risk.  We don’t know what God will ask of us, or what he will show us about ourselves.  And we may not be ready to listen or to respond.  Sacrifice is often about a whole change of life or new way of looking at things – considering our values and priorities and maybe re-thinking them.  Like Joel, the prophet Micah made it clear that God wants not tokens but lifestyles which are radically different to the received values of the world about us. 

What does God require of you?  He asks.  We know the answer: To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  That is not about being charitable, it is about whole lifestyle. 

In the desert before he began his ministry, Jesus wrestled with all of the things with which we contend in life – whether we accept them or not.  He rejected status in life, riches and wealth, an inflated ego and worldly power.  Instead he chose to follow the requirement of God according to Micah.  And he suffered for it.  But what a result his suffering brought about for us.

So we stand at the beginning of Lent with all our good intentions and various motives.  And we need to reflect on them and on the call of Jesus to stop trying and allow God’s spirit, on the words of the song, to bend us, break us, mould us and make us the person he wants each of us to be.  For myself, I find myself at the start of Lent in just that position.  I have been used to, and let’s be honest enjoyed, status and a comfortable salary and the self satisfaction of working very hard for the benefit of others.  What good will any of that do me?  God has brought me to a position in which I must give them up and re-seek his will and offer not my actions but myself.  Giving up chocolate is fine, but giving up my will – that is entirely another thing.

I’d like to end with a reflection by Eddie Askew and I invite each of us to listen, perhaps with eyes closed, and think about how we might make these thoughts our own:

'Thoughts' to follow....