Are you giving anything up for Lent?  If so, why?  Do you tell others about it or is it just between you and God?

Today's Gospel reading is quite scathing about outward show of inward change:

So what do you say when your friend, who knowing you  are a chocoholic offers you chocolate and you refuse!?  Do you make some excuse about not being hungry?  Do you tell them it is because you have given it up for Lent?  Does that make you sound pious?

It seems to me that in what theologians would call the 'Post-modernist' society most people have very little understanding about what Lent is all about.  They may know that it ends with Easter but probably do not know that it is a reminder of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the Wilderness preparing for his ministry. And very few of them know or understand the message of Easter.  In a society where it is thought that people go to church because they are 'good' telling others that one is avoiding biscuits because it is Lent could buy into this, although of course it may just be because you want to lose weight!

Nowadays not many people fast at Lent but Muslims have an annual month of fasting from sunrise to sunset.  My partner at work usually fasts at Ramadan and I remember one year we had not realised that the staff Christmas lunch was at lunchtime in the middle of Ramadan.  We wondered what to do but in the end there was no problem: Riz came, without the oil on his head it has to be said, but with a washed face, and joined in the conversation. We soon stopped noticing that he was fasting because it did not impinge on us. However at the beginning of the meal people were asking him about the significance of fasting at Ramadan. Why was he doing it? Did it make him more aware of God and so on?

We need to follow a narrow path between coming across as super pious and wanting to share the Good News of Easter with people.  We are told that it was not going to be easy to follow Jesus and getting it right will take us a lifetime.  But God will help us if we learn to rely on Him.  That means spending time with Him and reading the Bible.  It means looking for opportunities to talk about our faith and taking the time to explain that being a Christian is about knowing oneself to be forgiven.  Being given an opportunity for a fresh start, with the slate wiped clean.  It all sounds so easy in theory but the practice is so easy in theory but the practice is so much more difficult.  Ann Lewis says this in her book 'Words by the Way':

In Philippians Paul writes: 'I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.'  On good days, when I'm aksed what I really, really want, I know that's my answer: know Christ, to be open to receive the gift of the risen life, to live it to God's glory and the benefit of my fellow humans.  Not all days are like that though.  There are all kinds of things that distractme from that focus.  Paul knew about that too, and wrote about our need for discipline as an athlete needs to keep in training.  Lent comes as a timely reminder but it isn't primarily a time for self-improvement.  It is a time to grow, to do less and be more: to spend time being still, listening, looking, waiting in expectancy for God.

The world we live in has never needed to hear the Gospel message more: amongst the surfeit of materialism there are many desperate people. If we spend time with God, He can prepare us for the conversations we need to have with those around us.

When I first went into practice I felt that I had to keep my faith apart from my work, concerned that the GMC would be after me for proselytising. Over the years patients have found out by various means that I am a regular church-goer and I have had some amazing conversations with some of them. One person particularly comes to mind: he was brought up as a Catholic and one day when he was going through a particularly difficult patch, he told me that he knew that it was because God was punishing him. He couldn’t cope with worshipping that God he said. I just told him that I didn’t believe in that sort of God but in a loving God, who loved each one of us enough to die for us. He looked puzzled and went on his way. Some months later he came back to see me and seemed to be in good spirits. He then told me that he had found my God and that had changed everything. He now knew that God loved him and he could worship that God wholeheartedly. Over the last couple of years he has had several problems to deal with but throughout it all he knows that God loves him and is there for him.

Does knowing God make that sort of difference to you? If it does you will want to tell others. 

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’