The Gifts

"What we can do, starting this Lent, is not to focus on what we can give up, but in our Eucharistic gratitude, what we can give."

Back in the day, in the communities around where I grew up in Minnesota, Lent was taken seriously. Almost everybody was Lutheran or Roman Catholic, so the Lenten season was part of the culture. On Ash Wednesday, many of the kids showed up at school with ashes marked on their foreheads, a lot of the rest went after school.

It was therefore a matter of some discussion as to what one should give up for Lent. Meat was automatically off limits, except for Sundays. The less devout designated it as “peanut butter season,” due to the prevalence of peanut butter sandwiches in their lunch bags as a substitute for meat. Additionally, a lot of the kids gave up sweets or chocolates, or something similarly desired. After the novelty wore off in a few days, it tended to make people grumpy.

If you asked why people were doing this, the answer from many was simply “The Church says we have to.” Deeper thinkers often said that it was to deny ourselves, to make us better and to remind us of the sacrifice of Jesus. Self-righteousness, pride in how good one was being and even a tinge of martyrdom could seep through. No one much saw the connection to Easter, except it meant the happily anticipated end of the fast.

In hindsight, it was a mixed bag. To have the impact on the culture and daily life that it did, along with the absence of weddings and festivities for the duration, meant you could not ignore the reality of Christianity. And the cultural reinforcement led to a more public atmosphere of piety, making it easier to follow the Lenten pattern. The ambience of that time and place seems almost an idyllic way of the Christian life, very different from the, at best, agnostic culture which surrounds so many of us today.

But it did not penetrate to teach much about why we have Lent. The purpose of Lent is not simply to cause you to give up what you desire. Lent is not an independent season, but is fused with Easter. Its purpose is preparation, not flagellation. Dwelling on denying yourself may help to focus your attention on repentance and amendment of life. But by itself, it is just another way of being self-centered. Lent can also seem very sad. With no celebrations or festivities, with the Liturgy itself somber, the mood can be depressing and mournful.

The pastor of an Orthodox church I attended always introduced Lent with the dietary changes which are traditional. Beyond that, he simply told us, “Give up sinning for Lent; that is what matters.” None of us managed to successfully achieve that goal. But the effort of trying did bring us closer to what the Lenten exercise is actually about.

For many, Lent is a time of intensified religiosity, leaving the “secular” world to fend for itself for a few weeks. Dietary restrictions, more attendance at worship services, less attendance at entertainment, plus introspective analysis of our failings, of what needs to change in our lives, can indeed become a preparation for the celebration of the Resurrection, the light at the end of the Lenten tunnel.

But repentance is of little value in itself. It can only, as John the Baptist witnessed, prepare the way for the Lord. Repentance, to be of use, needs to be followed by amendment of life, to use the traditional Anglican phrase. This means that for the Lenten exercise to be of value, the changes need to carry over to the Easter season and beyond. It is not chance the Pascal festival begins, on Easter Eve, centered on baptism. Easter is the celebration of the new life, as baptism is dying to the “old man” and rebirth to the new creature in Christ Jesus. The renewal of baptismal vows at the dazzling Vigil is the final piece of the Lenten repentance puzzle, pivoting during the liturgy to new life, rising from the baptismal waters, this time metaphorically, to renewed birth in the Light of Christ. Lent forms the critical preparation for the moment. Beyond that, new life is not meant to flicker into being and then fade. It is the beginning of a permanent transformation to a different way of being.

In this process, what is given up for Lent is only a beginning. The crucial product brought forth into Pascha and beyond is not what was given up but a new attitude of giving. Life in Christ is most basically an offering of both self and possessions. His possessions were negligible. But his offering of self, for us and the life of the world, is beyond any price or negotiation. It is completely outside of any transactional category. It is simply a gift, the result of absolute and total love. Lent tells the story of both the pain and the glory of that love, as best we can grasp it.

We are incapable of repaying the gift. Giving up chocolates will definitely not be enough. All we are capable of doing is to accept the gift, humbled by the love it delivers and our helplessness to fix the problem of our human failing, except by taking the gift in our hearts and giving thanks.

And in that complete dependance and profound gratitude is a rebirth into resurrected, baptized life. Helplessly drowning in our sin, as always, we are pulled out as the Easter dawn appears on the horizon, to new life. Now we understand that our possessions are also essentially negligible, even as they are piled high around us. They are all only loaned to us for a time, and even if we give them all away, we still cannot do a transaction which can obtain our salvation, our life.

What we can do, starting this Lent, is not to focus on what we can give up, but in our Eucharistic gratitude, what we can give. That begins, not by parting with a portion of my stuff, but by the total giving of the only thing that is really mine: myself.

The heart of it is that love and self-denial are not opposites. Jesus pleads with the Father that “this cup might pass from me,” but when that is not possible, he says “not my will but thine be done,” the giving in love which initiates the self-denial of the Way of the Cross. Self-denial can have many motivations: fasting to lose weight to look better, or to be healthier, or to feel more righteous in austerity, for instance. But self-denial can also be an expression of love, to do the will of my beloved, to show compassion on my fellow creatures, to be kinder to the environment. To be truly in love is by definition to give of yourself, to submit yourself towards the other, to override your stubborn selfishness to say, “not my will, but thine be done,” to subordinate yourself to a common will, a common “flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). The Son has that loving unity with the Father, and is our role model. As with many things, the Lenten exercises depend on the motivation for their value.

With this Lent, rejoice in the gift you have received, and the Eucharist of your response. Then move, not to give up but to give, beginning with the giving of yourself in the joy of thanksgiving to the Father and the gift of the Son. From there, ask how that giving of yourself can be expressed in the Lenten exercises, so it is of value to the world you live in, whether it is in denying yourself things in a way which benefits your fellow creatures of God’s making, or by giving of self to benefit others who could use your compassionate help.

We begin the Lenten journey in order to gain greater clarity, greater humility, and especially greater love. It is ultimately a pilgrimage from gloom to joy, repentance to forgiveness, death to life in Pascal triumph.