Giving Up to Gain
While some traditions use the Lenten habit of abstinence, i.e., “giving up” unhealthy things like sweets, soda, chocolate, or even good things like meat, dairy products, oil, even alcohol; as a discipline to better enter into the suffering of Jesus, we’ll be taking a slightly different focus.
In one of Jesus’ final parables, told at the end of his revelatory arriving, Jesus leaves us with an image that in the end, the difference between remaining on the inside rather than being found on the out is being with Jesus where he was. And where was he? Well, in the hungry, the thirsty, the displaced and the shamed, in the ill and the imprisoned. In truth, Jesus was where he is always, with the least, the lost, and those most in need of life. The difference between the “sheep and goats,” it seems, is where they lived before the end, with Jesus, or somewhere else.
The wonder and weight of Jesus’ death and resurrection is that it enables us all to live like sheep, to find ourselves—by his grace and efforts—where he is. And while even the sheep don’t always “see him” in such persons and places; we believe that his desire is for us to live with eyes wide open to not only our need for him but his presence in the neediness of others. The Lenten Season provides us with a special time to focus on seeing Jesus where he is by giving up those things that distract our vision of neediness—our own and our neighbors.
CHOOSING WHAT TO GIVE UP
What in your daily habits—activities and attitudes and interactions—keep you from “seeing him” in places of need? That’s the question you’ll need to answer to decide what to abstain from during Lent. Our answers will be as varied and unique as our souls, though I imagine there will be some similarities to what distract our vision. Here are a few examples as you prayerfully consider what to abstain from, (ideally) beginning March 1st through April 9th:
Phone Distractions | Whether an app or game, browsing your favorite internet sites or scrolling through social media, do you “instinctually” grab your phone when you feel board, feel sad, feel anxious, of feel empty? If so, consider giving up one or all those thing that distract you from your emotions and what the Spirit might be trying to show you.
Rhythm Distractions | Do you stay up late watching shows or reading books, and find it hard to wake up into a new day with a sharpness of mind or heart? Do you wake up sharp, but jump directly into action without much thought? Do you fill your weeknights with activities that entertain, but little that uplift or help out? Could giving up to sleep an hour earlier or giving up a morning activity for twenty minutes of prayerful thought, or giving up a weeknight for something more substantial help you be more ready to see Jesus each day?
Sinful Distractions | Sometimes the plain truth is that we are not accidently blind but willfully so. As Jesus said, we “love the darkness rather than the light because our works are evil.” There is no greater time and safer season to give up living in the darkness and walk in Light.
WHAT TO DO WHILE ABSTAINING
Similar to fasting, a season of abstinence is filled with prayer. When you find yourself longing for the thing you’ve given up, let that feeling draw you into the reason for your choice: to see Jesus in your neediness and the neediness of others. Rather than merely confessing your longing and the difficulties of your fidelity, ask the Spirit for eyes to see the brokenness within and without, and for how you can meet and serve Jesus there.
May we find ourselves more with Jesus, and Jesus with us, in and among those whom he loves this Lenten Season.