The season of Lent tends to morph from a focus on Jesus to a focus on us. The texts take us from Christ’s temptation in the wilderness to his entry into Jerusalem and the cross, with stops along the way this year at some of Jesus’ most vivid encounters from the Gospel of John. Jesus is in the spotlight, no two ways about it.
But Lent, in my experience, tends toward being largely about us and all the stuff we should be doing to be truly spiritual and really Christian.
Of the story of Jesus, Rowan Williams writes this in his recent brief introduction to the faith, Discovering Christianity: A Guide for the Curious,
Gradually, as the story goes on, we see more and more deeply how and why human beings want to resist that double vision: the true vision of our own fear and the true vision of the love that overcomes it. And it seems that in the story fear wins. Jesus is condemned and executed. The human refusal to see finally means his death on the cross. But, says the gospel, that death is itself a moment of glory yet again. Because there we see what a complete letting go of self in love actually looks like. The symbol is lifted up before us, the symbol of love with no conditions and no defenses.
God’s one-way love in Jesus Christ. Grace. Which is shorthand for “God is the primary actor in the salvation story.”
But instead of focusing there, on what God has done and is doing, Lent often, and under the guidance of clergy like me, becomes about us and all the stuff we need to do to get on God’s good side.
In other words, Law.
In another context, Nadia Bolz-Weber commented, “My favorite thing I ever heard in a yoga class was, ‘Try less hard.’”
As we resolve to pray more, give more, fast longer, and generally do more as our “Lenten discipline,” we tend to turn Lent and the gospel into “Try Harder.” If only we, this year, these forty days, try harder to do all the things that promise a “deepened spiritual life,” “a closer walk with Jesus,” and “knowing the true meaning of Easter.” Avis is our patron saint. “We Try Harder.”
But “try harder” is not the gospel. Nor is the gospel “straighten up and fly right.” Or “get your act together.”
Still, I love all that. My excuse is that I am a firstborn. We, God bless us, are forever trying to get it right, to bring God’s strangeness under the orbit of our control. And we’re trying really, really hard. As my dear mother used to say of and to me, “You go at everything like you’re killing snakes.” (She grew up in a part of the world where rattlesnakes were common.)
Not only firstborn but firstborn male, and then to add to it, becoming an ordained minister, “reverend.” At which point, my sister said, “That’s it, I give up. No competing with that. Ordained minister. Jeesh! Okay, you win. Take the blessing.”
It took me a long time and several experiences of crash-and-burn to figure out it wasn’t about me and trying harder. It was about Jesus and his persistent grace even, and maybe especially, for elder brothers.
So for Lent this year consider this: Try less hard. Sure, keep at your prayers but doing so remembering that any prayer we pray is the second word, as Eugene Peterson reminded us. Our prayers are a second word, a word in response. The first word, as the last, is God’s word.
The same goes for the other Lenten disciplines as well. Fast in whatever way makes sense for you. But it’s not to lose weight in order to present yourself sleek as a seal on Easter Sunday. It’s saying “no” to lean into the “yes” God speaks to us in Jesus, despite our blindness and fear (and roiling G-I tract).
Give to the needs of the poor, for sure, but as you do, maybe focus less on “the great and many blessings we have received,” which requires our dutiful “remembrance of the less fortunate.” Focus on your own, our own, terrible poverty of spirit and need for the blessed riches of a grace that finds us in our most desperately impoverished spiritual moments. For we try-hards, these often come as we await recognition and reward for our virtue, only to get royally pissed no one notices and no reward is conferred.
Lent isn’t about you or me, not really. It’s not about all the stuff we do, or must do, to get on God’s good side or show others that this is where and who we are. It’s about God taking our side and God’s promise to never leave it, not even in death.
Rowan Williams once more,
The cross is itself glory. The death of Jesus shows what is indestructible in the love of God, and the work goes on. God does not stop working, does not stop being this unselfish God because of our refusals. And so unbroken is that work, it goes through and beyond the death of Jesus on the cross; life breaks through once more. What is alive in Jesus cannot be suppressed by death, and returns actively loving and inviting us always.
God is doing the heavy lifting. Taking upon himself the burden of the sin and blindness of me, you, and the world. Rolling the stone away from the darkened tomb of our self-preoccupations and earnest efforts.
Try less hard, and may yours be a blessed Lent.
