Lenten Possibilities

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, which is a big deal in the southwest Kansas town of Liberal. For the past 69 years, the day has brought hundreds of people to Liberal to celebrate. Among the most famous Pancake Day traditions is a trans-Atlantic competition between Liberal and Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.

Each year, participants in each community determine who can run a 415-yard race the fastest while also being able to flip a pancake at the same time.

The tradition that created this is a centuries-old legend in Olney. The legend has it that it all began one Sunday in 1445 when an Olney woman was making pancakes when she heard the church bells ring. To make sure she wasn’t late for the service, she ran to the church, donning an apron and holding her frying pan with a pancake in it.

In 1950, Liberal challenged Olney in the pancake race after seeing the English event in a magazine. yesterday, Liberal won the Pancake Day Race between the cities with a time of 63 seconds (7 seconds faster than Olney).

Shrove Tuesday is traditionally the last day for merrymaking before the start of Lent. Pancakes are thought to be a good way to get in the eggs and fat that faithful church people were supposed to give up for Lent.

The pancake race is but one of many traditions that have grown up around the season of Lent. New Orleans’ Mardi Gras is another — one last blowout before a season of denial. Throughout the years, Lent has become associated with fasting and denial. Even today many people talk about giving up something during Lent. Some stop eating meat. Some give up coffee. For others it’s chocolate or desserts. And that’s all well and good, but the real intent of Lent is that should we look within. We should change our hearts and not just our diets.

God doesn’t want an outward display from us. God wants a change within. The Old Testament prophet Joel puts it well when he says, “Rend your heart and not your garments.”

The first task of Lent is repentance — repentance that brings us before the Lord with penitent, contrite hearts. That’s what Jesus is saying in the Gospel. “Don’t put on a show with your acts of righteousness … Don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing … For your Father who knows what is done in secret will reward you.” Lent invites us to turn around, change directions, make a new start from an old life and do so without making a show of it.

There was a senior member in a church named Bob who mostly kept to himself on Sunday mornings. He didn’t serve on any church committee. He didn’t express his opinion very often, even when asked.

Bob then became ill with cancer and after a very a short time developed pneumonia and died. Everyone at his funeral expressed kind words. They said things about Bob like, “He never complained about anything.” “He was always faithful to be at church every time the doors were open.” And other comments about his “being a very private person who mostly stayed to himself.”

A couple of months after Bob’s death, a member of the congregation approached the pastor about the light on the outside church sign not shining at night. The pastor called the chairman of the Trustees to inform him of the need to check the light. The chairman told him that in all his years at the church he had never known the bulb to burn out and did not even know where the key was to unlock the lid to change it.

A few weeks later the clock on the wall in the sanctuary stopped working. The pastor took the clock down and it turned out to simply be that the batteries needed changing. When it was pointed out, one lady said that in all her years of coming to church she never knew the clock to stop working or the batteries to need changing.

Sometime later the pastor noticed a hinge on one of the cabinet doors in the fellowship hall was loose. The pastor heard many people complain about the hinge being loose but no one took time to fix it.

After several more similar incidents occurred, it became more and more apparent that Bob was the one who fixed things and kept things going smoothly at the church. No one was aware of just how much Bob had done. The quiet old man who had kept mostly to himself was the one who kept the lights on, the batteries in the clock changed, the broken hinges repaired, and the list went on and on.

Isn’t that the kind of service Jesus is looking for from us?

Here are some possibilities we might consider this Lent:

* Give up grumbling. Instead, “In everything give thanks.” Constructive criticism is all right, but “moaning, groaning, and complaining” are not Christian disciplines.

* Give up ten to fifteen minutes in bed. Instead, use that time in prayer, Bible study, and personal devotion.

* Give up looking at other people’s worst points. Instead concentrate on their best points. We all have faults. It’s a lot easier to have people overlook our shortcomings when we overlook theirs first.

* Give up speaking unkindly. Instead, let your speech be generous and understanding. It costs so little to say something kind and uplifting. Why not check that sharp tongue at the door?

* Give up your hatred of anyone or anything. Instead, learn the discipline of love. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

* Give up your worries and anxieties. Instead, trust God with them. Anxiety is spending emotional energy on something we can do nothing about, like tomorrow. Live today and let God’s grace be sufficient.

* Give up the television or the computer one evening a week. Instead, visit someone. Give someone a precious gift — your time.

* Give up buying anything but essentials for yourself. Instead, give the money to God. We are called to be stewards of God’s riches, not consumers.

* Give up judging by appearances and by the standard of the world. Instead, learn to give up yourself to God. There is only one who has the right to judge, Jesus Christ. Now aren’t you glad you don’t have to do that anymore?

“Return to the Lord, your God,” the prophet says.  On this Ash Wednesday, when we bear on our brows the ashen mark of our sins, let us heed the prophet’s words.

Let us turn to the Lord our God. And may the ashes of our sins be so compressed by the grace of God that we might sparkle like diamonds in the crown of the Lord.