In college I went through a Faith Crisis. Maybe you have experienced a period in life like my own. I began to question everything that I had previously held sacred from my beloved Episcopal Church to the Holy Scriptures. I reverted back to my two or three-year-old self, asking repeatedly, “But why?” to my longstanding beliefs about God existing, God loving me, and Jesus being my savior. Why is Jesus my Savior? That was the question that seemed to linger the longest without my having any progress towards an answer.
As an “invincible” and angst-y twenty-year-old I believed that I needed not a Savior. “From what is Jesus even saving me?” I questioned some friends who were also struggling with their faith. No ghouls, ghosts, or goblins attacked me. No struggle for existence happened. Maybe an existential dilemma or two, but comfortably I sat thinking that I needed not a Savior. At the time I could not comprehend or feel that what I need saving from was not something outside of myself, but something within me.
No beasts existed on the outside, but on the inside a monster lurked that all of us inevitably must face. That monster is the Truth: We are mortal. We are broken. We are sinful. And while I know that we are wonderfully made “very good” in God’s eyes, the lives we live so often distort our relationship with God, as we believe in our own divinity instead of God’s. Like the naïve twenty-something that I was, we sometimes must turn our backs on God scorching the forest that was our faith, so that God can grow something anew and we can realize that it is not we that saves ourselves.
Today is a day when we come face-to-face with our mortality, our brokenness, and our sinfulness. The fires may have subsided, but the ashes remain. The marks we will receive from those ashes on our foreheads keep in the forefront of our hearts and minds that we are not infinite, but merely dust. Yet, how do we honestly confront the truth of our existence? Some of us will take on Spiritual Practices that aid us in remembering the Truth. And yet, Jesus warns us to be mindful of how we go about this discipline.
Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, of which today’s Gospel lesson is a part, Jesus teaches of alms giving, praying, and fasting, as spiritual disciplines. These are ways that we can all build upon our relationship with God. Still a temptation exists in believing that these practices are for achieving some external merit. Even when we do our best, these spiritual disciplines have a way of manipulating our egos making us think we are better than we are.
Not too long after God had found me in the burned up Faith of my youth, I began discerning a call to ordained ministry. Every week I would sit with a mentor and we would discuss our spiritual lives. Inevitably whenever one of us said, “Man, my prayer life is kicking!” or “I am on a real roll spiritually!” that would be the moment when I would fall on my face or he would stumble in his walk with Christ. Again, I wondered why?
A quick glancing at today’s reading from Matthew might give us the impression that Jesus only warns about spiritual practices falling prey to hypocrisy. While hypocrisy remains a troubling attribute of Christianity, a deeper problem persists. Doing something for others to see, saying something and doing the perceived opposite, or being overly showy with religious gestures all seem detestable. Yet, that is not what my mentor or I were doing. We were simply sharing our faith journey, but that moment of saying, “I’m doing well,” took the concentration away from God. Digging deeper in today’s Gospel lesson, we discover that Jesus’ primary concern is one of intention.
Giving alms, praying and fasting do not exist as stepping stones, but rather they develop in themselves a deeper connection with God. Put another way, when we follow Christ’s warning the spiritual practices we choose are most beneficial when they possess an inborn connectivity with God. The point of giving alms, praying, or fasting is not to be seen, heard, or respected, but rather to be in the presence of the Almighty.
Giving up something during this season comes from a need to recognize our complete reliance upon God. Taking on a new discipline is not about also losing a few pounds or restarting a New Year’s resolution. Instead let the Spirit guide your Lenten Discipline, so that whatever it is you do or do not do will in and of itself push you to experience the transforming release of God’s grace. Does this mean we say nothing of our Lenten discipline?
Lent is a communal season for us and to practice Lent as a community remains a valuable gift of the Church. Yet in this time when we take on disciplines we must examine the purpose of what we are doing. Are we trying to save ourselves like I thought I could when I was younger, are we thinking about what others will say or think about whatever it is we are doing, or are we yearning to be in deeper communion with Father, Son, and Spirit?
Lent is a season when we practice storing up treasures not here on earth, but in heaven by returning and reconnecting with the Almighty. This is the one, pure purpose of our Lenten journey. If we are pious for the sake of power, control, affection, esteem, approval, pleasure, security, or even survival, then we are setting ourselves up to be cloth to a moth, metal to rust, or goods to a thief. We are mortal, we are broken, and we are sinful, but we have a Savior who yearns for us to grow closer. Not for the benefit of anyone or anything else, but because God loves you so dearly and yearns that you turn back to God!
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