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March 12, 2006, Lent 2, All Souls' Church

“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” 

    This is the second Sunday in Lent, the church’s chief penitential season. Lent is a time of preparation for Holy Week and Easter. We prepare ourselves by setting aside these forty days as a time of self-examination in which we conduct a moral inventory and take stock of our spiritual life. Lent is a time of abstinence and self-denial. Many Christian are at best confused about this whole exercise. For some, abstinence means something as simple as abstaining from meat on Fridays, making do with lobster and salmon. It reminds me of a rhyme I came across: “The rules that govern abstinence are certainly bizarre, if I can sin with sausage meat and fast with caviar.” It is even the case these days that Christians who speak of denying themselves are looked upon with suspicion as some sort of fanatics by an increasingly skeptical world. It is not uncommon to know someone who strictly limits their television watching time and who won’t consume sugar or processed food, and is an alcohol abstaining, caffeine avoiding, non-meat eating, dairy-free, jogger who is dumbfounded by the idea of a Christian giving something up for Lent. Common sense alone teaches us that a certain amount of abstinence and self-denial is healthy. The church year gives us this annual season of Lent as a time for such practice. Christians recognize that abstinence and self-denial benefits us in ways that are both practical and spiritual.

     Lent in not simply a time to give up things that are bad. We should always be ready to give up bad things at all times. In Lent, we give up some good thing which we enjoy. The idea is that we will enjoy and appreciate that good thing even more when we take it up again after Lent. We all know that too much of a good thing can be bad. My favorite meal is a good steak dinner. At restaurants, I always assume that “entrée” is the French word for Porterhouse. And yet, I don’t eat steak all the time. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. This just makes sense. Of course, Lenten abstinence and fasting is about more than merely heightening our enjoyment of the finer things. We also practice such disciplines as a means of training ourselves, making us better, more diligent Christian soldiers. Christians – at least, ones who read books – speak of the three theological virtues. These virtues are faith, hope, and charity. They are called theological virtues because they have to do directly with our knowledge of God. What some Christians today forget is that these theological virtues – faith, hope, and charity - assume and require the classical virtues such as wisdom, justice, temperance, magnanimity, liberality and gentleness. As Professor Fears pointed out in his lecture in our Lenten Series this past Wednesday, these classical virtues are highly prized by practically every religion and every culture on the face of the earth. Without these classical virtues, the theological virtues and our religion itself becomes a rather vague thing and merely notional. Many people actually crave the discipline such classical virtues demand and often are attracted to fundamentalist sects, Christian and otherwise, which promote them. Lent is a time for us to really concentrate on such discipline and to practice such virtues. And yet, there is more. By abstaining and fasting, we deprive ourselves and feel the desire for the good things we miss. This hunger and desire for those good things is meant to be a sensible reminder of our spiritual desire, our spiritual hunger and thirst for God. The psalmist writes, “Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God.” The longing and desire which self-denial promotes is meant to be used as a catalyst leading us to more fervent prayer and reminding us of the soul’s deep desire and longing and need for God.

     The Gospel lesson for today speaks of self-denial. Our Lord Jesus says that following him means denying ourselves and taking up our cross. The point of such self-denial and the point of crucifying our sinful desires, our lust for power, our greed, our vain glory, is summed up by our Lord a few verses later when he asks, “for what does it profit a man to gain the whole word and lose his own soul?” You see, all the good things of this good world, all pleasures and all joys, are but faint glimmers and a brief glimpse and a little taste of the deeper life of the spirit. To seek the glory of this world only is to be a fool who prefers lumps of clay over pearls of great price. It is like seeing your loved one’s shadow and preferring the shadow rather than turning and embracing the one by whom the shadow is cast. We were made for better things.

     The Epistle lesson tells us we were made for better things, for a greater and more enduring glory. St. Paul writes: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” He writes that God, who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, shall freely give us everything. He shall give us everything freely because it is a gift for which our Lord Jesus paid with his life. By his passion and his cross and resurrection, our Lord Jesus has reconciled us once and for all to his Heavenly Father so that we may freely receive all those things for which we were created. Moreover, this victory won by Christ Jesus is a victory over everything which could ever try to separate us from God. Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities and powers, nor things present nor things to come can ever separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

     As these forty days of Lent conclude we will once again recall the Holy Week of Christ’s passion and death. And then, we will celebrate our Lord’s glorious resurrection which guarantees the promise of our own resurrection to new and eternal life in him. In Lent, we set our souls upon that greater glory. In Lent, we focus our minds and fix our hearts on what is most true and enduring, on the glory which nothing can corrupt and which never fades away. In Lent, we take our cross and follow our Savior wherever he leads. Let us continue in the observance of a Holy Lent.

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