ON MAKING GOOD USE OF LENT

            Today being the Sunday before the beginning of Lent, I’d like to think about how we might all make good use of this holy season. I’m afraid that means passing over today’s readings about the Transfiguration, about which many sermons could be preached, but if we are to be ready to use Lent when it comes, we need to start thinking about it now, before Lent begins - and of course it begins on Wednesday!

Lent of course is not what it was. We used to take fasting and penitence much more seriously than we do these days, and certainly in Western Europe it would no longer be obvious to the outside observer that there's anything special about the next few weeks.

Things are rather different in Eastern Europe. In Orthodox countries since the fall of communism and the revival of religion, Lent has made something of a comeback. I’ve been quite surprised to see that if you go into a restaurant in Russia or another Orthodox country, you’re quite likely to find a special Lenten menu (with vegetarian dishes) alongside the ordinary menu.

And of course the Muslims definitely put us to shame. The general public in Western Europe is probably these days much more aware of Ramadan than it is of the Christian Lent because Muslims, even those who are otherwise not particularly religious, do very often take the Ramadan fast seriously, and this has a great many practical implications for the routine of people's daily lives.

Lent of course is the season of preparation for Easter, the greatest festival of the Christian year. In the early church, Easter was the time of the year when people came for baptism. Being baptised at Easter gave all its meaning to the idea that in baptism we enter into Christ's passion and resurrection; dying with him (drowning in the waters) so as to rise again to new life with him. So the weeks before Easter were the time when the candidates for baptism went through intensive preparation through prayer, study and fasting.

Later on, this time of prayer, study and fasting was extended to all Christians, so that the baptised would be reminded of the commitment they undertook at their baptism (or which was undertaken for them). And so the festival of Easter would stand out all the more as an explosion of joy and celebration after the weeks of solemnity and austerity.

What I’m wanting to do today is to think about some of the possible ways in which we can mark the season of Lent in our own lives, and so to encourage all of us to make some use of this season. There are the traditional disciplines of Lent like prayer and fasting, but there are other possibilities too. In fact, it doesn’t really matter too much what you do, but I think it's important to do something to make the next few weeks a time when we all try to live a more intense spiritual life.

When we think of Lent, we probably think first of penitence and fasting. There of course lies the problem: you could hardly think of two things which are further removed from the spirit of the age in which we live, particularly in the Western world.

Here in Europe, we live in a world of abundance and plenty. In the Middle Ages they probably had to fast at this time of year – the end of the winter – because food supplies were quite literally running out. But today we can just go along to the supermarket and find whatever we want at any time of the year. And our whole economic system is based on consumption, and over-consumption. This is just as true even in the present time of economic crisis because, paradoxically, we are being urged to go on consuming as much as possible so as to keep the economy going.

So there’s a lot to be said for some form of fasting as a way of protesting against the materialistic values of the world we live in. Fasting used to mean giving up meat and perhaps also dairy products. These days we have usually reduced it to something rather minor like giving up chocolate or alcohol or something else that we enjoy but don't really need. But even an apparently trivial fast may be spiritually worthwhile because it is a way of reminding ourselves that we do not need these things, it's a way of making ourselves realise that we do not have to be dependent on them.

The tradition of fasting can be interpreted in newer ways too. At a time when we are beginning to realise just how fragile and unstable our economic system is, perhaps what our economies need is a fast from debt. And in a world which is quite literally destroying itself through over-consumption, it becomes increasingly clear that what we need is a fast from wasteful lifestyles that exploit the environment; we all need to re-learn the virtues of the simple life, the joys of simplicity. So one way of fasting might be a fast from carbon: to find some way of reducing our personal carbon footprint this Lent.

So Lent can involve some practical adjustments to our daily routines. But it's also about intensifying our spiritual lives (not that I want to give the impression that the spiritual and the practical are two quite different and separate areas of life; on the contrary they ought to interact and feed on one another).

In our spiritual lives, it's important not to stand still. It's so easy to get stuck with a rather underdeveloped spiritual routine, whereas in fact we all need to grow spiritually, and to go on growing throughout our lives – from youth right into extreme old age. We need to let the Holy Spirit go on working on us, and not think that because we've been members of the church for years that is good enough. And so Lent is a time for getting into more disciplined and less stereotyped habits of prayer.

And in particular Lent is, of course, a time for penitence. Penitence sounds to us terribly gloomy, but of course it doesn't have to be. Penitence is simply a matter of being honest about ourselves, coming before God just as we are, complete with all our sins and shortcomings, and laying down our burdens before the Cross of Christ. All of which, far from being gloomy, should give a sense of release and new life.

Lent is also a time for going back to the Bible: it's one thing to hear it read in church, but it's another thing to read it in the quiet of our own homes and to let the Word get to work on us.

And Lent is also a time for study and reflection, for making the most of any opportunities to deepen our faith. You could simply choose a book and read it thoughtfully through the next few weeks. But you could also make the most of the opportunities we are offering this Lent in our own church.

So let me urge you to take seriously the possibility of coming along to our informal study and discussion sessions on five Sunday afternoons starting next Sunday. The details are on the notice sheet, but we'll be thinking about the great Christian virtues of faith, hope and love, what they really mean to us and the impact they can have on our lives.

Think also about coming to Liebfrauenberg at the end of March. I'm sure you'll enjoy staying in this beautiful place, and I hope you'll also be stimulated by what our speaker, Sue Hobley,  has to say about what it means to be a multicultural church. This is her experience in the British city of Sheffield, but also – in a different way – very much our experience here in Strasbourg.

Well, I could go on. There are all sorts of ways in which we can make something of this season of Lent. And as I said before, it doesn't really matter too much what we do as long as we do something. So may I suggest that you don't just go home after church and forget all about it. Rather, go home and decide what you are going to do this Lent. Make your Lenten resolution.

 Be realistic: choose something which is do-able – otherwise you'll just spend your time feeling guilty about not keeping your Lenten promise, and that isn't very helpful from any point of view.  So don't be too ambitious, don't make it something too complicated. But do decide to do something.

Reverend John Murray, Strasbourg Anglican Chaplaincy

Sunday next before Lent, 22 February 2009