Eight More Rhymes

The Purpose of Lent

The season of Lent isn’t a “dog and pony show”. Many verses in Scripture speak of the hubris that often accompanied religious leaders when they showed up for their ceremonial practices. Interestingly, the three traditional pillars (emphases) of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, were places where piety often went out the window, and Jesus addressed these topics very soon after He emerged from the wilderness and began to preach. Could it be that Jesus’ time in the wilderness, where the three great temptations of possessions/privilege, power/position, and prestige/performance were thrown at Him, served as the suffering from which the greatest sermon He ever preached was forged? The Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew chapters 5 to 7, shows that Jesus pulls no punches…

Consider Matthew 6:1-4, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them….When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do…When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving is in secret.” (This speaks of the power of generosity.)

Or how about Matthew 6:5-8?  “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others…When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen; and don’t keep babbling like pagans, thinking you will be heard because of your many words. This is how you should pray….Our Father…” (I think the emphasis here is not on whether one prays in public, but more on the posture of a humble heart.)

Lastly, how about Matthew 6:16-18? “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show they are fasting. Simply put oil on your head and wash your face, so it will only be obvious to the Father.” (Again, the secret is that whatever you choose to abstain from for a time is between you and God. The fruit is revealed in how you spend your time in a way that carries forward the kingdom of God- maybe you prepare a meal for someone else in the absence of a meal you give up)

All this to say, these next eight rhymes in “The Purpose of Lent” focus on the temptations we all face in life and relationships:

The purpose of Lent
Is to boldly reorient
our motives and purpose in life.

The purpose of Lent
is the way to prevent
bitterness and hardness of heart.

The purpose of Lent
keeps us current
with the unfinished business of soul work.

The purpose of Lent
reveals we’re tempted to invent
our image, false self and denials.

The purpose of Lent
Shows where we’re hesitant to relent
our egos in true confession.

The purpose of Lent
is the way to repent
which leads to new freedom and fruit.

The purpose of Lent
exposes the things we resent
and sets us back on a pathway of love.

The purpose of Lent
shows wherever we went
we get reoriented to a level path.

In a daily devotional on the “desert experience” (another name for this season), Richard Rohr quotes an exceprt from John Chryssavgis’ book, In the Heart of the Desert:

“Ironically, you do not have to find the desert in your life; it normally catches up with you. Everyone does go through the desert…. It may be in the form of some suffering, or emptiness, or breakdown, or breakup, or divorce, or any kind of trauma that occurs in our life. Dressing this desert up through our addictions or attachments—to material goods, or money, or food, or drink, or success, or obsessions, or anything else we may care to turn toward or may find available to depend upon—will delay the utter loneliness and the inner fearfulness of the desert experience. If we go through this experience involuntarily, then it can be both overwhelming and crushing. If, however, we accept to undergo this experience voluntarily, then it can prove both constructive and liberating.”

What are the things that so deeply entangle you? I have entered the desert both involuntarily and voluntarily in different seasons of my life; picture me kicking and screaming instead of Jesus carrying me! (as found in the “Footprints” Poem) How about you? So thankful for the grace of Jesus that leads us home.

Photo of Joshua Tree by Victor Yuang Luo on Unsplash