Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,
This Sunday is the last Sunday before Lent, and that means that we traditionally hear stories of transfiguration—stories where the glory of God becomes manifest before humanity. This year we will hear Luke’s recounting of Jesus’s Transfiguration on the mountain where he had gone with some of his friends to pray.
We hear this story of wonder and awe right before entering into the 7 week period of Lent. We get a welcome reminder of the awesomeness and overwhelming power of God as someone beyond all our ways of knowing—who nonetheless cares for and seeks relationship with us, and who built us to long for that sense of wonder and awe in our lives. That’s really what Lent is all about, too. Yes, it is about purification and sacrifice—words that rarely get used in our common lives together, but I think words that might need restoration in our common lives together. The word “sacrifice” itself has lost all meaning for too many people in our common life. People recoil from this word, thinking it means “suffering,” or “being deprived of something.” And our society is not about those things, or even delaying gratification. The invention of modern advertising in the 1920s is predicated on killing off those concepts.
But the history of the word “sacrifice” paints a more appealing picture. In its Latin roots, there are two parts: “sacr,” which means “holy,” and “facere” which means “to make.” At its roots, then, a sacrifice is something that makes us holy. The ancient Romans used the word sacrifice to mean the exercising of a priestly function. The most benign general meaning of the word in English today refers to the giving up of something now in order to get something better later. In the end, it is about reordering the attention toward long-term satisfaction, rather than fleetingly and mindlessly feeding our hungers.
A willingness to sacrifice in our own lives makes us better, more well-rounded people and makes society better overall. The determination at the start of the 20 century, for instance, to outlaw child labor and require school attendance led to the United States being a leader in technology and the sciences in the later half of that century.
The idea of Lent as a time of deprivation, of unfulfilled hungers, and dreariness has even penetrated modern secular culture—as a negative aspect of Christianity. But what if we embraced the full meaning of sacrifice—as something that makes us holy; as something that enables us to take the long view, and lay the foundation for a deeper richer life by devoting our time and attention from our shallow, everyday impulses and hungers toward building lasting justice, peace, and well-being for all?
As we approach Lent this year, I want to borrow an idea from Pope Francis a few years ago. I encourage you to NOT focus on what you will “give up.” I want to encourage you to consider what you might take on to replenish yourself, and to focus your attention differently during this sacred time. Instead of fasting from a favorite food or, God forbid, caffeine, what about committing to fifteen daily minutes of morning or evening prayer? What about embracing returning to weekly worship on Saturdays or Sundays? What about committing to joining the diocesan Lenten book study? What about starting a gratitude journal to record specific things each day for which you are thankful and which you find beautiful?
You’ve heard about doing one random act of kindness. What about committing to doing one deliberate act of justice for those who are in vulnerable groups each day-- especially to counteract the common belief that Christians are about castigation, self-righteousness, and shaming others?
Lent reminds us that Jesus was willing to lay down his life to overcome the calculus of human evil—what would happen if we respond by taking up our lives and seeking to make ourselves more Godwardly-centered?
Let’s find out.
In Christ,
Mother Leslie+