So why the beard? It’s a Lent thing. I was clean shaven on
Shrove Tuesday, and that was the last time I shaved.
Someone told me that she doesn’t think God’s going to be
real impressed with my sacrifice for Lent. I don’t really like shaving anyway.
And shaving consumes valuable minutes as I get the kids ready for school in the
morning.
But I wanted to do something for Lent, but hadn’t really
given it any thought before Ash Wednesday came around. So I went with the
no-shave thing.
I grew up in a little country Baptist Church. We had heard
of Lent, but thought it was just a Catholic thing, knowing only that it
involved fish on Fridays, and we suspected that there was also beer, and maybe
Bingo. It was also tied to Mardi Gras, which sounded French so we wanted
nothing to do with it.
I started working for the United Methodist Church shortly
after I started attending one. I heard a lot about Lent then. Straight away I
had a three-day out of state work Conference. I figured food would be sparse at
a Conference during the Lenten fast; maybe they wouldn’t eat at all on one day.
I soon found out that most Methodist don’t take the fasting thing real
seriously.
But many do give up something for Lent. Approaches vary
wildly. I’ve seen pledges of abstinence from chocolate, soda, coffee, booze and
Facebook. Some people simply choose a fast that will cause some kind of
disruption in their day, or a break from their usual routine. They use it as a
reminder to be more prayerful during this time.
Others take the 40 days of Lent as a time to do more of
something; either some kind of good deed, better behavior, or some kind of
spiritual development, like daily Bible reading or prayer.
So I realized on Ash Wednesday morning that simply not
shaving wasn’t really doing much for Lent. But I’ve also been running to keep
up lately, so I was hesitant to add much. So I thought I’d read the Bible
daily.
This is kind of cheating. Since I work for a church, there’s
a daily office email that goes out with office news, meetings of the day, etc.,
and it includes a passage of scripture. So all I would have to do is read this
email.
But the person who sends out the e-mail had a family
emergency, and had to take a week off. And even though I spend the day writing
about churches, and even though there’s an open Bible on my desk all day long,
and even though I have a Bible on my phone, I don’t think I’ve read the Bible
every day of Lent. It couldn’t have been any easier, yet I’m pretty sure I
missed a couple of days – at least.
But the good thing about Christianity is that just because
you fail at something, that doesn’t mean that you’re out of the game. Lent is
six weeks long, so I’m not even half way through the wilderness yet. Maybe the
beard will remind me that it is high time for me to start getting my act
together, and doing it in ways that go beyond reading a Bible verse everyday.
Whether or not you do Lent, religious practices like this
can be helpful in making you take some stock in yourself, consider where you
are, and where you want to go.
In Matthew chapter 6, a popular Ash Wednesday scripture,
Jesus says whenever you give alms, pray and fast, to keep it to yourself. Don’t
show off about it. He wraps it up in verse 21 by saying For where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also.
Let’s pray.
God help us as
we live into the next few weeks of Lent. May we keep it meaningful, and
personal. Amen.
