When the Homily is about Immunology

Becoming Sober

I enjoy reading church reader boards, call it a hobby if you like. There are two churches I pass directly by while enroute to my local Orthodox parish and presently one of them is advertising “Atomic Worship” and the other offers this message (my paraphrase): “Lent isn’t about what you give up, it’s about Him who gave up everything for you.”

Now this particular church is, I believe, a non-denom evangelical church and I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they actually DO practice Lent, for indeed it would be the pinnacle of silliness to be offering Lenten advice when you yourself do not really participate in Lent? Right? I refrain from imagining that a non-Lent participating church would be trying to give lessons to commincants of Lent participating churches who just happen to be driving by!

Why does Lent HAVE to be about one thing? It seems everytime evangelicals look at a practice done by non-evangelical churches, they always seem to find someway of claiming that we (i.e. non-evangelicals) are missing the most important thing. I tend to imagine an analogy of someone watching, from the outside, as others participate in an elaborate, festive, and beautiful meal while complaining that they are neglecting the simple fact that all the human body really needs is basic caloric intake.

While perhaps true, there is more to a meal than caloric intake. What makes a feast a feast as opposed to a nutritional occurance? Certainly more than quantity, right? I think so.

Have we in the west really turned Christianity into such a bare boned, base price equipped, one dimensional, product? We sit upon the riches of thousands of years of tradition and we say none of it really matters? We must qualify everything with: but what really matters is Jesus! Well, of course! What good is fasting, we say, unless we keep Jesus in mind? Well of course! Why is it always an either/or?

Fasting, while I was an evangelical, was a personal choice – something we rarely did (if ever at all – speaking for myself here) when we felt “led.” Ever trustful of our ability to follow and our ability to know with certainty who or what was doing the leading, we lived most of our spitirual lives being “led.” Confident that we were exemplifying what _________ (fill in the blank) was all about – as opposed to those who needed a good reader board reminder.

But trusting yourself (okay, Myself) is a dangerous business, especially if you are a sinner, like me. Picture a drug addict trying to get sober all by themelves – armed with the best of intentions, the “big” book, and the twelve steps. But motivated by the power of feeling led. How many of us who have tried to offer counsel as an evangelical "leader" only to be told that

In this same image, Lent is a Church prescribed intervention, and as anyone will tell you who has experienced an intervention: it has little to do with how you are feeling led.

Yes, Lent has everything to do with our Lord who did not say "If you fast..." or "When you feel led to fast...", but simply: "When you fast..."