Isaiah 58:1-12, 2 Cor 5: 20b-6.10, Matthew 6:1-16, 16-21
There is a programme on television which I deplore but find strangely compelling. You may have come across it; it is called ’10 years younger’. In each episode a woman who believes she looks older than she is undergoes a transformation which should make her look ’10 years younger’. With the help of a team which includes a cosmetic surgeon, a dentist, a make up artist, hairdresser and fashion expert all the signs of aging are removed. The often weary looking woman who begins the programme is replaced by someone who looks much more glamorous, and yes, youthful, if a little artificial.
The viewer is shown pictures of the woman as she was 5 or 10 years ago. When asked how it is that she no longer looks as youthful, each woman invariably responds in the same way: ‘Oh, just life I guess’ or ‘the stresses and strains of life got on top of me I suppose’.
And of course this is what life does to us. It does get on top of us, we all age, we all die and this is something we ultimately can’t control.
Throughout history people have sought to gain greater control over their lives, their environment, their destiny and their relationships. Very often this desire for control focuses on how we appear, both to ourselves and to others. Perhaps today we focus more on our physical appearance whereas Jesus attacks those who are interested in their moral appearance. The only reward for the hypocrites who stand and pray on street corners is being seen by others. It is the person who prays in secret who will receive a reward from God the Father.
So both then and now people have been concerned with appearance over reality. It is this preoccupation with appearing devout that Isaiah rails against in tonight’s OT reading: Isaiah was preaching to a group of people who believed they could use their religious practices to gain control over their lives. They fast, they ‘delight to draw near to God’ (v.2) but ultimately it is a God of their own creation. Their acts of devotion are based on a false view of God as someone who is like a larger version of themselves. Someone who wishes to be appeased and flattered.
Through fasting and prayer they sought not to be changed, which is the hallmark of true discipleship, but rather to change and manipulate God. In this way they were seeking indirectly to control God and through this their own lives. So they were wishing to go through the acts of piety and discipleship whilst remaining unchanged themselves.
Isaiah says, in effect, that this won’t wash. That the Israelites are wasting their time if they believe these practices are of any value to God. God is not interested in a relationship which is purely vertical between Himself and us as individuals.
Our relationship with God is partly lived out through our relationships with others. How ever devout we may appear to be, both to ourselves and others, if this has no impact on our relationship with our neighbours, we are practising a shallow piety.
This is not to say that the Lenten discipline of giving things up is without value. But the purpose of denying ourselves is to lead us to a point of greater truth where we are changed, even if this means that like the Israelites, we have to readdress our view of God.
Left to our own devices the need to change is easy to avoid or ignore. Yet through encounter with the other we can find ourselves being more strongly compelled to change. It is partly this which should lead us to consider, and engage with, the needs of others.
Recently I attended a retreat where we spent time thinking about the Christian response to global poverty. One of the themes of the retreat was listening to the voices of the poor. I had anticipated that we would hear the stories of people living in developing countries. People who have to eke out some kind of existence in deprived and poverty-stricken circumstances. I assumed that my rather sketchy knowledge of people in these situations would be filled in and I would be forced to grasp more of the reality of poverty.
But my assumptions, and the assumptions of many of the people I was with, were challenged as we heard about a woman called Ambili who lived in India:
Ambili is raising her 2 sons on her own and lives in circumstances where material resources are very few. We heard about what this means for her on a daily basis and this was salutary stuff. Ambili had been asked what the West should do to help people like her. I thought she would say that she wished the people of the West would put pressure on their governments to enable fair trade to exist, or that money could be raised to implement better water and transport systems.
Can you imagine what Ambili asked for?
She said that people in the West should help people living in poverty become more religiously minded (whatever their God) because in this way they are given strength.
This was not a sentiment I expected to hear from one of the poorest people on our planet. It was something that everyone on the retreat struggled with. We were all Christians believing profoundly in the power of the gospels but surely our first responsibility as wealthy Christians is to alleviate her material poverty?
Well, this wasn’t her view, this was ours. This doesn’t absolve us of our responsibilities to those living in poverty but what it does show is that part of the call to almsgiving and social justice is about engaging with cultures different from our own. Or with people we find challenging or threatening. It is about allowing ourselves to be changed through this process. So Ambili’s response made me think whether I regarded the gospel as an add-on extra after all our physical and material needs have been met.
So giving something up for Lent might mean giving up control and engaging with some of the surprising things people might be saying in our world today. This doesn’t mean mindlessly handing over control but it does mean handing ourselves over to the Holy Spirit.
Just as Jesus allowed himself to be driven by the Spirit to the desert when he began his 40 days of temptation in the wilderness so we are called to open ourselves to where the Spirit might lead us.
Lent is first and foremost a time for surrender to God. If we need a discipline it is one of letting go not taking up. God loves us we should let him find new ways of doing it we might be surprised. After all, in the places where God calls us:
“The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.”
Amen
Sarah Eynstone