A broken and contrite heart

A colleague posted on Facebook the following:"Lenten levity from the Shrove Tuesday program at St. Philip's":

An Irishman moves into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walks into the pub and promptly orders three beers. The bartender raises his eyebrows, but serves the man three beers, which he drinks quietly at a table, alone. An hour later, the man has finished the three beers and orders three more. This happens yet again.

The next evening the man again orders and drinks three beers at a time, several times. Soon the entire town is whispering about the Man Who Orders Three Beers.

Finally, a week later, the bartender broaches the subject on behalf of the town. "I don't mean to pry, but folks around here are wondering why you always order three beers?" 'Tis odd, isn't it?" the man replies, "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America, and the other to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order an extra two beers whenever we drank as a way of keeping up the family bond."

The bartender and the whole town were pleased with this answer, and soon the Man Who Orders Three Beers became a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet, even to the extent that out-of-towners would come to watch him drink.

Then, one day, the man comes in and orders only two beers. The bartender pours them with a heavy heart. This continues for the rest of the evening - he orders only two beers. The word flies around town. Prayers are offered for the soul of one of the brothers.

The next day, the bartender says to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer condolences to you for the death of your brother. You know-the two beers and all..." The man ponders this for a moment, then replies, "You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well... It's just that I, myself, have decided to give up drinking for Lent."

In many ways I think this gets to the heart of many Lenten devotional practices; they are often misunderstood and misconstrued by those who observe but do not themselves part-take of this practice. And they inherently mean little to nothing to anyone else. I had a friend who used to give up peanut butter every year. He claimed a deep and abiding love for the stuff and to be without it for 40 long days was a true act of sacrifice to his mind. But, I wonder, does God care if we give up such things, chocolate, sweets, meat, peanut butter or even beer? I am not so sure God cares about such things, unless such acts of piety truly do what that for which they were intended, that is, to reconnect us to God. In Psalm 51, recited each year in the Ash Wednesday service, we recite: "Had you desired it, I would have offered sacrifice; but you take no delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." And then we give up... some little thing that is not even as much trouble as rustling up a burnt-offering - which is, by the way, not the equivalent of burning incense. A burnt offering means going out to the pasture and capturing our most prized goat or sheep, following the prescribed way of sacrificing it, burning its flesh and sharing the cooked meat with those present (being sure to save some for the priests, whose piety it was to depend on the generosity of others in order to eat). If going to that much trouble and enduring a substantial loss of our own food supply isn't preferred by God, then I'm thinking doing without chocolate for four weeks doesn't even show up on the radar. Just sayin' .....

I saw the movie, Pieces of April, earlier this week. (Highly recommendable, by the way.) April is a young women in her early 20's, estranged from her family, and just beginning to find herself. Her family is coming to her NY apt. for Thanksgiving. All is going well until her oven breaks. She goes door to door in her building searching for anyone who will help her with very little sympathy from her neighbors. At one door a middle-aged black women yells inside to her husband, "That little white girl from 2A is telling me she's got a problem. I can't wait to hear this. What kind of problem could your white, affluent self possibly have? This otta be good." And that's the problem with giving up some trivial thing like cake and candy, we mean well but in the scheme of things its like telling a beaten and tortured Libyan we're giving up our right to vote for Lent.

The purpose of Lent is not to throw stones of privilege and affluence into the face of God whose heart is burdened with the blood and tears of those who work for justice, weep for the dead and fear for their lives. Lent is a God-given time-out for acknowledging in some concrete way the One to whom we belong and to make some authentic effort toward repairing the very broken relationship between us and God. The forty days of Lent isn't intended to be a time made up of pious prayers and kind acts geared toward attaining salvation, rather it is a precious time to be spent living into the salvation already given. The dynamic abundance of divine love cannot be withheld; when fully known it tends to spill out with abandon onto every person we encounter. It takes on a life of its own, radiating from our being lighting a path for those whose way is darkness.

When dispensing the ashes to someone privately early this day the recipient said to me, "I love Easter. I know we hear every Sunday that God loves us, but Easter is the big 'I Love You.'" That being the case, then Lent is that time when we have an opportunity to say through acts of contrition, kindness, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of all who are our neighbor, I love you, O Lord, as you have loved me.