What Makes You Come Alive? A Message for Lent

Prepared message given as part of Three Rivers worship on Zoom
11 February 2021

Some of you may know, next Tuesday is Mardi Gras! Also called “Fat Tuesday” - Carnival and Shrove Tuesday - it’s the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the season of lent.

Now, Lent is not a season that is commonly observed by Quakers. Historically - and today - many Friends feel that there is the potential for the inbreaking of the Spirit to make any moment of any day sacred - and that to lift up one day more than another might get in the way of this practice of listening spirituality.

AND....

I know that sometimes *I* find it useful to set aside a time to especially pay attention. Unlike Early Friends I don’t live in that kind of close proximity with other folks in my spiritual community. Sometimes I feel that, like a bird, we have a bird here, I’m distracted by the shiny bits that Empire puts in front of me: preoccupations with “the world” preoccupation with status and the priorities of Empire - not the unconditional loving reign of God.

So sometimes I see seasons like Lent - which is traditionally forty days beginning Ash Wednesday and going until Easter - I see those times as an opportunity for preparation. For setting a little time apart. And maybe for experimentation.

One of my favorite descriptions that I have read — and I wish I knew to whom I should attribute this description — but this description of lent is this:

Lent is a season of being invited - of being beckoned - by God in a deeply personal way - where God invites us and says,

“Come back to me, with all of your heart.”

I didn’t grow up going to church! And my early exposure to the concept of Lent was to my Catholic friends who were giving things up - almost competitively I observed other kids try to out-give-up each other:

I’m giving up chocolate.

I’m giving up sugar.

I’m giving up hamburgers! Or television.

I thought Lent was of this incredible period of austerity where all you ate was fish-sticks and then couldn’t have dessert.

Instead, God invites:

“Come back to me, with all of your heart,”

And, in this almost-year, in fact tomorrow is the day that school stopped — in this almost-year of pandemic and isolation and summer of uprising, we have given up a lot:

Hugs

Gatherings

Work

Loved ones

So - Don’t come for our chocolate right now.

In this year, I began to wonder: what if Lent was a time to take in more than you give up? More awareness, more compassion, more connectedness to the Divine and to the people, and to this aching world?

I want to propose an alternative approach, to frame Lent as a practice of experimental listening. For the work that is uniquely ours to do.

One of Quakerism’s founders, George Fox, is reported to have used the phrase: “this I know experimentally.” when referring to the kind of capital-T Truth that God laid upon his heart.

Early Friends asked themselves, “How is Truth prospering among you?” and “Is there Life in it?” Here that “capital-T” Truth is kind of like a living organism which requires attention, discipline, and care. Ours is an experimental faith which implies a willingness to consider new insights that God lifts up for us, new ways of seeing and being. We are called to wholeness: where our beliefs and our actions are congruent. And this moving towards wholeness is a kind of living into each moment of the inbreaking Spirit.

Contemporary scholars tell us that when George Fox said “experimentally” he meant in his seventeenth century english “experientially.” And that might be true, probably is true, but I really like “experimentally” as an approach for living into the kingdom, step by step, and also for Lent.

So, I want to invite you to join me on an “Experalent:”: to take on for forty days, or four days, or four hours, or a week, some practice that resists empire and aligns you with God’s kingdom.

Maybe you will try composting,

Naybe you will uninstall Facebook,

Maybe it’s an invitation for reconciliation with a friend or family member,

Maybe it’s to try and show up for the seemingly impossible and uncomfortable work of recognizing how white supremacy shows up in an organization you are a member of and trying to undo it - just a bit,

Maybe you want to commit to walking, instead of driving that car….

What practice, for you, can you try on, as an Experalent?

I want to end with this quotation from, Howard Thurman, who, though he wasn’t actually a Quaker, I think of as very strongly Quaker-adjacent:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

So, what makes you come alive, Friends? What new thing is God inviting you into?