Ash Wednesday and Lent

Today, Ash Wednesday, will mean many Christians "giving up something for Lent." In addition, some will also choose to add into their lives a specific intention to do something positive for others. Both can be very healthy for Christians and Christian congregations, especially if such discipline is followed for the sake of the community.

Consider a text appointed for this day--Isaiah 58, in which the prophet gives voice to God's desire for shalom in the context of real life community. After mocking the practices of the outwardly pious, come these words (CEV translation):
I'll tell you what it really means to worship the Lord.
Remove the chains of prisoners who are chained unjustly.
Free those who are abused.
Share your food with everyone who is hungry;
Share your home with the poor and the homeless.
Give clothes to those in need;
Don't turn away your relatives.

All of this is about God's cry for shalom in the real world of human community. It is at heart linked with the way of the Christ and I would say is the great heart at the core of any religion.

Alexander Shaia (www.quadratos.com) asks us to consider that such a larger Lent was the practice of the early church: Lent as a yearly retreat for congregations, during which they examined their lives together, sought forgiveness and reconcilation and scrutinized their ministries and mission to the world in the light of the way of the Christ.

What if Christian congregations found the courage to reform Lent that way now? Then, instead of wallowing in the dismal examination of personal sins and neuroses, or the unhealthy cult of individualism ("Jesus and me"), congregations would be asked to consider together how well their aim to serve as the body of Christ in their particular neighborhoods and communities lived up to their intentions. Such a metric, fleshed out in the particulars of the congregations real life would mean forgiveness and reconciliation among themselves, and renewal and rededication to their mission. After all that, Easter would mean a renewed and renewing celebration of the presence of the risen One now more consciously known among them. It would be a discovery again of what it really means to worship the LORD.