I know that I have had a lot of Lent and particularly 'giving-things-up-for-Lent' themed posts lately, but as I continue to struggle with not biting my nails, I guess it has just been on my mind a lot. And, after all, it is Lent. So, its appropriate.
Anyway, I was thinking about how our practice of giving something for Lent is a really similar and comparable to the ancient practice of sacrifices and/or burnt offerings. Of course I am not talking about human sacrifice or anything like that, but the kind of sacrifice we read about, primarily in the Old Testament, but was also present at the time of Jesus.
There are lots of different kinds of sacrifice talked about and explained in the Bible, but all of it shared a purpose. The sacrifices and the burnt offerings were to be gifts to God, symbols of our love and appreciation for what God has done for us. But they were also to be something more than that, they things (different types of animals) were sacrificed as a sort of penance for sins we had committed and the things we had done wrong.
Finally, they were to cost us something and that cost was to be a reminder to us of the consequences of our actions and a reminder of what God had done for us.
This is where the greatest similarity lies to our giving things up for Lent.
We don't give things up for Lent because God asks us to. (we will get to that in a second). Instead we give things up to remind us - daily - of what God, in Christ has done for us and to experience, on some small scale a sacrifice to help us appreciate the sacrifices Jesus made for us. That is good, and important - as long as it is done to help us grow closer to Christ and gain a better understanding of the depth of God's sacrificial love for us. Giving something up is about getting closer to God and knowing more of God's love. It isn't for or about God.
These thoughts crystallized for me as I read today's Old Testament passage from the Daily Lectionary (which can be found here: http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2011/3/29/ )
The part that really stuck out to me as meaningful for us during Lent was this, from Jeremiah 7:
1Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. 22For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” 24Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backward rather than forward.
God doesn't want or ask for our offerings and sacrifices (that is why he says to eat the offerings - the sacrifices to God would have stayed at the temple and shared by the priests) God isn't interested in our offerings, but our obedience. God wants us to follow where he calls us and sends us.
Also, very interesting to me is that part of the problem for the people is that they were looking backward rather than forward. So often when we sacrifice something - to God or someone else - it is about penitence or repayment. We do it to make up for something we have done -or left undone.
But here God is saying that we are to simply look forward into what and where God is calling us now and not be worried about what we have done or not done in the past.
So, maybe the best thing all of us can give up this year for Lent is guilt. God doesn't want our sacrifices because God isn't interested in our looking back on where we have messed up or not lived up. God simply asks us to obey him and that begins with turning around and facing forward into the future and the life that God has called you to. Not worried about the past, but ready for whatever God is going to call you to next.
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
I keep trying to give up . . . but I am no good at it.
Okay, I need all of you to stay with me for a few minutes on this post today, I have a point, but it may take a minute or two to get to. Thanks.
So, right now my fingers hurt. Truth be told they hurt almost everyday. No, I don't have arthritis or any lamentable condition, except for the fact that I have been biting my nails for as long as I can remember.
So my fingers are sore from the fact that I bite my nails down almost to the bone, I really do and I will be the first to admit that it is pretty gross. Traci hates that I bite my nails and is always trying to get me to quit, often telling me to 'get your fingers out of your mouth!' Here is the strange thing though, I really don't want to quit.
Like I said, I know that it is gross and my fingernails look terrible, plus there is the whole fingers hurting everyday thing. And for the most part I don't really get any enjoyment - certainly no long term enjoyment - out of biting my fingernails. But there is the moment, the exact moment when I bite my nails, that there is some sort of psychological or emotional enjoyment out of it. Strangely, this momentary enjoyment is almost intensified if I have just been told not to do it.
So I can say that I would like to say that I do want to stop, but I don't seem to act that way. To this end I have given up biting my nails for Lent - I know not exactly a sacrifice, but it is worth a shot. Over the past week it is amazing how many times I find my fingers in my mouth without even realizing it. Again, gross, I know. I am doing okay, but far from perfect.
Each time I 'catch' myself about to start biting my nails there is this instant where I have to make a decision: do I stop - and avoid the instant of gratification, but a tiny bit closer to who I want to be and how I want to act or do I give in and bite away, which gives me the instant of satisfaction but leaves me not only with guilt but with the consequences of my actions - hurting fingers, gross looking hands, a wife annoyed with my nervous habit, etc.
As I was thinking about this today, I read Romans 7:
19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
Interesting parallel, no? I don't think Paul's issue or struggle was with biting his nails, and of course my biggest real struggles aren't either. But there are parallels here. In each of our lives we get stuck in patterns of behavior where we do the things we don't want to do and we don't do the things we know we should or the things we actually want to do.
Sin is all about deception. While it can sometimes feel good, that feeling never lasts and sin always comes with consequences.
Romans 7 continues like this:
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.
It may not always seem like it, but we always have a choice: a choice to give into the sinful nature living within us or to accept and rely on the love, grace and power of Jesus Christ and the law of God that is at work within us.
It is a choice that we make a hundred times a day, and each choice has consequences. Each time we choose to rely on God we grow closer to God and also closer to who we are supposed to be. Each time we give into sin we allow ourselves to become more enslaved by the very sin we seek pleasure from.
As Paul says we are indeed wretched, but the good news of the gospel is that there is no bond of sin that is beyond the power of Jesus Christ to break and it only takes one choice to rely on God to set us right and on God's path of freedom and destiny for our lives.
The choice is ours. As for me, I am hoping for fingernails and pain-free hands. Amen.
So, right now my fingers hurt. Truth be told they hurt almost everyday. No, I don't have arthritis or any lamentable condition, except for the fact that I have been biting my nails for as long as I can remember.
So my fingers are sore from the fact that I bite my nails down almost to the bone, I really do and I will be the first to admit that it is pretty gross. Traci hates that I bite my nails and is always trying to get me to quit, often telling me to 'get your fingers out of your mouth!' Here is the strange thing though, I really don't want to quit.
Like I said, I know that it is gross and my fingernails look terrible, plus there is the whole fingers hurting everyday thing. And for the most part I don't really get any enjoyment - certainly no long term enjoyment - out of biting my fingernails. But there is the moment, the exact moment when I bite my nails, that there is some sort of psychological or emotional enjoyment out of it. Strangely, this momentary enjoyment is almost intensified if I have just been told not to do it.
So I can say that I would like to say that I do want to stop, but I don't seem to act that way. To this end I have given up biting my nails for Lent - I know not exactly a sacrifice, but it is worth a shot. Over the past week it is amazing how many times I find my fingers in my mouth without even realizing it. Again, gross, I know. I am doing okay, but far from perfect.
Each time I 'catch' myself about to start biting my nails there is this instant where I have to make a decision: do I stop - and avoid the instant of gratification, but a tiny bit closer to who I want to be and how I want to act or do I give in and bite away, which gives me the instant of satisfaction but leaves me not only with guilt but with the consequences of my actions - hurting fingers, gross looking hands, a wife annoyed with my nervous habit, etc.
As I was thinking about this today, I read Romans 7:
19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
Interesting parallel, no? I don't think Paul's issue or struggle was with biting his nails, and of course my biggest real struggles aren't either. But there are parallels here. In each of our lives we get stuck in patterns of behavior where we do the things we don't want to do and we don't do the things we know we should or the things we actually want to do.
Sin is all about deception. While it can sometimes feel good, that feeling never lasts and sin always comes with consequences.
Romans 7 continues like this:
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.
It may not always seem like it, but we always have a choice: a choice to give into the sinful nature living within us or to accept and rely on the love, grace and power of Jesus Christ and the law of God that is at work within us.
It is a choice that we make a hundred times a day, and each choice has consequences. Each time we choose to rely on God we grow closer to God and also closer to who we are supposed to be. Each time we give into sin we allow ourselves to become more enslaved by the very sin we seek pleasure from.
As Paul says we are indeed wretched, but the good news of the gospel is that there is no bond of sin that is beyond the power of Jesus Christ to break and it only takes one choice to rely on God to set us right and on God's path of freedom and destiny for our lives.
The choice is ours. As for me, I am hoping for fingernails and pain-free hands. Amen.
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