Letting Lent in

I began my return to Lent in Ottawa in a Presbyterian Church this morning. (Don't worry, Catholic readers I will be doing my Sunday obligation at the usual time tonight.) My friend and the drummer in my band, plays in a gospel choir. They've gotten popular around town, even playing their upbeat gospel in nightclubs. And every once in a while, they sing in a church, too. They were guests at the Presbyterian church near where I live, so I thought it an opportune time to check things out, and hear them sing.

As always seems to happen with me, I find myself at the right place, at the right time, hearing the things I need to hear. These Presbyterians were big on Lent, emphasizing it as much as we do. This church does not have a pastor of its own and has not for some time. So a laywoman directed the liturgy, and preached a wonderful homily (they called it a message, but I call it a homily as she tied it into both readings.)

She said something about Lent that jives very much with what I posted about earlier this week. Lent symbolizes something even more basic than the forty days in the desert that Jesus spent - it also symbolizes choice.

Who do we choose to be? Lent is not just "giving stuff up." It is about making our choices. We are defined by our choices. When we choose to sate appetites we become those appetites. When we act in fear, we become that fear. And should I choose to dedicate myself to God and place my trust that he is the potter, and I the clay, then and only then do I become his child, his companion, his friend - the destiny I believe everyone to be designed for.

I know a woman who is angry with God. She is not an atheist - she is too convinced by the anthropic principle to actually disbelieve. But she does not understand people who praise God for the good things in their lives, and yet who don't condemn him when bad things happen to us. And I can't explain it to her, I can only try to understand her perspective and pray for her.

I choose - yes I choose - to trust God. Even in suffering and sickness.I don't understand why everything happens to me. I don't understand myself fully, yet, although I also choose to deepen that scrutiny as well. But someday all that will be made clear. In the meantime, I take the joy I experience for what I see it as - a gift. I take the strength that seems to come to me in the dark, and I use it to stand. And I take the hopeful signs that tend to approach with the dawn, and with them I open the curtains to the possibilities.

Adam and Eve in the mythology of Genesis didn't trust God, when he said not to eat of the tree of knowledge. A snake told them they could bypass trust and go straight to knowledge. They chose, in fact, not to trust. When Jesus faces the tempter in Luke and Matthew, he makes a different choice.

The devil says to him, "If you are the Son of God..." Can we know that Jesus never wondered at this? Fasting for forty days, is it not possible Jesus thought that maybe his whole plan and mission were nothing but a madman's concoction? The devil offers him the opportunity to know for sure: "throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you." In essence, he's saying to Jesus, "want to purge those doubts? Jump - if he comes, those doubts will be gone."

Jesus chose trust - trust that his commission was a real one. Because only trust matters. Now I have to choose the same - trust that, if I try and he helps, I can become who he truly wants me to be.

And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' (Matthew 12:19-20)