March 5thFasting, Feasting and Renewal
- by Janet Bauman
Your word is a lamp before my feet and a light for my journey.” Psalm 119:105
The season of Lent is an invitation for self-reflection as we journey toward Good Friday and Easter. It is an opportunity to pay close attention to Jesus. It can also be a time to take stock of and seek to repair relationships with God and others.
It is also known as a time for the spiritual discipline of fasting–releasing or letting go of something that keeps us from living into our call from God. Traditionally, people cleared all of the lard or fat out of their kitchens, by using it all up in pancakes on Shrove Tuesday before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday.
The night of the first baptisms, a group of young people met, in an act of defiance to pray and read the bible together.
It might be worth asking what “fat” or “glut” in our lives is now. It may not be food. What else might we be overconsuming? Where are we overextending or overexerting ourselves? What distractions, attractions, cravings, compulsions or dependencies draw us away from our spiritual centre as beloved children of God? Perhaps those are what we might try to fast from during Lent.
But Lent need not be a sombre grim season of striving to gain more self-discipline. Perhaps the fast of Lent–the clearing out and letting go–can create some space for a corresponding Lenten feast–something we intentionally add into our lives that will nourish us and deepen our connection to God and to others.
Many of our churches reflected on Anabaptism this winter by commemorating the 500th anniversary of the first adult baptisms in Europe. One of the striking features of this movement was how people prioritized meeting together to pray and study the bible. The authorities in Zurich, Switzerland, eventually banned these gatherings, sensing that their authority was threatened when ordinary people read the Bible. The night of the first baptisms, a group of young people met, in an act of defiance to pray and read the bible together.
This year, I have decided that my Lenten fast will be to create space for a Lenten feast of reading through the gospel of Luke. And I have invited people in my congregation to join me one evening a week to reflect on these stories.
The Narrative Lectionary for Lent this year focuses on stories from the journey section of Luke, where Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9-19). Many of our churches will use and develop worship resources for Lent based on these texts. What if, in the face of all that is unsettling in our world right now, more of us committed to reading the gospel of Luke during Lent, expecting that we would find something there? What if we met with others in a small group where we reflected together on what we were reading, and discerned together what transformation and action God is calling us to?
- Janet Bauman serves as part of the pastoral team at St. Jacob's Mennonite Church.