Friday after Ash Wednesday
Intention: As Lent begins, we may be open to God’s invitation to humility and righteousness, striving to live more fully in God’s truth and more faithfully in God’s ways.
Today’s Gospel | Matthew 9:14-15
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
Lenten Reflection
There is a proverb attributed to the philosopher Confucius that reads, “When a wise man points at the stars, only a fool stares at his finger.” It is not uncommon for people to confuse means for ends, or even to deliberately substitute the former for the latter, preferring to stop at what is undemanding rather than to venture into what is challenging. This can happen when it comes to work. Or relationships. Or adventure. Or God.
In the Gospels, Christ often encountered this problem in both his followers and his adversaries. He would remind them that the purpose of being faithful to their religion’s teachings was not to stay sequestered in its structures, but to allow themselves to be disturbed by the unpredictable and unrelenting ways of God. For some, this was wildly counter-intuitive. Their concept of religion was that of a bulwark against whoever and whatever was different or disagreeable to them. Maintaining this arrangement to the exclusion of whatever threatened their sense of communion with God had clearly become an end in itself. Ironically, what was most often excluded was God.
Albert Einstein wrote, “Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.” The tendency to obsess on what we are able to gain with our minds while neglecting to ask what it will cost our souls leaves us devoid of either a moral or spiritual pulse. The resulting tangle of actions makes it easy to mistake form for substance, ritual for relationship, cleverness for character. During the time of Lent, we are called to reflect on the ends of our means. What is it exactly that we are trying to do with our lives, and to where are we taking ourselves and our world?
Prayer
Eternal Father, your Son spoke to a sinful world and brought the gift of reconciliation through his suffering and death on the cross. In this time of Lent, teach us to follow in his path. Help us to put aside our selfishness and pride, our judgments and divisions, our fears and indifference. May our faith, hope, and love turn hatred to compassion, conflict to peace, and death to life, so that together we may share in the salvation that your son has brought to all of us. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.