Food Goes In Here

The Monster Machine and I were speaking briefly about Lenten practices, specifically about the "I'm giving up 'X'" bit.

His sense was that it is a bit disingenuous that we talk so much about what we're giving up. I think his exact words were, "They're all a bunch of phonies and I'd like to punch each and every one of them in the [redacted] mouth".

You're right. He is awful.

I, as you have no doubt come to learn, am far more gracious and understated.

Whatever.

There are as many understandings of fasting and prayer as there are people so it might be silly to say, "Isn't Lent supposed to be blah blah blargh?" but who am I to not be silly?

Right.

Let's assume that there is some sense of Lenten practice, fasting from some such or other, that is meant to convey an idea of anticipation and preparation for the celebration of Jesus' victory over the world, and an acknowledgment of the nature of that confrontation between Word and world wherein we're the buttholes* that want to destroy the Word. Let's say it's meant to remind us that the source of our hope is not in anything in the world save Jesus, and that is uniquely as God. It would seem the practice should be oriented about confronting us with that relation.

So... you don't eat perhaps with the the purpose of being confronted with hunger and that with the purpose of bringing to mind the idea that if you don't eat you'll die, and that perhaps brings to mind what you do to save yourself, only you remember you don't save yourself- even by eating, though eating seems like the very kind of thing that would save you because, if you remember, if you don't eat you'll die.

You might despair because you realize that the most seemingly fundamental and life-giving aspects of your existence are for nothing, so if it were up to you you'd be lost. Then perhaps ultimately this relation brings to mind hope and gratefulness because it's not up to you, at least as far as you're concerned as a Christian.

But face it, if you're an American, you're not likely famishing- pear-shaped softies that we are. We generally don't have the kind of relation to food that going without it is all that threatening. Moreover, as Christians (of a certain kind perhaps) we already know that we don't do anything to earn our salvation**. As good protestants, we know "we can't do anything to be saved". It is our mantra.

Except that we do- I mean we do have our "musts" for salvation. We must say the right things and think the right things. And saying and thinking are entirely matters of doing. They are a matter of our doing.

Tangentially, how convenient it is that we say "You could never feed enough hungry people to earn heaven so, though your master says to do it, don't bother except as an accessory," and then we follow that with "What you must do is think and speak 'thusly'". Perhaps "to what" or "for whom" that is convenient is a question we could sit with during Lent.

Back to our doing...

Isn't this doing our security? Rather than food, perhaps it is this foundational Protestant "doing" from which we must rest. Could you stop reading your Bible for forty days? Could you stop gathering with like-minded folks to sing and hear about God's grandiosity these few Sundays? Could you not preach? Attend Sunday School? Teach a Bible study?

No? If you don't do it you'll die?

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*I use the word "buttholes" in this. Don't read it if this scandalizes your sensibilities. -OR-
Fast from your sensibilities.

**This is just a variation on the theme you likely know- some form of "you can't earn your salvation" "you can't do anything to warrant God's grace"...