The Nature of Lent

What do you picture when you hear the word Lent? Purple? A cross? A journey? Stones and branches? The chocolate or alcohol you are giving up?

I doubt your answer is “nature.” Yet, the word Lent means “lengthening” and for those of us in the northern hemisphere, the lengthening of days means spring, and we are more than ready for a high temperature in the 50s today! Oh, blessed nature!

Did you notice that both of today’s primary texts take place in nature: the garden of Eden in Genesis and the wilderness of testing in Matthew? Which one are we living in these days? Probably not a garden if you ponder the ways we’re treating the earth and the grave concerns we have for its future.

Maybe wilderness is the better metaphor. Jesus fasts and prays for forty days in the desert. All comforts are stripped away. He’s alone with his thoughts—which surely much include doubts and uncertainties.

But what about us? We can go on a trek to the desert but there just may be one inside us. One author said the way to know if you’re in a spiritual wilderness: look around for what you normally count on to save your life and you come up empty.” (Barbara Brown Taylor)

In the wilderness, the “save us, O Lord” Lenten response seems apt. Save us. We have nowhere else to turn. Whether it’s the corona virus, the falling stock market, or political or economic uncertainties, our fears get the best of us. It’s human nature, right?

One pundit (Farhad Manjoo) admits the future is unknowable but observes that a “a range of forces is altering society in fundamental ways. . . in the last couple of decades, the world has become more unmoored, crazier, somehow messier. Chaos monkeys have been unleashed.” He suggests that his fellow pundits—and I would add, all of us—should strike a note of humility in the midst of an expanding unknown. Instead of being so certain, we should add a disclaimer to everything we say: “I could be wrong. We all could be wrong!

The story of Adam and Eve in the garden is usually described as the fall, or the beginning of original sin, what simply some call our human nature. In other words, we’re turned in on ourselves. The text , though, has been used to justify the subordination of women because Adam blames Eve for the apple incident.

But I wonder what wisdom there is for us in looking at this problematic text through the lens of nature, not simply traditional theology. For one, when you consider a creation that evolves, there was never a literal garden of Eden without death and pain. Each species preys on one another for survival, not because of sin—this is the chain of life. One organism nourishes the life of the other. Yet enter human beings. The way we treat other species without regard for the earth’s whole ecosystem is surely sin, a kind of spiritual virus. It reflects our desire to be god rather than creature. Lent is the season we focus on confessing the ways we have sinned against God, one another, ourselves, and yes, the earth.

And as much as we want to romanticize nature and think only of mountains and beaches and beautiful birds, nature is a place of agony as well. Darwin tells of evolution pushing toward ever more complex and beautiful life forms. This entails struggle which brings pain and suffering. One author (Holmes Rolston) puts it bluntly: “Nature is random, contingent, blind, disastrous, wasteful, indifferent, selfish, cruel, clumsy, ugly, full of suffering, and ultimately death.” In nature we must accept, struggle with and eventually embrace our mortality, our finitude, our human frailty. Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

It is human nature, though, to grieve, which is the cost of love. Our hearts break when a beloved dog or cat dies, when we see a dead deer on the road, and when we must say a final goodbye to a loved one.

But a spiritual truth we learn in nature is this sentence I love by theologian Elizabeth Johnson: “glorious life arises and is renewed in the midst of its perpetual perishing.” Can we trust in this hope—that in nature and in our spiritual lives, life arises out of death? We will wrestle with such things all the way to Easter.

Is lack of trust the great sin at the heart of human nature? Our inability to place our lives in the hands of a benevolent God? Instead we trust in the newest fad, the latest gadget, the overblown rumor, the messianic candidate who promises to solve all the problems of the world.

In some native American cultures, young men at the time of puberty go off into nature on a vision quest. They enter the harsh wilderness knowing they will come out on the other side with a different version of themselves. The boy is by himself, alone with his thoughts and fears. Through rituals such as fasting and smudging, he looks for power and meaning in nature, and through mystical dreams and visions beyond his everyday experience.

Jesus goes on a forty-day vision quest. In the wilderness he hears voices: the lies of Satan that stir up his fears. “Put your trust in me,” the devil says, “who needs God, after all.” Like us, Jesus finds his calling and his identity by resisting the lie of self-sufficiency and the lure of power.

For Jesus and us, we find God in solitude, deep within our truest human nature. Away from the need to impress people or get likes online. Away from the expectations of others and the pressure to conform. In the wilderness we stand outside the crowd. Only there are we alone enough to treasure not what is external, but what is deep within: the unconditional acceptance, the mercy and love of God.

So welcome to your vision quest in the Lenten wilderness. Find some time alone. Find some time outside. Then find some time to be here in community. Here we will lament the worst of human nature, while celebrating that we are created in the image of God. Here we will face our mortality, name our losses, and grieve the ways human beings treat the earth and one another. Here we seek to worship God alone. Here God nourishes us with the word and the bread of life.

These are tough times. African American blues artist T-Bone Walker gives us some real but honest hope for our wilderness in these lyrics:

They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad

Wednesday’s worse, and Thursday’s also sad

Eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play

Sunday I go to church and I kneel down and pray.

Even when our week is all wilderness, we love the Lord’s Day! On this beautiful Sunday, may God refresh us with grace for the journey ahead. When we reach Easter, we may emerge with a different version or ourselves, our true nature.

Sources:

Elizabeth Johnson. Ask the Beasts: Darwin the God of Love.

Belden Lane. Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as a Spiritual Practice.

Otis Moss III. Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World.