Friday, February 27, 2009

The First Friday In Lent

This morning I got up and headed out to run some errands before I sat down to work for the day. I was listening to a group not known for its Holy or appropriate lyrics, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was listening to Throw Away Your Television, one of my favorite songs. The lyrics are:


"Throw away your television time to make this clean decision master waits for it's collision now it's a repeat of a story told it's a repeat and it's getting old Throw away your television make a break big intermission recreate your super vision now it's a repeat of a story told it's a repeat and it's getting old[Chorus:] Renegades with fancy gauges slay the plague for it's contagious pull the plug and take the stages throw away your television now[Chorus] Throw away your television Salivate to repetition 'leviate this ill condition now it's a repeat"

I thought to myself about my lenten discipline and then I thought about the lists of things people are taking on and people are stopping in order to reconnect with God. Then I remembered one of my favorite disciplines shared by a friend in the Woodlands..."I am quitting Facebook for lent." I of course read this on Facebook, LOL...or laughed out loud. But thought that is a very current discipline.

Most of the time I hear people say they are giving up one of the following things: chocolate, sweets, alcohol, carbs, or some other such thing.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers and my Woodlands friend made me think though, what would be contemporary disciplines that you and I could give up in Lent that would make a difference in our lives and in our lives with God. If one of the essential works of Lent is to restore our relationship with God, restore the fellowship of the church, and restore our relationship with others what is really in our way?

So, I wondered, what what would it be like to give up:

the news
Television
my cell phone
blogs
movies
internet
negative media messages

Each of these would give us more time to spend with living people. We would be more present with people if we weren't tied to our cell phones. We would be more available for ministries and for church fellowship. We would be more available to our families. We would actually have to interact with people to get information.

Maybe your lenten discipline is leaving you flat or you haven't chosen one yet. Why not try one of these more contemporary disciplines. Give up your connected electronic state and get connected in a different way.
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Quotes

  • "Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process." Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • "Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer." Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • "Perfection, in a Christian sense, means becoming mature enough to give ourselves to others." Kathleen Norris
  • "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." John Wesley
  • "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." G. K. Chesterton
  • "One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans." C. S. Lewis
  • "When we say, 'I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,' we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the church seldom asks us for forgiveness." Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
  • "Christians are hard to tolerate; I don't know how Jesus does it." Bono
  • "It's too easy to get caught in our little church subcultures, and the result is that the only younger people we might know are Christians who are already inside the church." Dan Kimball