The Invitation of Lent 

Each year, the season of Lent, for me, feels like a tremendous relief. No need for pretention; no need for trying to impress. No need to do anything but to enter in with a group of people to acknowledge, quite openly and freely, that we are not all we are called to be. No need to do anything but acknowledge, with this same group of people, two things. First, to acknowledge that the world is both beautiful and a train wreck all at the same time. And second, to acknowledge that the only remedy, the only way out, is through facing up to that, in all its horror, so as to accept the sacrifice of Christ, in all its beauty.

An Invitation to See Clearly

It’s refreshing. It’s like a dirty window being washed clean so that now, we see out of it clearly. We notice things we never could have seen if it were still smudged all over. During Lent, things are sharply brought into focus, not the least of which is the clarity about our own lives and about what we’ve received in this grace, beauty and mercy God so freely gives us.

You see, Lent is, first and foremost, an invitation. I come because I’ve been invited, through no acknowledgment or qualification of my own. And in fact, God stands against any effort that I might make to somehow qualify myself so I can feel worthy of his invitation.

What is the crucifixion about if it is not about the death of self-justifying religion? Even the perfect Son of God, who offered everything perfectly, Himself cried out in abandonment, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” In other words, God turns his back on any effort or any religious practice that would allow me to justify myself based on something I have done.

If the Son of God can’t justify himself, then certainly, we can’t say anything other than “I’m here because I’ve been invited.” God has invited me to come and see things clearly. In receiving the ash on my forehead at the start of Lent, I say yes to the profound acknowledgment that without God, ash is all I am. It’s the mark of my mortal nature. It’s all of God. So I have nothing, which somehow qualifies me to say yes to such an extraordinary invitation as to enter into a life with God. Having nothing of my own qualifies me to be what Paul calls in Second Corinthians, “an ambassador for Christ,” someone who says, with all of his being, “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

An Invitation to Be Changed

The temptation is to see this invitation as something other than it is, something that satisfies and brings great power and life and self-affirmation. We live in a world soaked in that kind of prideful self-sufficiency. But accepting the invitation of Lent says, “In the midst of all the need that I still have to gain acceptance through these means, I am still willing, by God’s mercy, to say yes to a different kind of life. I am willing to continue to be changed, to say yes to a life that’s based not on me looking good but on Christ’s mercy. And this life allows me to serve whether I look good or not.”

That’s what that whole list in 2 Corinthians is about: “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;  as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed;  as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor. 6:8b-10). Nobody wants to be seen this way, and yet Paul understands: That’s the price of living a life that says with all of our being, “Be reconciled to God.”

An Invitation to Be His Ambassador

To say yes to the invitation of Lent is to ask God to show me that somehow, my life might be so intertwined with his that the marks of prayer, fasting and generosity are woven into it in a way that allows me to be that instrument through which God says, “Be reconciled.”

That’s why we do this. We don’t pray and give and fast so we can feel better. We pray and give and fast so the divine life that can only come from him flows through us even more freely. That we might be the ambassador God has asked us to be—to be a channel for his divine life, because that’s all I’ve got. That’s all I am.

So yes, we repent, because this world offers us some pretty seductive stuff, so many voices that says something very different.

And so, I invite you to come with me. I can only get there, quite honestly, if I’m doing this with other people–even though I wish I could be more independent. To say yes to this divine invitation, to be a part of this divine life, that the world that is so enamored with those things which are in fact, under judgment.

We receive Christ’s invitation that we might escape the judgment, that we might know the joy of a life marked by repentance and prayer and generosity. That others might hear in new ways the wondrous call of our Savior: “Be reconciled to God.”

How has the invitation of Lent changed you? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on February 10, 2016, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

PHOTO: © Kanisis