Sunday, March 9, 2025
The First Sunday in Lent
From what should we fast?
The Rev. Mark D. Wilkinson, Rector
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Katy TX 77450
I made a brief reference to the Episcopal Church being criticized for not have a strong doctrine of sin. Some say we don’t take sin seriously enough. If you paid any attention during the Great Litany this morning I think we can put that allegation aside.
I believe we take sin very seriously, but sin as I said on Ash Wednesday, is not a list of things you shouldn’t do. Sin is about what results our actions cause. “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” I know people who have done some things that appear to be very good, but were done for very bad or maybe selfish reasons. Saying something about someone that may be absolutely true, but done for purpose of causing them harm in some way is one example.
Sometimes an action is done with the best intentions, but it results in the breaking of a relationship with someone or was not in the best interest of the person. It made one person feel good for a short period of time, but is harmful to the other.
What I am leading up to is the subject of fasting. I have really been doing a lot of thinking about fasting especially since Ash Wednesday. At the noon service I actually did one of those quick mental rewrites of a sermon. What prompted that was listening to Virginia read the Isaiah passage about the fasts that God wants and the ones that God does not desire.
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
I have seen many posts in my Facebook theme that are in line what I have urged you all to do for the past 5 Lenten seasons. The idea is keep the chocolate or the wine but ditch something in your life that drags you down, makes you less of the person God wants you to be. One video I have used said the person worked to give up shame for Lent because it was harming her life and her relationship with God. Shame made her feel unworthy, so unworthy that she was having trouble believing that God loved her. Now there’s a fast that will help rebuild a broken relationship with God.
Isaiah gives us some pretty specific suggestions and many of them are found in the fast and feast post I have included in the announcement insert. My suggestion is that you pick one or two to consciously work on during Lent. However, in today’s world I have one that I think would be the most helpful for many people.
There is a lot of anger floating around in our world today. Now anger is an emotion and as I have said before, emotions just are, they are neither good nor bad. What we do with them can have positive and negative consequences for us and for others. There’s that sin thing coming in again. Is your anger working for good or bad. The problem is today I fear that anger has to often turned to hate. And hate is almost always destructive. In conflict management when people get to the hate stage the desire and motivation is often to destroy the other and that I fear is what we see particularly in our political world. The divide has grown so wide that each side seems to seek the destruction of the other. People who deal with conflict management know that this stage of conflict is very difficult if not impossible to step back from.
Jesus had his issues with those in power, but never did he ask the disciples to go out and destroy those opposed to him. Jesus got angry, but he never hated anyone, not even Judas who betrayed him.
The last in the list of fasts and feasts it to fast from hate and feast on love. That may be the toughest one on the list to live into. Especially when it is so clear to us that the other person is wrong from our viewpoint, that we feel they are evil.
I read a post last week on the anger iceberg. The anger we see on the surface of a person is just a fraction of what is going on in that person’s life. We only see the tip, we do not know what is underneath and in fact often a big part of the iceberg may be hidden from the person. That’s another psychological concept called the Johari window. You can google that on your own, but is says that there is a portion of our interior life that neither we nor the world see, but it influences how we present ourselves to the world. The problem is the outsider just doesn’t know what’s under the surface unless you actually talk with the person.
So the first step to moving away from hate to love is to acknowledge that you probably don’t know what is really going on with that person. Then moving to say, “God loves this person.” Even if you find them unlovable. Loving them is much healthier for you than hating them. Hating a person can be like being unwilling to forgive someone. It doesn’t hurt them, but it can hurt you.
When the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness with various temptations of power, fame etc Jesus just walked away from the devil. I am suggesting that at least you walk away from the temptation to hate because hate destroys relationship. Instead focus on what we should feast on. Focus on those things that Isaiah writes about in his list of what God desires. Focus on that and you will not have time for most of those things from which we need to fast.
Fast from judgment, Feast on compassion
Fast from greed. Feast on Sharing
Fast from fear. Feast on peace
Fast from lies. Feast on truth
Fast from gossip. Feast on praise
Fast from anxiety. Feast on kindness
Fast from apathy. Feast on engagement
Fast from discontent. Feast on gratitude
Fast from noise. Feast on silence
Fast from discouragement. Feast on hope
Fast from hatred. Feast on love
But above all else from this list, I urge you to choose to feast on love this Lent.