at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

“What’s up with the number 40?”

That was the question of a Confirmation student a few weeks ago as we talked about some stories in the bible. Think about it – it rains 40 days and 40 nights while Noah and all those animals wait on the ark.¹ The Israelites spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness.² Moses spends forty days on Mt. Sinai waiting for God.³ The prophet Elijah journeys for forty days to Mt. Horeb.⁴ Jonah gives Ninevah forty days to repent.⁵ And in this morning’s Scripture lesson from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness.

What’s up with the number 40? It is biblical code for a time that is theologically and spiritually significant; it represents a period of trial, introspection, and preparation for something new to be born – a new attitude, a new hope, a new relationship with God.

This past week, on Ash Wednesday, we entered the 40-day season of Lent, in which we follow Jesus through to the last days of his earthly life. It is a time of self-examination, a time to review our lives, to repent of our sins, and get into “right relationship” with God.

In other words, Lent is a time of transformation. Just as over the next 40 days, we will see the outdoor landscape of winter change into the new life of spring, so too can the interior landscape of our soul be transformed. Indeed, the term “Lent” comes from the Old English word for “spring,” and these 40 days can be a holy springtime of the soul which leads us to a deeper experience of God’s presence in our lives.

You may have seen the article in last Sunday’s Globe Magazine entitled “Loving Lent.”⁶ The author extolled the virtues of the Lenten tradition of giving up something, such as a favorite food or other guilty pleasure, and she noted that “there’s plenty of good that can come from 40 days of discipline, fasting, and widespread abstinence…” The writer declared that by surrendering something important for the weeks of Lent, you can emerge on the other side with lightness of being, seriousness of purpose, and pride of accomplishment.

But lightness, serious, and accomplishment are not the what Lent is all about; self-denial is not an end in itself; and simply giving something up does not a Lenten journey make. We give up chocolate or caffeine or Facebook, thinking the act of denial is the purpose of Lent.

But giving up chocolate may only make us crave sweets rather than crave Christ.

Giving up caffeine may only make us more irritable rather than a more loving follower of Christ.

Giving up Facebook may make us more detached from other humans instead of helping us build up the body of Christ.

And that’s missing the point and purpose of Lent.

Our Lenten practice of giving up is to help us empty ourselves in order to make room for God so we can be filled with God’s presence and shaped by God’s grace. If giving up something doesn’t help us to grow closer to Christ, it becomes a meaningless gesture.

And so, for each of us to nurture our relationship with God, for each of us to be more fully a disciple of Christ, we need to make sacrifices that actually allow us to achieve those ends. Often these sacrifices are less about personal denial and more about following disciplines that encourage us to love God and love others more.

And often that means not just giving up, but also taking up. Jesus says: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”⁷ His invitation is not an “either-or” but a “both-and.” It is both denying and following, both “giving up” and “taking up.”

Therefore, I invite you to give up and take up some spiritual disciplines this Lenten season. You have heard me speak many times of the six marks of discipleship,⁸ spiritual practices which nurture an individual’s journey of faith and help us to make a deeper connection with God. They are weekly worship, daily prayer, daily bible reading, serving others, spiritual relationships, and giving generously.

If you have found it difficult to engage in these activities on a regular basis throughout the year, then why not make a commitment to practice them during these 40 days of Lent?

On Sundays during Lent, give up spending the morning in your pajamas and take up attending worship every Sunday. You’re here today – try making it the next five Sundays, too.

Here’s another one: every day during Lent, give up 15 minutes of sleep and use that extra time to take up spending the first moments of your morning with God in prayer.

And since you’re going to be attending worship anyway, why not give up an extra 30 minutes of reading the Sunday paper and take up coming in early for the Sunday morning prayer group at 9:15; you will find that praying with a group, and praying for people who are particularly in need of God’s healing touch, is especially meaningful.

Every day during Lent, give up a half hour reading the latest fiction thriller and take up reading the Bible.

And while you’re here attending worship on Sundays, give up going right home after Coffee Fellowship and take up Sunday morning bible study at 11:30.

Throughout Lent, work on giving up certain attitudes such as pride and envy and judgment and certain behaviors such criticism, impatience, and unkind speech, and take up developing spiritual relationships based on Christ’s command to love one another.

For six Sundays starting tonight, give up your evenings in front of your flatscreen and take up our Lenten Study “Chocolate for Lent.” In this small group, you will have the opportunity to move beyond superficial social friendships and develop deeper relationships based on love, support, and spiritual growth. And you may even learn something about yourself, about others, and about God in the process.

During Lent, give up the computer one evening a week. Instead, take up serving others by giving someone the precious gift of your time -- visit a person who is lonely or sick, someone isolated by illness or age. Or serve dinner at a homeless shelter; beginning next month, we will be cooking and serving dinner at least once a month at MainSpring House in Brockton. (We’ll tell you more in the March Link.) Or take up another way of serving others within and beyond the walls of this church.

During Lent, give up buying anything but essentials for yourself. Instead, take up giving the money to God. We are called to be stewards of God’s riches, not consumers, and the money you would spend on luxuries could help someone meet basic needs. So rather than buying that grande half caff white chocolate mocha frappucchino, why not skip the fancy coffee and buy some canned goods for the Stoughton Food Pantry?

Or during the six Sundays of Lent, why not try giving a tithe of your income to the church. If you’ve already done your taxes, take 10% of your Adjusted Gross Income and divide by 52 to get your weekly tithe amount. You might find tithing easier than you expected, and more meaningful than you could ever have imagined!

And so, there you are –ways to both give up and take up; spiritual disciplines for this Lenten season.

Discipline – you might associate the word with punishment, but it also means to teach or mold, and it comes from the Latin word for learning, the same root⁹ as disciple. Your Lenten discipline of both giving up and taking up can help you learn, teaching you about God and molding you into a disciple of Christ.

And so, may these 40 days of Lent lead you to a spiritual transformation, birthing in your heart a new hope, a new attitude, a new relationship with God and truly becoming for you a holy springtime of your soul. Amen.

¹ Genesis 7:17.
² Deuteronomy 8:2,4.
³ Exodus 24:18.
⁴ 1 Kings 19:8.
⁵ Jonah 3:4.
⁶ Jennifer Graham, “Loving Lent: Catholic or Not, a Little Deprivation Goes a Long Way,” Boston Globe Magazine, February 14, 2010.
⁷ Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23.
⁸ Michael W. Foss, Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), especially pp. 90ff.
⁹ From the Latin discere, to learn.