Fill Lent with God, not stuff

http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/faith/02/21/0221lent.html

KESTER SMITH: YOUR WORDS

Fill Lent with God, not stuff

Saturday, February 21, 2009

 

Why does God hate stuff? That’s the question I was asked once as the season of Lent approached. Lent is a season in which Christians give up stuff for the 40 days leading up to Easter. So the question goes; if the stuff I’m giving up isn’t bad stuff (and, if it is, shouldn’t I give it up for more than 40 days?) then what’s the point of giving it up?

It’s a fair question, and one worth answering with the season of Lent upon us – it begins Wednesday with Ash Wednesday.

First of all, God doesn’t hate stuff. God isn’t opposed to earthly pleasures, in fact he infuses them with a foundation for meaning. Calls to fasting aren’t meant to deny ourselves of physical things so that we can concentrate on “spiritual” things, but so we can redeem the physical things as spiritual things. Food can become more substantive and enjoyable; so can entertainment, relationships, sex and other pleasures.

Going back at least to the time of Augustine is the concept of a “God shaped hole” that exists in all of us. Augustine argued that every human being was created with a place inside that can only be filled by the presence of God. He went on to say that humans make the mistake of trying to fill that hole with other things, the things that make them “happy.”

Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher, argued that the God-shaped hole in the human heart is, in fact, an infinite and terrifying abyss that we try to cover over with all sorts of façades. Then when, eventually, a crack appears in the façade, and we see through it the well of eternal nothingness plunging down forever, we hurl ourselves back in horror. We will do anything to fill that empty space.

So we pour alcohol through the crack in the façade in the hopes of filling the abyss and removing the horror. Of course, any recovering alcoholic will tell you this doesn’t work. Not for long.

Sigmund Freud said in “Civilization and Its Discontents” that no mood-altering chemicals ultimately perform this job satisfactorily. For a while, Freud thought that cocaine could safely do this and had to learn the hard way, through his own personal experience, that in the long run it worked no better than alcohol.

So we reach for money or sex or power or security. And we discover, either by witnessing it or through firsthand experience, these things don’t fill that space either.

Only that which is infinite and completely transcendent, Pascal said, could fill such an infinite abyss.

The Bible says that we cannot love both God and mammon. Mammon is just a word for “stuff” or things. God is to be loved and things are to be used. And it is increasingly important that we love God and use things, for there is much in our gadget-minded, consumer-oriented society that is encouraging us to love things and use God.

When Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness (this is where the 40 days of Lent comes from), He was tempted by Satan with provision, wealth and power. The pursuit of happiness. The American Dream. But we are called, as Christ was, to pursue holiness. Jesus’ words to Satan are, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus knows where his blessings come from. His time in the desert has been a reminder of that. He knows to put the giver before the gift.

So, in this season of Lent, we follow the example of Christ in the wilderness and make a conscious choice for emptiness.

Now there are many schools of religious thought that teach an embracing of emptiness as the key to happiness. That we must die to ourselves. That a denial of our physical selves will, in and of itself, redeem our spiritual selves. That the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. That is not what Christians proclaim.

We proclaim the physical and spiritual are connected, and we witness that in the incarnation of Jesus. If we deny ourselves, it is only so we can take up the cross of Christ. If we die, it is only so we can live again. If we embrace emptiness, it isn’t with emptiness as the end goal, but as a means to an end, experiencing the fullness of God. If we stop grasping at stuff, it is so we can grab hold of God.

I encourage you to give something up this Lenten season. Something you really like. Something you’ll miss. Something that you think keeps you from being empty, from facing that abyss. I encourage you to ask God into that time and that place that you normally fill with television or chocolate or shopping. Let this season of Lent be a time when you embrace emptiness in order to better understand the sacrifice of Christ and to be more filled with the spirit of God.

Kester Smith is the pastor for the Immanuel Austin Community (www.immanuelaustin.com) and blogs at www.pastorkes.blogspot.com.