Breaking Lent to Keep It…Keeping Lent to Break It
Dr. Jeremy Godwin
Readings for February 15, 2024: The Thursday following Ash Wednesday
In order to keep Lent, that means we might have to break it. And in order to break Lent, that means we might have to keep it.
I’m sure you’re already thinking: What exactly is he talking about?
Okay. I have a quick assignment.
Go back and read the Daniel reading for today again. I’ll wait.
**Pauses. Hums Jeopardy! theme out loud.
Ready?
Now I’d like you take a look at this poem by Madeleine L’Engle:
For Lent, 1966
It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.
It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.
I think Daniel and L’Engle are actually on the same page. Well, at least in the same book. No, really. Today is the day after Ash Wednesday, and the Daniel reading was selected to help us reflect back on the day. It’s a perfect choice. It actually gives us a glimpse into just how ancient the connection between ashes and penitence is. And the structure of the reading looks a lot like our Ash Wednesday liturgy as Daniel commits himself to deep intercessory prayer on behalf of the people, calling to mind the people’s actions in comparison with God’s actions—sin in comparison with righteousness and steadfast love. Daniel is pretty clear, even though he doesn’t come out and say it: these ashes are meaningless if they don’t lead to actual repentance, actual change. The ashes are meant to wake us up! When we feel the ashes against our skin, we are reminded of our own mortality and are implored to remember that we are embodied, that repentance isn’t just a matter of intellect or even of emotion. Repentance is a matter of embodied action. Daniel gets it. The laundry list of the people’s misdeeds is meant to compel them to new actions, ones better in line with the covenant made with God.
So, what in the world does this have to do with L’Engle? I mean, right off the bat, she writes that her Lenten practice is going to be to break it. Just as it was for the people in Bible, it is just as easy for us to get so used to a ritual that we miss the point. We wake up on Ash Wednesday and maybe, at some point, we go to church and get ashes placed on our foreheads. Maybe we contemplate what we’re going to give up this year. This is what you do during Lent, right? Right?! I think L’Engle is calling us to the same kind of attention Daniel was. Lent isn’t about some obligatory set of practices that we muddle through on our way to Easter, though believe me, I know it can feel like that sometimes. Instead, L’Engle invites us to turn, to repent, and to pay attention in a new way. What might it mean to treat the ashes as a reminder to smile at the reminder of our own mortality and to let that inspire us to never ignore those who would call on us, even if that means breaking what a typical Lent might look like? In other words, if your normal practice of keeping Lent isn’t actually leading you to repentance, to better action, then by all means break it.
In order to keep Lent, that means we might have to break it. And in order to break Lent, that means we might have to keep it.
Daniel and L’Engle invite us down different paths that seem to head toward the same destination: Back to God. Back to neighbor. Back to Love.
