Years ago the band Queen sang, in one of their hit songs, “I want it all, and I want it now”. This could well be the anthem of our age, and yet, we are living through the consequences of this way of living. Don’t get me wrong - I love Queen, but, I believe that the arts both guide and reflect the soul of the society from which they arise, and our society is not healthy. Our addiction to material wealth and convenience - to “wanting it all” - has driven us to levels of consumption that has made our planet sick. Our greed and inhumanity has created vast chasms between the rich and the poor, and our indifference has set us up for the kind of economic collapse we are dealing with today.
None of this is news, and we are all culpable. Which is why we desperately need something to challenge us, to stop us in our tracks and call us to a different way. In other words, we need something to help us repent.
Both John the Baptiser and Jesus built their ministries around the call to repent. John called people into the water and instructed them to live differently - justly, generously and mercifully (Luke 3:3-14). Jesus proclaimed that God’s reign had come, and that to enter it required repenting and believing (Mark 1:14,15). Repentance and believing must go together - we cannot hope to change if we don’t believe in the new way we seek to live. Perhaps that’s part of the problem with how we do things. We struggle to let go of our materialism and consumption, because we trust it for security, and we don’t have much faith in the alternative - sharing, simplicity and equity. So, again, we need something to help us to believe, and then to lead us into repentance - to turning ourselves around, choosing new values, and embracing new behaviours.
This is why we need seasons like Lent, with its discipline of fasting. If we will embrace the journey with the mindfulness that it deserves, it offers us a chance to “test the waters” of a new way of living. It’s a small step to commit to just 40 days of Lenten fasting, of turning away from our addictions and greed. We are given the opportunity to choose just one area of our lives, and to repent for a while, doing things differently, and observing the results.
This may all sound a bit shallow and unspiritual, but for me it demonstrates the grace and patience of God. If we will accept the challenge, Lent will lead us into a first hand experience of what our lives can be like when we turn away from “I want it all” and trust in “Give us this day our daily bread”. And, as I have heard from many sincere Lenten pilgrims, this taste of a new way of living is usually enough to boost our faith, and inspire us to wholehearted repentance - the kind that overhauls our lives completely.
So, even though we are already well into Lent, it’s not too late to take this small step of faith. And, if more of us would do it, perhaps the power of Lent would grow, and perhaps the values that drive our world into consumption would slowly shift. Yes, it’s a dream. But it’s a dream worth dreaming.