The elderly lady spoke softly as the nurse came in the room with her nightly medication. “I will never forgive him. I told him I would never forgive him.” She then told the nurse that her brother had visited her that day and accused her of taking more than her share of family heirlooms following their mother’s death. He spoke of various items, ending with the “berry spoon.” He said, “I wanted that spoon.” For forty years he had hidden his feelings and now they had erupted.
She was both hurt and angered by his accusation and vowed never to forgive him. “It’s my spoon. Mother gave it to me. He’s wrong and I won’t forgive him,” she said, defending her stance.
Standing by her bedside, the nurse felt her own spirit soften and grieved. In the bed was a woman given at most two months to live. She would soon face eternity and never see her brother again in this life time. Her mind was in anguish and her only family tie was now broken over a berry spoon.
As the nurse returned to her station, she was drawn deep into thought. “In light of eternity, how many things as insignificant as a small spoon separate me from God and others? How does refusing to forgive keep me separated from my family and God?” She then asked God to search her heart. “How many berry spoons are there in my life?” She wondered.
The nurse airs a fitting question for the start of Lent. “In light of eternity, how many things as insignificant as a small spoon separate me from God and from others?” There would be no need for the season of Lent if every Christian were in a close and intimate relationship with God. As Christians, we share the common experience with Jesus of baptism and temptation. Through baptism, we enter into a covenant that assures us everlasting life. Unfortunately, temptations hinder us from honoring our covenant with God at times.
Following his baptism by John, Jesus went off into the desert for forty days to be alone and confront the demons that would dissuade him from carrying out his mission. When he came into Galilee, he knew first hand from experience how difficult his journey following baptism would be. Yet he boldly proclaimed to anyone who would listen, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus offers sound advice that is too often ignored but why? One of my seminary teachers, Fr. Killian McDonnell, offers this insight, “Many people do not recognize Christ, because they do not recognize themselves as sinners. If I am not a sinner, then I have no need of Christ. No man will celebrate the mystery of Christ in joy if he does not first recognize in sorrow that he is a sinner.”
Lent is a time for us to recognize our sinfulness and come to grips with the “berry spoons” in our lives that separate us from God and one another. Those who were here on Ash Wednesday were told as a cross of ashes was traced on their foreheads, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Think of that as the shortest sermon Jesus ever delivered.
Jesus is urging us to repent, that is, change our minds and hearts, not just for these forty days of Lent, but in ways that will draw us closer to God through our altered relationships with others. Repentance calls for a lifetime of transformation, not a trial run. Jesus isn’t asking for a temporary forgoing of something pleasurable, like giving up chocolate for Lent. Such practices usually become nothing more than a test of will power.
The change of heart and mind that Jesus is speaking of means turning away from whatever inhibits us from cultivating our love for God and others. There is no better time to do this than now. Recall what Jesus first said. “This is the time of fulfillment.” Good intentions to make better lifestyle choices tomorrow rather than today become empty rhetoric.
Now is the time for us to turn away from ways of thinking and acting that reinforce alienation from God and separation from people. But that doesn’t come easily. We harbor many beliefs that do not gel with the good news of Jesus Christ. We can be more obsessed about our well being than the welfare of others or support values that are politically correct but at odds with the gospel. Repentance means letting go of beliefs that contradict the teachings of Jesus Christ. Thus, we need to ponder the source of our personal beliefs. Some of them come from internalizing cultural assumptions without much thought. Others come from personal negative experiences that we consider to be universally held by others.
So often, we associate repentance with simply being sorry for our sins, that is, the consequences of our wrong doing. But real repentance means hating the sin itself. When we truly believe in the gospel, that is, fully understand what Jesus is teaching us, then we are bound to hate whatever sins we tolerate and let go of personal beliefs that are the roots for such sins.
Lent is meant to be an ongoing process of conversion. One episode from the cartoon, Dennis the Menace, shows him doing just that. After a typical day of mischief and mayhem, he is kneeling at his bedside praying. Looking up to heaven with a look of contrition, Dennis prays, “God, I’m here to turn myself in!”
His moment of surrender before God captures the theme of Lent: a time for us to be alone with God, a time to confront who we are and what we truly want in life. Lent is a time to turn ourselves in, by turning away from sin and turning toward the gospel so that we can become the holy people God calls us to be.