Thoughts from St. Andrew's Episcopal Church • Birmingham, AL

Introduction

We are beginning again our Lenten journey, and at the same time ending “ordinary time.”  As with most seasons in Christianity, we often observe beginning one thing at the same time as ending something else.
The beginning of the Season of Lent is the beginning of fasting for many, which becomes a spiritual practice that affords us the opportunity to become exceptionally exposed and uniquely vulnerable. We give up invincibility and security in exchange for the ritual of diligently being abstinent from whatever agent we have chosen that purportedly hinders our reliance on God.
That is why I think Jesus began his ministry among us in the wilderness. There is something about being made to focus on the basics, the mundane, the seemingly insignificant, and the overlooked — both within ourselves and in others — that transforms us and our experiences. In fact, I contend the seminal work of metanoia, or repentance is all about putting down objects, actions, and beliefs that prohibit and prevent the love and grace of God to permeate our souls. In that act, we are empowered to take up affects, behaviors, and convictions that expel our will in exchange for God’s will.
This exchange becomes our “Lenten Fast,” as we turn our focus from worry, fear, anxiety, hate, and disappointment, and turn toward humility, forgiveness, gratitude, laughter, love, and acceptance. What might happen if we ceased practicing racism, classism, sexism, and exclusionism? What if we refrained from pointing fingers, or blaming, and pursing our self-centered wills in exchange for pursuing the will of God? Perhaps that is what metanoia, or repentance is all about as well. Turning our will and eyes from judgement of one another to love and tolerance of one another is exactly what Lent is all about. We begin to see others as ourselves and can then love and serve them. This powerful spiritual practice of esteeming others above ourselves changes both us and them. We can then become one as we act universally for God’s will for us and our neighbor — truly loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Jesus Christ is particularly interested in loosening, undoing, breaking, sharing, housing, covering, exposing, enlightening, healing, vindicating, glorifying, and answering all for us! 
This is certainly a type of fasting I never contemplated and I look forward to walking with you, as we are invited “in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance...” Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Tommie L. Watkins, Jr.