40 days of Lent give UMs time to learn habits

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
Forty days has spiritual significance in the Bible.
God poured rain for 40 days and nights during Noah’s time. Moses spent 40 days on the top of Mount Sinai absorbing God’s presence and recording his instruction. Jesus walked in the desert for 40 days fighting physical hunger and temptations by Satan.
Today, 40 days allows time for breaking bad—or creating good—habits.
So says the Rev. Kim Cape, Austin District superintendent. She gave up criticizing, complaining and condemning last year for the 40 days of Lent.
Lent begins Feb. 6 (Ash Wednesday) this year.
“That was hard,” Cape said of her 2007 Lenten experience. “It’s easier for me to give up sugar. It was really funny how I would catch myself thinking something or about to say something and then would stop.
“If you do something like that for six weeks, or 40 days, you’re flirting with a good habit.”
Lent is the liturgical season that follows Epiphany. Lent extends from Ash Wednesday to Easter (March 23 this year). The period is to be a time of penitent preparation for Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. The 40 days—not including Sundays—equal about one-tenth, or a tithe, of the year.
While people often associate giving something up for Lent, both Cape and the Rev. John Wright, senior pastor of Grace UMC, Corpus Christi, say the popular practice has been trivialized over the years.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, reports that many Americans give up “something they enjoy,” such as watching television, eating chocolate or dining out. But giving something up should be related to the self sacrifice of Christ, Wright said.
“Protestants, at least Bible-Belt Protestants, have been skeptical about the whole Lenten thing—giving up chocolate or ice cream or smoking—because it trivializes what Lent is about,” Wright said. “They’ll give it up and then go back to doing it.
“I think of Lent not as giving something up for 40 days only to pick it up again. Lent is a time that challenges you. Can I do it for 40 days, and could this become a lifelong habit? It’s all about giving up those habits and those things that are obstacles to grace.”
Lent is a “period of intense sanctifying grace that brings us deeper into the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection,” Wright said. That should play into what people choose to give up and take on for the season.
“We give up things that are obstacles to going deeper into grace,” he said. “But we also take on disciplines that keep us on the path going deeper so that Christ’s death and resurrection are not just events but are realities that shape our lives.”
Cape said, “Our spiritual body needs to be exercised like an athlete exercises his physical body. You have to keep in training. That’s what Lent is, a time of spiritual training. It’s important to refocus when we get flabby and careless.”
By practicing those new spiritual disciplines every day, Wright said, the 40-day period should form a habit.
Wright usually asks members of his congregations to commit to being in church every Sunday and during Holy Week. He asks them to commit to praying and having a devotional time every day. He asks them to consider fasting.
“That’s kind of a weird thing for people,” he said. “We say physical hunger is a way to get in touch with our spiritual hunger. It reminds us there are people every day who fast not by choice but by the necessities of their poverty.”
Wright discourages his members from giving something up that they will take back after the 40 days have passed. He ends the season with a prayer that what members committed to during Lent will continue for the rest of their lives.
Cape said she continued her practice of not criticizing, complaining and condemning for a while but thinks she might have to commit to doing it again.
“Now that I think about it, I’ve backslid,” she said. “Maybe I need to do it again this year. It’s not a bad practice.”