Hungry?

Our Lenten theme this year is "Hungry?" We'll be exploring our hunger for God's presence, God's forgiveness, God's justice, for community and for abundant life. One of the pre-Lenten projects was compiling a booklet of daily devotions, all written by members of the congregation. The devotion I wrote for today, Ash Wednesday, is below.

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

I am an avid give-something-up-for-Lent person. It isn't always easy. Oh, abstaining from chocolate for forty-seven days is not that hard, but what to do when someone invites you over for dinner and serves a homemade chocolate dessert? Do you tell your host that you gave up chocolate for Lent or do you put aside the discipline to accept their hospitality? The year I gave up caffeine, while I succeeded in the discipline, I'm not sure who suffered more, me or those around me.

"When you fast," Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, "do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward." We often understand fasting as an act of willpower, forcing ourselves to conform to a strict set of rules. And when we engage in such a Herculean task, we want people to know it.

But that is not the purpose of our fast. It is not intended to show other people our willpower, but to show us the power of our hunger. The fast puts us face to face with our sinful appetites that actually have little to do with chocolate or caffeine, but have everything to do with our deep hunger for God. The fast shows us how we have tried to fill or numb that hunger with other things. It proves to us that no measure of willpower will make this hunger go away. Only one food will fill this hunger: the love and mercy of God. And so the fast drives us to Christ, the Bread of Life. As we feed on Christ's forgiveness and love, our hunger is finally satisfied. Then there is no need to look dismal, because we are filled to the brim with life. Chocolate not required.