For a time that is traditionally associated with fasting, Lent provides an extraordinarily rich feast of scripture readings. We’ve already heard about Jesus’ temptation in the desert; the Transfiguration; the fall of Adam and Eve; Abram setting out for a new, unknown life. Today we hear of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42), and the struggle of the Israelites after they leave Egypt and enter the desert (Exodus 17:3-7). And we’re only half way through! The richness of images, ideas, lessons can feel overwhelming.
The intent of fasting as the foundation of our Lenten practice is not to make ourselves hungry, in some perverse form of payback for our failures or inadequacy. It intended as an exercise is simplifying, or decluttering, to use the latest wellness jargon. So we shouldn’t feel a need to chase every issue, every thought, every opportunity presented by our feast of readings.
For some reason, I don’t know why, and I choose not to wonder, this year I find myself drawn particularly our readings from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. These can seem remote and even irrelevant to us. They are indeed remote in time, linked to a world with customs and societies long since gone. But they also talk of things that are so basic to the human condition, things that we can recognize in ourselves today, things that don’t change as our societies change, as our technologies change, our ways of life change.
When we read of the Israelites in the desert we could get bound up in wondering where were Massah and Meribah, how long were the Israelites in the desert, what were the conditions really like, how did they survive? But because all that is distant from us it may be easier to recognize that those are not the important questions. If we declutter, the story is simple. People set out on a promise, with a hope that life would get better – and it didn’t – it got worse – and they complained about it. Sound familiar? Complaining is about as universal a feature of human life as breathing or falling in love.
The message of the story is equally simple – despite the complaints God responds. He doesn’t cut us off because he’s fed up with these whiny kids. On that simple foundation Paul builds a more complex, more sophisticated picture as he explains to the Romans where Jesus fits in:“God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us”. (Romans 5:1–2, 5-8)
Yes we will moan and complain, and sometimes we have good reason to. But we hold onto our faith – the belief that God loves us. By that faith we gain peace. “we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”.