Wednesday this week marked the beginning of Lent season for Christians around the world. My own worship tradition, the free church, doesn’t participate in Lent. We can probably trace our non-practice through the Puritans and Baptists both of whom rejected many church traditions in order to practice worship that is more mindful of God and directed more explicitly by Scripture. In my mind, their concern was warranted. Human beings produce idols out everything. Our tendency is to create easy button replacement of true worship – something that requires just enough devotion to satisfy our consciences and is easy to repeat. No form of worship is free from tradition either. Free churches either settle with a “we’ve always done it this way” or a “jettison anything that appears decrepit” approach. Neither approach is necessarily directed toward God and more than likely rooted some human-made form of false worship.
I am not arguing in favor of incorporating the Lenten season in free church worship calendar (we do actually practice an abbreviated version with Good Friday and Easter). I do wonder if a proper reflection on Christ’s life and sacrifice through the season of Lent wouldn’t help us with one of our treasured idolatrous traditions: privatization of our lament and worship. We could cite typical examples of private practice: devotion, praise, confession, repentance – all our appropriate and necessary – but I’m talking about our corporate worship. Our corporate worship is almost certainly instructed by and built in service of our private practice. Worship music is left with just enough meaning for us to fill the gaps with our own interpretations. Ethical applications from Sunday School and sermons are directed toward personal, private practice. Even our most corporate act of worship, the Eucharist, is taken in mournful silence combined with private reflection and private repentance (I think there is something wrong with a mournful Eucharist, but that’s another story). If we’re not mindful of our individualizing tendency, we could all sing the same songs, hear the same prayers, be exhorted by the same sermon but relate everything back to our private experiences.
Some of the more public expressions of our faith our found in the things we fight against. I’m not talking about sin and temptation. Our doctrinal purity, our apologetics, and our politics are very public. In response to an opinion piece in a popular Christian magazine which argued for empathic treatment of polyamory within the church, one Christian leader wrote: “These are soft men, writing soft words for a soft magazine, published in a soft generation, and all of it guaranteed to go down softly.” Not to say we shouldn’t comment on public sins, but are we open about our own struggles? Do we guard our own rights so fiercely that compassion and mercy appear like second class virtues? While I certainly disagree the original article, I am not sure calling out an entire generation for being soft the same as calling someone to repentance. It sounds angry rather than mournful. It leaves spiritual wounds open and untreated.
Lent is a fast; a willful denial of basic needs in order to recover the most basic need: Christ. In the Lenten season, the church follows Christ into the wilderness. We face our failures both personal and corporate. The Spirit leads us to repentance. Here’s my public confession. Faced with the temptation to wander or to follow, I have opted for wandering many, many times in my life. I chosen to follow my own way rather than Christ. I’ve preferred the easy life over full devotion. I’ve worried obsessively about things that I have no control over. I’ve failed to be generous. I’ve lost my patience and been angry. I’ve held on to the faults of others instead of forgiving them. I’ve failed to love my neighbor let alone my enemy. Frequently I’ve compromised. Often I’ve failed. Yes, I’m soft.
So I ask: forgive me. Mourn with me over my failures. Show compassion to me. Ask the Lord on my behalf for mercy.
I think Lent leads us to public confession of our guilt – not only to God in our private moments, but to each other our public worship. We ought to be mindful of the voices beside us. Each one making the same confession of sin. Each one proclaiming the same message of praise. Each one encouraging the other through song. Each one proclaiming that we are one in Christ in our struggles and our joys. As we journey through the wilderness of this present life, as we struggle with all evil, as we battle our inner demons, we can lean on each other as we follow Jesus who leads us and keeps us from wandering off. Let us be honest with each other, so that we can help each other be whole in Christ.
nathanielcooley 
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