To continue your reflection
It is fascinating to note that fasting is a common factor in all major religions and even among those whose reasons for limiting their food intake are not specifically religious, as the proprietors of health spas and Weight Watcher groups can testify.
Perhaps what we are looking at is a common human urge to strip life back to the basics every once in a while. Perhaps it is an instinctive feeling that in order to be more spiritually aware, there are times when the material things you so depend on just have to go.
Of course, giving up is not just about a healthy body. There are ways in which mind and spirit can be homed and strengthened by times of abstinence, not least from the constant pressures and distractions of our frenetic world. It’s good to remember that our well-being is a holistic issue: body, mind and spirit growing together.
There may come appoint, however, when some holistic philosophies part company with the New Testament. Christ’s message is inescapable: self-denial is not only about the good it does for me. The sort of giving up that works best is that which has a deeper purpose behind it.
In this program, therefore, we are exploring not only “giving up” but also “giving out.” If you want to give to others, it will almost always involve giving up something you would rather keep for yourself. Nursing a sick relative involves a loss of time and freedom Making a charitable donation involves not spending money on something you might otherwise afford. And there are some evils that simply cannot be conquered by remaining uninvolved at a distance. There are times when someone must be wiling to give up creature comforts and security and just go – live among the world’s needy as Jesus did – in order to fully understand and fully serve.
On the one hand, Chocolat could easily be seen as an “anti-Lent” movie. But on the other hand, Vianne could be seen as a role model of the kind of self-denial Christ advocated: a person giving up security and status in order to fulfill a calling as a kind of “traveling
healer.” It is a calling with a cost to Vianne and her daughter, and like all callings, it raises hard questions: Am I really doing this because I am called or because I am driven? And how right is it to impose my own calling on my child?”
“No pain, no gain,” say today’s fitness instructors. “Count the cost,” says Jesus to those who want to build something of their lives. If our calling is a true calling, then it will have a cost worth paying (so long as it is one we choose for ourselves and do not impose on unwilling others.)
Another personal confession (not quiet so terrible, since I imagine almost everyone reading this book could say the same!): I have lived a very comfortably for just about all my life. I am used to hot water, central heating and a decent mattress, and have
no desire to forgo them. I have not yet been a missionary, or an emergency volunteer.
Somehow, these particular tasks have never come my way. But I say “not yet” because I
would like to think that if god ever needs me – to feed refugees, to visit the elderly, or to campaign for change, be it in the Third World, the inner city, or even a French village – I hope that I am not so addicted to security, routine and comfort that I would be unable to meet the challenge.
I would like to think so, but . . .
Am I so physically, mentally and spiritually “flabby” that I am likely to miss the opportunities that God wants to give me?
To be honest, I don’t know.
Do you?
Chocolate for Lent, Hilary Brand
Personal Reflection
Read Luke 5:27-32, 7:36-50
27After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” 28And he got up, left everything, and followed him.
29Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. 30The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
33Then they said to him, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.” 34Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”36He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old.
Jesus did not prepare himself for ministry in order to make himself some sort of super-spiritual being. He prepared himself for a life among people, all sorts of people. Being where they were, doing what they did. Listening, talking, healing, challenging, risk-taking, absorbing all the criticisms thrown at him. “Giving up” is of limited value if it does not result in “giving out.”
Brief pause for reflection – Again this is an exercise in imagination, with no right or wrong answers
> What might have been different, both at that time and in the centuries that followed, if Jesus had refused to attend the tax collector’s party, or the Pharisee’s dinner?
And what might this say about the idea of “giving out?”