Flunking Lent
by J. Ellsworth Kalas
Fleming Rutledge, who gave our Beeson Lectures on Preaching several years ago, is true to her Anglican heritage in her faithfulness to the Lenten season. But in a Lenten service several years ago she announced to the congregation, “I don’t know about you, but I have flunked Lent. I flunk it every year.”
I said a sorry but understanding Amen as I read her confession. I’m afraid that I, too, flunk Lent every year. On Ash Wednesdays I have high hopes as I make my commitment to a deeper devotional life but as the weeks slip by ordinariness slips in, and suddenly it’s Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and I wonder where the weeks have gone, and with them my good intentions.
I had a variation of the same problem when I was a pastor. I never ceased to dream that I would lead my people to new heights and depths of faith during Lent. I worked at midweek programming and my Sunday preaching schedule with high hopes. I saw Lent as the equivalent to the fall or spring revival meetings of my boyhood harvest time, when some of my people would come to know Christ for the first time and when others would make some strategic progress in their walk with God. But it often seemed that few, if any, made such initial or continuing steps. It seemed more like “business as usual.”
So am I announcing that I have no particular hopes for Lent 2014, and that there’s no danger of my flunking because I’m not signing up for any new courses? Don’t you believe it! I’m entering Lent with high expectations. Indeed, although I can’t remember how I felt in 1984, or even in 2013, I like to think that my expectations this year are higher than ever.
Part of my attitude comes from Robert Browning. For much of my life I have cherished his lines, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?” So often my long fingers of vision can touch the next rung of life’s ladder, but only touch it, not quite grasp it. Perhaps next week, next year! But if not, there’s always heaven.
And that’s heaven’s call to my soul. Week after week and year after year heaven calls me to a higher life. I reach for it, touch it just long enough to whet my holy appetite, then lose the grip. Perhaps next week! And if next week or next year my grasp succeeds, heaven will show me another rung, toward which my reach and my grasp will struggle.
It’s really a very wonderful climb. I may well flunk Lent 2014. If so, perhaps that’s as it should be. Because if my reach doesn’t exceed my grasp, it means that my reach is too easily satisfied.
So here’s to Lent 2014. I think it’s beyond my grasp, which means that once again I’ll flunk Lent. But that’s good, because heaven awaits those whose reach exceeds their grasp.
The Alumni Office is excited to announce the release of Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas’ newest book Preaching in an Age of Distraction. Veteran preacher and homiletics professor J. Ellsworth Kalas offers wise insights for effective preaching in an age of distraction. He examines how people have been distracted in every era and explores how God can meet people precisely at the point of their distraction. Regardless of whatever new technologies come our way, this call to pastoral attentiveness, creativity and excellence provides avenues for connecting with congregations with a countercultural clarity of focus. Rediscover how the proclamation of the Word still speaks profoundly to distracted hearers. Invite your congregation to a renewed attention to the things of God. You can purchase your copy today from InterVarsity Press.
As always a refreshing piece of writing, good for us all. Praise God for Dr. Kalas.
Dr. Kalas never fails to give me something to ponder. Looking forward to his new book. May we travel Lent with expectation.