Reality Check
The beginning years of the Twentieth Century saw the rise of the Social Gospel movement. It held a view that humanity was behaving better and would continue to improve in the future. Optimism prevailed, reflecting a fairly long period of time in the world without major wars, when many technological inventions had made life easier. The quality of life was improving and the future beckoned, promising much more to come. Churches like the Methodists, with a belief in the basic goodness of mankind, thrived in the rosy glow of human progress, moral as well as technological.
It all came crashing down in the horror of the First World War, which lingered for years, with a brutal slaughter of millions, finishing the age of optimism. While there is still significant technological progress, we see today that, although it produces, for example, nuclear medicine and nuclear energy, it also produces nuclear weapons. Technology, it turns out, can only make life better if it is guided by humans in that direction. Guided in the opposite direction, it can make life much worse, indeed.
Some have called the achievement of a morally good society the “last frontier,” because it remains an unfulfilled goal. Our technology can make us neither moral not happy. It can only make us more effective in reaching our goals, in whatever direction we take them.
Today few Christians believe mankind is becoming morally better. Many have turned the optimism inward, believing they personally will be spared bad things happening, without the former belief in the gradual improvement of society. The “prosperity Gospel,” which tells me that faith in Jesus will shower me with material wealth, robust health and happy days is a current example. But it fails to tell me to share all this with the poor or to seek justice for the oppressed.
Over the years, I have encountered many people who believed that God would not allow any serious problems to beset them. They had a faith that God would make them healthy, wealthy and happy. When, in the normal course of events, they became sick or lost their savings or experienced a natural disaster or a loved one died, all the things that happen in life, they were dumbfounded. Often, they reacted by being angry and disappointed in God, who did not come through for them as they expected. It caused them to lose their faith, stop going to church and become bitter and cynical about religion.
But the faith they lost was a false faith to start with. A reading of what God tells us in Scripture would have alerted them that they failed to understand God’s promise to them. “The Bible does not prophesy a steady improvement of society and life on earth but instead a growing sin and evil before the Lord comes again.”1 Or, as Psalm 92 observes, “the wicked spring up like grass, and all evildoers flourish.”
All this happens around us continually. Sin and evil abound. The thought that the world is improving morally is so far from reality as to be laughable. Yet, before we climb on the Judgement Throne to condemn all those bad people out there, remember that sin is not just around us, it is within us. The disease of sin is a universal contagious pandemic, with no vaccine and no cure.
As with many uncomfortable and negative realities, humans do a good job of ignoring the truth of sin’s prevalence in the world and in us. Ignoring it, unfortunately, will not make it go away. But in her wisdom, the Church provides the necessary guidance to navigate the reality of sin, and points us to the solution.
Which brings us to where we are today, entering Lent. Lent’s purpose is to prepare us for Easter. We celebrate Easter to focus on the central event of all world history, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Mankind’s condition can be best expressed by the first step in AA, namely we have a massive problem which we have no hoping of fixing by ourselves. God, in his mercy, has solved the problem of sin for us, should we wish to accept his offer of help.
You can’t get help for a problem if you deny the problem’s existence. Thus, the purpose of Lent. If Easter spotlights the solution, Lent shines the light on the problem of our sin, individually and collectively, shared by Christian and non-Christian alike. Lent could be called “the season of honesty,” or perhaps “the sad but true” season. While an attitude of honesty and transparency is always appropriate, having a season to emphasize It is important. Without being reminded by the Church Year, we humans would be tempted to skip the exercise.
So let us begin in another direction. Lent is offered every year as an opportunity to do a thorough inventory of our moral direction, or lack of it, a spiritual housecleaning. You will benefit from it to the extent that you participate honestly and completely in the exercise.
Some suggestions for how to avail yourself of Lent are as follows.
Schedule some times when you can be by yourself with God, at least an hour at a time.
Be absolutely honest about your failures, bad relationships, selfishness, greediness, lack of care for others, dishonesty, phoniness, judgmental attitudes, etc. You know the list, even if you don’t want to go there. God knows your list, too, and can add to it, so don’t hesitate to be upfront with him.
Don’t ask for forgiveness right away. Think instead about ways to modify your behavior, or if it is a past problem beyond fixing, how you could make amends. Let it stew for several weeks. Ask for forgiveness only after you have thought it through. This is serious stuff.
Remember Jesus has taught us to pray for forgiveness “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Don’t trivialize Lent nor find rabbit trails leading away from the central focus, such as giving up chocolate or trying a new diet.
It is often forgotten that this is not just individual introspection. We bear a share of what is wrong with family, community, workplace, church and nation. Thoughtful repentance for shared sin is as valuable as for individual sin. If it is done together, that is even better, but it needs to be done. Keep in mind the inspiring example of Nineveh, where the whole city heeded God’s word and repented in sackcloth (see Jonah, chapter 3).
The Lenten exercise is for your whole self; body, soul, mind, emotions. Utilize the experience of the Church over the centuries with supportive traditional diet adjustments; no meat, including no fish, cut back on dairy and eggs. There is a wider meaning to this than simply “giving up” some foods. The point is not deprivation, but alteration. Take a break from killing other creatures to eat. In an
agricultural society, it also gives a break to the animals by letting the eggs hatch and the calves enjoy their mothers’ milk. And it’s OK to enjoy tasty Lenten alternatives.
Lent is not here as an impediment, nor an end in itself. Rather, it is a journey (pilgrimage?), a road from your sinful self to a joyful Resurrection.
None of what you are doing will cause your salvation. That is Jesus’ job in this endeavor, not yours.
All of this is for the purpose of preparation to be ready for the Easter Resurrection to burst into full bloom among us.
May you have a happy and productive Lent.
Father Chris Parrish, in the Hillside Messenger, Feb., 2025