Lent and Subversion

Christian Lent

The Christian calendar takes us through a forty day season leading up to Easter which is referred to as Lent. Many people will be deliberately changing their lifestyle for Lent as a sort of discipline. Changes might include giving up something precious, getting more sleep, giving to a charity, or reading a particular book. The change of lifestyle is what counts for them.

The reason we do this is to try to get ourselves on a similar wavelength to Jesus, who deliberately made the hard choice to journey to Jerusalem ? his friends told him he shouldn't go. Mayhem broke out in Jerusalem when he arrived. First he was given a royal hero's welcome, and then, within days, was crucified as a criminal. This greatest story ever told" shows Jesus with his integrity intact throughout surrounded by people who have lost all sense of dignity. Jesus swims against the tide, and taught his followers to do the same.

The controversy of Jesus led to his crucifixion. Controversy is an intriguing word - with two syllables. The last syllable is our word "version", the first syllable is "contra" from which we get "contrary" and means "against". A similar word, and one equally appropriate to describe Jesus' life, is "sub-version". In so many ways we see Jesus subverting and undermining the official version of how life should be lived. 

Slave Lynching by Claude Clark (1946)

Archbishop Oscar Romero

For example, he touched to contagious, he forgave sinners, he told people to love their enemies, he taught people not to worry about tomorrow and he pointed out Jerusalem's folly when he predicted the destruction of their Temple - their pride and joy. Every step of his life, from his birth in Bethlehem, to his death on a cross, Jesus stood against the prevailing wind of opinion offering another version of life - life in all its fullness.

That?s why some people give up chocolate and sweets. They stand in the tradition of Christian controversy and sub-versiveness which all too often we fight shy of.  Wherever prejudice, pride, selfishness and greed prevail in the world, Christians are called on to follow Jesus with a sub-version of life. William Wilberforce's achievements and subversion of the slave trade will be celebrated during March, culminating in the 200^th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British colonies on March 25^th. The day before that, March 24^th, Christians celebrate the life of another controversial figure - Archbishop Oscar Romero. His controversial witness on behalf of the peasants of El Salvador, and his stand against violence resulted in him being shot while saying Mass on March 24^th 1980.

To make Lent disciplines more meaningful, it might be worth asking, at the same time we say "no" to chocolate - what did Jesus say "no" to? What was the nature of his subversion? What storm of controversy could have nailed him to that cross? Then ask the question, whether as Christians, we are too quiet in our own little worlds.

David Herbert