It is no secret that the religion of Jesus can be summed up in the word love. In his Sermon on the Mount, he focuses on three things which could be described as a practical programme to help us grow in love. These are the three things the Christian Churches invite its members to practise in earnest each year during the season of Lent. They could be described as the non-negotiable essentials of the Christian religion. They are prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
“When you pray, go to your private room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is in that secret place” (Matt 6:6). What a beautiful and accessible description of the activity of prayer. Spend time on your own with your Father. During this time thank him for his active presence in your life and for looking after you. Talk to him in a personal way about what is happening in your inner and outer world. Ask him for the things you need, especially the things you need to help you develop a loving heart. And, perhaps most importantly of all, hear him tell you that he loves you unconditionally, as you are. For Jesus prayer is nothing more and nothing less than our personal act of surrender to the Father, to the Father’s love, to his help, to his healing.
Perhaps the thing we most associate with Lent is fasting. Jesus understood the value of fasting and promoted it in his teaching. He knew there is a tendency in human nature towards attachment and addiction that is not healthy and balanced. Jesus wants us to keep our hearts mellow and grateful. To keep our hearts mellow and grateful it is not enough to give up things like sweets and alcohol. We need to control our desire for possessions, power and popularity. As Jesus himself discovered during his retreat in the desert these are potent demons in the human heart that need to be tamed. Fasting is unfashionable today. Yet never has it been so necessary. In the so-called first world which is mainly nominally Christian we are now the most indebted, obese, addicted and medicated generation in history. Jesus’ teaching on fasting has the power to improve our health, our relationships and our environment.
The third thing the Lenten season invites us to practise is almsgiving. Jesus insisted that we care for those in need and that we do this without looking for a reward. We can look at almsgiving in the specific sense of offering practical help to those who are hungry or homeless or without clothes. But we also need to look at it in the much broader sense of our attitude to life. Our lives are not just about ourselves and our own needs. Our lives are for others too. When we serve others, we are making a difference to their lives. We are also making a difference to our own. It is a truth that unless and until we give our lives away to others, we do not have them ourselves at any deep level.
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are certainly three things that matter.