What is Lent For?                                                                 3/9/41

 

Scripture:  Romans 12.

 

Text:  Romans 12: 2;  “ ..... tranformed by the renewing of your minds......”

 

The world is today a strange mixture of emotions and purposes and accomplishments.  There is abroad so much of hatred, of anxiety, of suspicion and mistrust.  And yet there is so much of friendliness and of hope and confidence.  There is so much grasping by individuals and groups and nations.  And yet there is so much of generosity and good will also to be found.  There is so much unemployment and poverty and misery.  And yet there is so much confidence in returning prosperity with the hope of normal living for the masses of people.  What a remarkably interesting and challenging time in which to be alive!  One could hardly ask for a greater chance in life than to meet in combat the dark forces of today or to throw himself into the promotion of that which is good and hopeful - which brings practical salvation to the masses of mankind.

 

We are in that period of the year known for generations among Christian people as Lent.  Tradition suggests that it be observed in appropriate fashion.  Lent is, of course, the period of 40 week days before Easter day.  For many, it seems a period simply of giving up something to which one is accustomed, and of paying more particular attention to the services and observances of one’s church - one’s religious duty.  For many, it is a period of spiritual discipline leading up to the joy (and freedom) of Easter.  For many, also, it is only a name with no particular meaning for them.

 

I should like today to suggest and urge, that the Lenten season provides us with a valuable opportunity for renewal and transformation.  Perhaps only God knows to what desperate extent the people, the institutions and agencies of this world need renewing and transforming. Whole groups of people, whole sections of society, whole governments are bent on policies of selfishness and greed, of arrogance and of conquest, of fear and mistrust and brute force.  Perhaps only mass movements of other groups, or of groups within groups, can bring about and make real the more hopeful possibilities of justice and mutual confidence latent in the world.  But all masses are made up of individual people.  And marvelous things can be accomplished in any line of endeavor by a few individuals who set out, according to their best abilities, to lead in a right direction.

 

Therefore I propose that we Christian people use this Lenten season as a period of preparing and training our individual selves for intelligent and devoted participation in movements of right living and cooperative welfare in our community and perhaps in our nation and in the whole realm of mankind.

 

This preparation and training is essentially a spiritual process, a cultivation of our attitude - of our thoughts and feelings toward God and the life of today.

 

I.  I believe that anyone who hopes to have any important part in the constructive life of today must know himself.  Periods of honest self-examination are of great value to anyone who want to know where and how fast he is going in this life.

 

Most of us are so busy attending to the details that present themselves for attention day by day; of doing what comes to hand when it comes to hand, that we lose sight of our life purpose.  Many of us are content to take orders from someone else who is doing the thinking without adding any thought of our own.

 

Most of us have very little idea of the marvelous store of latent ability waiting within ourselves for discovery and cultivation and development.  How many, many people could let themselves out in beautiful song, in joyous movement, in really good, creative work if they could only realize the powers that God has given them!  Most of us have such powers, which only laziness, or neglect, or the fear of dull criticism, keep dormant within us.

 

The unemployment of millions during recent years must be regarded, on the whole, as a tragedy.  Yet it has proved a blessing to a goodly number of people who, being unoccupied in their former pursuits, have used their time to discover new abilities leading to occupations which they have followed with greater interest and satisfaction than they ever had at their work before.

 

Examine yourself occasionally to discover what new interests you can find to develop in the time not completely occupied now.

 

Intelligent self-examination sometimes also brings freedom from something that weighs down the spirit.  Any sensitive soul is apt to be ashamed of his sins and mistakes - so ashamed, and so fearful that others will find out, that he tries to run away, to forget, to push the trouble below the surface of his memory.  A foolish thing to do!  A courageous soul learns to stand face to face with his sins and mistakes; he learns to say, “Certainly, that was wrong.  A man with my intelligence and experience should not have done such a thing.  And since I now know better, I can and will do better.  I have learned something from that mistake; and since I have learned, it will not harm me in the future.”

 

Such self-examination often brings such a sense of God-given forgiveness and freedom that one is able to throw himself into a good piece of new endeavor with an entirely new joy.  Know thyself, therefore.

 

II.  I believe that anyone who hopes to have any important part in the constructive life of today will not only know himself, but will willingly deny himself many things.  Here I speak not only of giving up things that have been found to have a harmful effect on you.  That is perfectly apparent good sense.  But the accomplishment of any truly good and important task or program usually means giving up some other things that are in themselves good, but not good enough to be allowed to stand in the way of something more important.

 

There seem to be many who think that self-denial means asceticism, mortification of the flesh, renouncing of all of those things which are normally interesting to the average person.

 

The one who is truly self-denying in the spirit of Christ is not the one who, in negative fashion, renounces all of the pleasures, comforts, conveniences, satisfactions and joys of his life in order thereby somehow to prove his saintliness or to achieve such saintliness.  The one who is truly self-denying in the spirit of Christ is the one who willingly gives so much of his concentrated interest, time, thought and effort to a great and good enterprise that he willingly passes by other things that are in themselves good and pleasurable, but less important.

 

The only purpose of self denial is the accomplishment of greater good.  When Jesus required his followers to forsake father and mother, home and comfort, wealth and influence, he was not by any means merely putting them through an ordeal.  He was inviting them to the greatest and highest work they had ever dreamed of.  Their self-denial was to be merely their training for the spread of Christ’s kingdom of love, good will, and spiritual freedom among all men throughout the world.  It was so vital a task that nothing, however good, must be allowed to stand, or even to threaten to stand, in its way.  It could not be accomplished without self-denial.

 

This true self-denial of which I speak is, like proper self-examination, a door to joy - the joy of achievement and useful service to God and man.

 

III.  I believe that one who hopes to have an important part in the constructive life of today will not only seek to know himself and to deny himself the unessentials but will willingly offer himself in the service of the cause that seems to him most important.  The best work and the greatest usefulness is rendered probably not by those who are drafted for a task; compelled against their will.  Not those who work because they have to, but those who work because they want to, accomplish the truly great achievements in the world.

 

A classic example of achievement in America is that of Abraham Lincoln, who, early in life, dedicated himself to the principle of freedom for slaves as well as for all other men.  Jane Addams, when as a young girl she saw her first examples of real poverty as she rode through a poor neighborhood in Chicago, dedicated herself to be a good neighbor to the poor.  When she grew up and finished her education she took a roomy house in a poor neighborhood and settled to the joyful task of being a friendly and hospitable neighbor to the hosts of those who were underprivileged, or without privilege.  Some of the greatest developments in social improvement in our nation have sprung from the life and work of Jane Addams and her home, Hull House in Chicago.

 

Toyohiko Kagawa went, of his own desire, to live in complete poverty in the slums of Kobe.  The only possessions he took with him were his books and his ability to write.  He and his family and the paupers they sheltered with them, lived in a poor little single-room house.  He contracted physical disease that undermined his health (tuberculosis and trachoma).  But whenever Kagawa has gone abroad in the world to plead for justice and fair opportunity for the poor, and when he has suggested to the poor ways to help themselves, people listen because they know that he knows whereof he speaks.

 

The greatest consecration to truth, to love, mercy, and justice was that of Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord, who walked with sublime confidence and serenity straight into the face of physical annihilation at the hands of a corrupt, hard, misunderstanding citizenry; for the eternal inspiration and confidence and salvation of all mankind.  He knew himself.  Had he not observed life around him for thirty years and felt the great urge to transform it?  And had he not learned the strength that comes from triumph over evil?  He denied himself.  Had he not fought against temptation alone for days on end in the wilderness?  He dedicated himself to lead struggling, misguided and perverse humanity on the way to spiritual freedom; to God!  Surely no one today could ask for a finer form of self-expression.

 

The way is open for everyone in this room to have a part in building a better world.  “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Take the measure of the enemy - of ignorance and greed; of hatred and of fear.  Examine yourself for the wisdom, the spirit of good will, the readiness to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly, which are weapons against all evil.  Deny yourself those things that stand in the way of your controlled and directed effort.  And offer yourself in dedication to the greatest thing you can accomplish with, and for, mankind.

 

Let us pray.  Lead us, O Lord, in paths of peace.  May we be delivered from malice and bitterness, from greed and self-indulgence.  Strengthen within us the sense of justice and regard for the equal rights of others, we pray; in Christ’s name.  Amen.

 

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Dates and places delivered:

 

            Wananalua Church, Hana, March 15, 1936

            Kahului Union Church, March 15, 1936

            Puunene Hawaiian Church, March 29, 1936

            Huelo Hawaiian Church, April 5, 1936

            Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, February 21, 1937  AM

            Wisconsin Rapids, March 9, 1941