I’m indebted to my
colleague from another Presbytery, Mark Davis, who created or shared the
observation, “lint is for navel-gazing; lent is for something else.” That was more than a handful of years ago and
I’ve thought ever since that it’s gotten more and more true. We live in a time when Church traditions
(even the most ardent ones) no longer “play well” in the audience the church
needs to be appealing to. “Lent,” a traditional
season of penitence and fasting has become a time when everyone can talk about
the fashionable-ness of “giving up lattes and chocolates” after Valentine’s Day
and trying to lose part of the weight we wrote down in those new year’s
resolutions a couple of months ago.
Frozen fish goes on sale at the grocery, Long John Silver’s advertises
again on television, and there are “Lenten specials” in a lot of restaurants
even if they don’t use the word “Lenten” much.
Perhaps this is
simply because much of our national GDP is driven by consumer spending. Despite that one of the best-known Bible
quotes is still, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not WANT,” we’re constantly
enticed to buy because the predominant story of our culture is that we don’t have
enough.
Which story do you
believe—the Bible or the culture?
But which story
gets your money?
I digress.
Last Friday I was
at the grocery story. I had been at the
same grocery story two weeks earlier and had seen that even in suburban
Philadelphia, we had “King Cakes” for sale.
Now I know King Cakes because my parents lived for many years in South
Louisiana, and King Cakes were very much a part of the Mardi Gras culture,
there. In fact King Cakes were beyond
special, many were quite elaborate and there were wonderful creations and
decorations, and flavors; it was fashionable there to order your own
personalized, special-made, and even gourmet “King Cakes.”
Seeing a “King
Cake” at the grocery store took me back.
But finding the $6.99 price tag for an unglamorous grocery-store baked-good
that’s been on the shelf for a while gave me whiplash! The memory was nice, but it was easy to move
on.
But last Friday, I
was in the health-foods aisle in the same grocery when I witnessed the bakery
lady pushing a whole bakery-rack full of King Cake boxes. I watched her rolling the cart in the
direction of the “baked goods sale table” where the newly expiring baked goods
are shuffled out at a substantial discount.
She was already 3 or 4 aisles ahead of me when I began to smell the waft
of freshly baked, baked goods, and was inexplicably following.
And, if you
remember your Lenten calendar, this was the Friday, AFTER Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the END of King Cake season
everywhere. I mused to myself that
having King Cake after Ash Wednesday was probably at least a little bit sacrilegious;
yet still I followed, justifying the journey in order to document what price a
King Cake brings in the post-holiday euphoria (when stores drop the price in
order to move the merchandise).
I was more horrified
to discover these were not “left-overs” but freshly baked King Cakes on the
Friday after Ash Wednesday! The bakery
lady, quickly unloading the cart as if there were more cakes on the way,
explained how they were just fresh-baked and decorated, and how they had lost
all the little plastic babies that go with the king cakes, so they were minus
the babies, but at only $1.75 it was a great price for freshly baked King
Cake. “Indeed,” I offered sheepishly, now
salivating after the freshly baked King Cakes even on the first Friday after
Ash Wednesday, and still, in fact, working over the Sunday sermon on Jesus’ temptation
in my head!
Yes, this is where
it all comes together! And I’m not embarrassed
enough to admit that I left the grocery with a King Cake on the first Friday of
Lent. My wife and I decided we would eat
the King Cake on Sunday—when it was no longer fresh-baked—because Friday was a
fast-day for our family because of Lent; and, we were leaving the next morning
before breakfast so I could attend a conference outside of Washington,
D.C. And I’m writing this because the
keynote speaker, David Lose, encouraged being mindful about telling our faith-stories
because this world in which we live, the predominant stories have shifted away
from the telling of faith-communities and have been co-opted by those who want
to sell us things—driving not only the GDP but personal profits and gain.
Notice how deftly my
newly acquired king cake box re-interprets—to the advantage of King Cake
enthusiasts and Mardi Gras revelers—the story of Jesus and Epiphany. It’s as if it were its own liturgical holiday. And while the colors of gold, purple, and
green may stand for justice, peace, and faith, those words have a slightly
different meaning outside the Biblical context.
I’m not at all sure what that means to the casual passer-by, or for the
family who takes advantage of $1.75 King Cake!
Is this religious-speak? Is this
what Christians believe? Does the Church
advocate having your cake and eating it too—even if it’s the Friday after Ash
Wednesday?
That the King Cake
box is re-telling the Jesus story tends to make me mad; but maybe the King Cake
box is getting away with it because I’m not telling the Bible’s stories—and my
own stories as a Christian—about peace, justice, faith, and Jesus!
This could be
different, perhaps, if I were different.
If I made more of a concerted effort to share my stories of Lenten practices
and why I choose the lifestyle I do—or at a minimum, why it bothers me that
King Cakes go on sale after Ash Wednesday!
But that means I
not only have to believe and act like Lent is special and religiously
significant, but also, I have to tell the Bible’s stories and MY stories …so
there is another narrative. In other
words, lint is about navel-gazing; Lent is something else.
What are some of
your Lenten stories? What are you
struggling with? What gives you hope and
joy? And do you carry the hope and joy
with you in the struggles?
© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and
Pastor, The Presbyterian Church of Llanerch, Havertown, Pennsylvania
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