Forget Fasting; Indulge in Kindness -Lent 1A

Holistic health practitioner, Matt Marchant, has compiled on his business page a group of short parables on love and relationship. After hearing read the story of Eve and Adam from Genesis, I couldn’t resist sharing this modern day parable with you.
 “Mulla Nasrudin was talking with a friend about his love life. “I thought I had found the perfect woman,” Mulla said. “She was beautiful and had the most pleasing features a man could imagine. She was exceptional in every way, except she had no knowledge.”
     “So I traveled farther and met a woman who was both beautiful and intelligent. But, alas, we couldn’t communicate.” “After further travels, I met a lady who had everything: perfect mind, perfect intelligence, and great beauty, all the features I was looking for, but...”
     “What happened?” asked the friend. “Why didn’t you marry her at once?”
     “Ah well,” said Mulla, “as luck would have it, she was looking for the perfect man.””

Genesis chapter 3 is the passage in the Bible that has been used as the basis for the doctrine of original sin. It has been deliberated on through the centuries about whose fault sin was/is, how it happened, what it all means. In the end, Eve, Adam, and serpent are not found to be perfect. The Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible comments: “Though this story is often taken by Christians as an account of ‘original sin,’ the word ‘sin’ never occurs in it.  Instead, it describes how the maturing of humans into civilized life involved damage of connections established [in the creation story] between the Lord God, man, woman, and earth.”

Through Lent we will be asked to enter wonderful and daunting stories from Hebrew scripture. The stories confront themes that so often humans ignore and prefer not to contemplate. We will be asked to contemplate right and wrong, blessings and cursings, life and death. The texts will have us pondering our humanity and what that means for the relationships involved in being human.
In past interpretation today’s story, so often dissolves into argument about sin, missing further learnings to be gathered from the richness of the text.

Much to my pleasure I read a line of commentary that allowed me to ponder the text in a new way. The commentary summed up the story saying: Human beings were formed with great care, to be in relationship with the creator, creation, and one another. The serpent’s promise to the first couple that their eyes would be opened led, ironically, to the discovery only that they were naked. (– Sundays and Seasons 2020, Augsburg.)
Think about that for a moment – Eve and Adam eat fruit from the tree of knowledge- and they only realize that they are naked; that is all. What I find interesting is what happens next, and perhaps this is the first  ‘sin’ as this seems so human to me – Eve and Adam choose to judge the nakedness; and it is judged as bad because they go about sewing themselves coverings to hide being naked. What I also find interesting is and perhaps in competition beside judging to be the first ‘sin,’ that the new knowledge is all about them, all about me; it is applied directly to the self; the information is used in a self-serving way and separates the body, the person, from the intimate experiences they have had of the world around them. This applied knowledge has introduced a visible boundary in relationships; there is a layer of protection between woman and man, between humans and creation, between Creator and creature.
Judging and separation are not the only ‘sins’ in competition for the first sin. Perhaps the story has a variant ending – what if the first couple, eating forbidden fruit, had risked opening their eyes further – was there a possibility of discovering, of knowing, of intuiting, of grasping the ultimate importance and godliness of recognizing the need of the other; of daring to encounter and experience intimate relationships with partners, creation, Creator?  Could the first couple have chosen to not get stuck in the tidbit of being naked, and rather embrace the larger consciousness?  Could they not have been inundated with kindness – a will to be an expression of kindness?

This past week the message in the church sign on Windsor St. changed.  For the season of Lent, the sign’s dictate to the neighbourhood is: forget fasting, indulge in kindness.

This phrase came about one night when I was dreaming about what to put in the sign. I was pondering Lent and Lenten practice, considering what I would find beneficial as a direction for the season.  I figured whatever words I needed to hear, might also be the words someone else needed.  Lent is a season that reflects on sin and temptation – starting this past Wednesday at Ash Wednesday service – we heard that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  We were reminded that we sin – questioning this - take a few moments after worship and read through the confession on page 253 in the front of the hymn book. We have all sinned. The call that comes to sinners in Lent is to turn from sin and return to the Lord our God; to see and hear that Lord is good and God’s steadfast love endures, that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. It is from this pondering that the sign’s phrase made sense to me: forget fasting, indulge in kindness.

I, like Eve and Adam, don’t do so well when asked not to do something. When I think of fasting I think about everything that I am not allowed to eat or drink or do. My mind and my heart become occupied in being perfect in keeping the rule that has been set, and I loss the point of the fast in the first place – to draw closer in relationship with creation the giver of food, to grow in my relationship with farmer the provider of food, to grow in relationship with siblings who have no food – who need my food; to spend more time in prayer and reflection (rather than eating) to increase my relationship with God.
So the dictate to the community – forget fasting, indulge in kindness – is not suggesting one refrain from doing wrong, or try to be perfect, rather, the incentive is for one to concentrate and focus on actively working to be kind.  Shifting the focus from a negation point of view to a view focused on a positive virtue, completely changes my attitude and thus my human willingness to participate. Perhaps it is my years spent in Christian community, I see the practice of indulging in kindness as the counterpoint to original sin; the fullness of kindness lacks the sin of judgement, the sin of separation, the sin of not risking enough by stopping at our own threshold and not being open to the beyond.

For the next 40 days, I invite you to join with me and indulge in kindness.  In literature from Alcoholics Anonymous, kindness is named as essential for working through the 12 steps of the program. AA material states that to be kind is to be in service of those in need. One can do a kind act for self-serving purposes, but, this is not kindness and is of no help to the person doing the act. If I used one word to describe the 12 steps of anonymous programs I would say the theme is relationship. Kindness is a virtue of the heart, and when applied one sees need; need is found everywhere especially in our relationships.

For the next 40 days, I invite you to join with me and indulge in kindness. Catholicstrength.com says, Kindness is a virtue which “lifts the spirits” and “touches the hearts” of the people we encounter in our lives. When kindness is amplified by grace theologians call it an infused or supernatural virtue gifted to us in baptism, and when that virtue of kindness becomes part of our very nature – perfecting us in grace – it is a manifestation of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. 

We have been perfected  in grace through the waters of baptism. As we have drowned sin, washed, and risen with Christ, God’s grace continues to flow through us. God works through our very lives, when we chose to stop living first sins. That is to fast from judging and to stop looking at ourselves, our nakedness, our lack of whatever, and rather,  risk opening ourselves to the world around us, to drop barriers that separate us from the  intimate experiences and relationships we were called to in the very beginning in the connections established in the creation story between the Lord, man, woman, and earth.

For the next 40 days, I invite you to join with me and indulge in kindness.
Creator, when tempted to eat forbidden fruit, turn us from sin, infuse us with courage to practice the risky business of opening our hearts to the world around us. Give us the grace to indulge in kindness. Let an abundance of compassion overflow and overwhelm our neighbourhoods. Flood the world with lavish love. May this season of Lent gush with a grace that lift spirits and touch hearts.  Amen.