Lent-Colbert Style

We're big Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert fans at our house.  So after a long day which including setting up for the Ash Wednesday service as well as facilitating the service, it was nice to decompress a bit by going out for a post-Ash dinner with about half a dozen of the Emmaus House community.  After some good conversation and a yummy curry dish, I went home to check on the family.  It had been a pretty tough day for Kathleen and she was exhausted so she ended going to bed early.  I too was feeling the tiredness of the day, but I still was kind of wound-up, so I watched a little TV and watched Stewart and Colbert.  I found myself drifting in and out until I heard Colbert make the following statement:

"The ash on my forehead is a Christian symbol of sacrifice, penance and mortality.  It's basically the hand stamp for God's nightclub."

It made me laugh outloud.  Colbert does that for me.  He is so honest, and witty and insightful and irreverent and faith-full all rolled up into this on-air persona.  Plus, he's just hysterical to listen to.  Outside of TV land, Colbert is a man of faith, of the Catholic persuasion, who is transparent enough to make light of those who claim to follow God through Christ, and who sometimes miss the mark.  His assessments of the faithful plays out in an "adventures in missing the point" (stealing the title of a Tony Campolo/Brian McClaren book) lampoon.  Why can't we see our brokenness played out in our faith journey, where more often than not, we miss the point of how Jesus lived as well as what he taught?

Sacrifice...penance...mortality.  That's pretty weighty stuff.  Who would want to go to that kind of nightclub?  Seems pretty depressing and dismal to me.  I bet the only kind of music they would play is dirges.  But maybe that's the point of Lent.  No, not all of that murky, dark, depressing thing, I can get that anytime.  Maybe Lent is more about saying that for the next 40 days I will intentionally live, examine and focus on the ways "sacrifice, penance and mortality" are being played out in my life as well as the faith communities I/we belong to.

We often forget that there are two sides to God's kingdom.  One one side of the coin there is sacrifice, penance and mortality but those lead to the other side, which is freedom, forgiveness and life.  Those three things, freedom, forgiveness and life is pretty good stuff.  Those latter three things make me smile and laugh and make me pretty hopeful for whatever tomorrow brings me.  Freedom, forgiveness and life reminds me that God's nightclub is multi-faceted with a variety of styles and rhythms that are being played out all around us.

So if you want to know what Lent is about, from this American Baptist perspective, take a clue from Stephen Colbert and focus on sacrifice, penance and mortality.  If you do, you just find the other side of resurrection day: freedom, forgiveness and life!  May you rock the next 40 days my friends!
-M-