Welcome to the joyful season of Lent!

Within Christianity there are many diverse ways of keeping Lent (including not keeping it at all) and many different interpretations of what this season is all about. Even the timing can vary, for most it's seven weeks, for some it's six. The tradition of Lent being forty days in length can be traced to a variety of traditions: the forty days Moses spent on Mt. Sinai with God, the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mt. Horeb, the forty years the Hebrews spent wandering in the wilderness, the forty days Jonah gave the city of Ninevah to repent, the forty days of Jesus' fasting and temptation in the wilderness, etc.

Most Christian communities over the centuries have understood Lent to be a time of preparation and training leading up to Easter/resurrection and the rite of baptism. The various practices that emerged, usually a combination of meditation and prayer, fasting and almsgiving, were meant to unite the community in preparation for the Easter experience, and to give meaning and depth to their journey together.

Into this context our Lectionary inserts one of the oldest confessions of faith in the Biblical tradition: Deuteronomy 26:1-11. This credo begins by reminding the community of faith how it all started: as wanderers, nomads, who left the security and familiarity of their homeland and embarked on a journey that would lead them to a new land to become a new people. But they had to go through many hardships along the way.

This short creed is placed within a ritual expression of gratitude for God's blessings and is prelude to a celebration meal that is explicitly supposed to include any resident aliens in the community. This injunction to welcome and include aliens is not just due to the fact that we were once aliens in an alien land ourselves, but is necessary because of the nature of our God, Yahweh.

The creed bears witness to the character of God as Liberator, one who hears the cries of the oppressed and acts powerfully on their behalf. This is a God of justice, equality and freedom. It should come as no surprise that such a God would insist on showing hospitality to outsiders.

As the season of Lent begins again it is important for us too, to reflect upon the nature of our God. If Lent is an invitation to a journey, particularly a journey through the wilderness, it would seem a good thing to know the nature of the God who is walking beside us on this journey.

When we listen to the teachings of our brother Jesus and consider the character of the God he walked with, we find a God who is welcoming of prodigal sons and daughters, who prepares a feast and invites all to come and join in the celebration, a God who provides daily bread, and clothes and shelters all creation. Jesus' God forgives debts, rewards more generously than expected, subverts systems of injustice and oppression, makes the last first and the first last, causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on both the good and the bad. Jesus' God was a God of justice, equality and freedom as well.

So here we are at the beginning of Lent with the invitation to consider what the character of our God is. The whole metaphor for Lent as a journey, a life-changing journey like the wandering in the wilderness of our ancestors, is intended to underscore the fact that this is about transformation; this is about growth and change and making way for something new. And it isn't just the journey that changes us, it's the nature of the Divine Presence with us that is the source of growth and transformation.

The prayer and meditation of Lent is a daily opportunity to connect with this Divine Force for justice, equality and freedom. It is an invitation to become more open to this energy and (to borrow a phrase from Thcih Nhat Hanh) to water the seeds of justice, equality and freedom within ourselves. Prayer and meditation is a deep grounding of the self in the mystery of God.

The fasting we do in Lent is nowadays most often practiced as giving up something we enjoy, like sweets or fried foods, or that second glass of wine, things that we long ago should have learned to enjoy in moderation. Or maybe we think Lent is about giving up vices that we can then go back to once Easter is here!

I think of Lenten fasting as embracing simplicity, including one's self and one's own body within our heart of compassion, and choosing a lifestyle that is sustainable, just and equitable for the whole world. We may find that there is a lot we could give up in order to be more free. Again, let's ask ourselves: what is the nature of our God? and what is the nature of the life we are called to live so fully?

Almsgiving, the third of our trinity of Lenten traditions, is the joyful practice of sharing yourself with others. It is not just about giving money to help those in need, though that is certainly an important part of it. Almsgiving includes the intuition that all that we have been given in life is meant to be shared. We know that life is not about hoarding or possessing things, rather life is about relating authentically, openly and generously with other precious beings, living together within a community of caring and compassion. And we have many varied blessings to share with one another. This almsgiving is born out of a deep and joyful honoring of our connections with one another and with all life. Sharing who we are with each other is a large part of how we find fulfillment and happiness in life. Almsgiving is an expression of the nature of our God.

So today as we begin our Lenten journey let's take some time to reflect on the nature of our God. Lent is an opportunity to be more fully, more joyfully, more authentically our best self. And it begins by wandering away from the safe and the familiar and discovering the presence of One who makes aliens of us all and welcomes us as honored and beloved kin. This is the freedom and the integrity of the God of justice. Walking with such a Presence will inevitably change and transform us and our society, but first we have to leave our comfortable home, risk the danger of the wilderness, lose our self in order to find our self, and embrace this journey called life.

When you have come into the land that Yahweh is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that Yahweh is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that God will choose as a dwelling place for the Divine Name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say, "Today I declare to Yahweh that I have come into the land that God swore to our ancestors to give us." When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of Yahweh, you shall make this response before God:

You shall set it down before Yahweh and bow down before God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that God has given to you and to your house.