So, what common item found in every(?) home and in many women’s purses in most NOT like the spirit of Lent?   [take object out of pocket] A mirror… 

Why a mirror?  Why is this not what lent is about?  Lent is not about LOOKING AT OURSELVES, or at least looking at ourselves as the focus or the center of it all.  If there is the traditional “St. Louis Question” of ‘What high school did you go to?’ then the traditional Lenten question is:  “What did you give up or what did you choose for Lent.  And right in the heart of that is the offending word.  YOU!  (ME!)  The implied “I”.  What am I doing?  What am I giving up?  What am I choosing to do to make this world better. 

Don’t get me wrong, those are good questions to ask.  Important questions to ask.  What in my life is not about what God wants it to be about?  What needs to change so I can let my heart be taken over by God?  But they are dangerous questions as well, because the focus becomes “ME”.  And this season can find us being very successful at “giving up chocolate, dieting, not drinking soda, [be looking in the mirror] and when it is all done, the only person I am more present to is the one in the mirror.  Didn’t I do a good job with MY Lenten resolutions.  And that is why the mirror is so not like lent.   

Jesus warns his disciples about this tendency.  When you give alms – don’t blow the trumpet before you.  When you pray, don’t do it for show.  When you fast, don’t make it obvious that you are fasting…  IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU, folks.  LENT IS NOT ABOUT YOU.   

Instead of looking at the mirror, those three practices are meant to have us look outside ourselves to the God whom we love and the world he created.  We PRAY – so we can be connected to the needs of the world.  We FAST/ABSTAIN – so I might have something to give to others.  We give ALMS – so at least one person has heat or electricity or food or medicine.  Operation RICE BOWL – simple way to do that. 

This lent – throw away the mirror attitude.  Let it be all about GOD!  If it is helpful –doctor a post-it note, so all that is left is the part that has the glue on the back.  Then write the word Copernicus on it.  And stick on your rear view mirror on you car.  And another near the light switch going out of our room or apartment.  And another where you will occasionally see it during the course of the day.  As often as you see it may it remind you that the sun does not revolve around the world, nor does lent revolve around you.  And if we do so, then we’ll have lived Lent well…