Ash Wednesday: Lent begins.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten fast. It gets its name from the western custom of putting ashes on our heads. What’s with the ashes? It comes from bible: Ashes were used to ritually purify sinners. Nu 19.9 So it’s to repeat that custom.

Varoius Christians figure it also comes from the ancient middle eastern custom of putting ashes on one’s head when grieving. 2Sa 13.19, Jb 2.8 What’re we grieving? Well, Easter comes after Holy Week, when Jesus died, so they’re kinda grieving Jesus’s death. Even though he’s alive now, their emphasis is his horrible suffering and death, and they mourn that. Lent is one of the ways they mourn that. So, ashes.

Thing is… in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us when we’re fasting not to broadcast it.

Matthew 6.16-18 NRSVue

16“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

In many churches ashes are ritually sprinkled on one’s head, but in English-speaking countries the custom is to use the ashes to draw a cross on Christians’ foreheads. I don’t know how pleased Jesus is with those of us who wear these crosses on our foreheads all day. I think he’d much rather we show off our devotion by being fruity.

But over the past decade, mainline Christians have started to use the forehead-cross thingy as an outreach tool. Instead of only doing the ritual in their church buildings, their pastors go to public places with ashes, and draw crosses on anyone who asks.

• Sometimes they’re Christians who go, “Oh I forgot it’s Ash Wednesday; I’m gotta go get my ashes!”
• Sometimes they’re Christians who didn’t grow up with this ritual: “Ash Wednesday? What’s that? Well I’m Christian, so I’m gonna get a cross too.”
• Sometimes they’re Christian jerks: “Oh that’s a Catholic thing; that’s as good as paganism or sorcery; I’m not doing that.”
• And sometimes they’re pagans who think they’re Christian, or pagans who wanna try something “spiritual.”

Regardless, the mainliners’ goal is to get more people to think about Jesus than usual. It does do that.

Lenten fasting. (It’s optional, you know.)

Lent is the English term for the 40-day period before Easter in which Christians fast, abstain, and otherwise practice self-control. (Assuming we practice such things at all.) In Latin it’s called quadragesima and in Greek it’s σαρακοστή/sarakostí, short for τεσσαρκοστή/tessarkostí—both of which mean “fortieth,” ’cause 40 days.

It starts Ash Wednesday, which isn’t 40 precise days before Easter; it’s 46. That’s because the six Sundays before Easter aren’t included. You don’t fast on feast days, and the sabbath day, on whatever day you observe it (and Christians usually do Sundays), is a feast day; it’s when we take a weekly break from our Lenten fasts. Many Christians don’t realize this, and wind up fasting Sundays too—since they’ve got that abstention momentum going anyway.

As for eastern Christians, Lent begins the week before Ash Wednesday, on Clean Monday. Partly because they don’t skip Sundays, and fast that day too; and partly ’cause their Lenten fast consists of the 40 days before Holy Week. Then they have a whole seperate fast for that week.

But no matter how you arrange it, all the fasting is finished by Easter.

Just as Jesus went without food 40 days in the wilderness, we go without… well, something. The first Christians who practiced Lent likely went all hardcore, and went without food and water. And after this practice gravely injured or killed enough of ’em, the early Christians decided maybe it’s wiser to stick to bread and water, or a vegan diet. Or, as American Catholics practice it nowadays, go without meat on Friday and Saturday. (Though for various iffy reasons, fish is considered an exception.)

Protestant custom is usually to cut back to two meals a day, then give up one extra something. Abstaining from the one thing has leaked back into popular culture and Catholicism, so now most pagans and many Christians think Lent only consists of giving up the one thing. Preferably something difficult: Giving up coffee or alcohol, chocolate or carbs, watching sports or playing video games, or anything we originally tried to give up for the New Year and failed at.

Whenever I’m asked what I’m doing without for Lent, I tend to joke, “I’m giving up fruits and vegetables. Nothing but cheeseburgers, coffee, and Cheez-Its till Easter.” The kids like to joke, “I’ll give up smoking,” since they already don’t smoke. (They might vape though.)

But all joking aside, abstaining from one thing isn’t a bad custom. And we’re not giving it up for Lent; properly we’re giving it up for Jesus.

So once we recognize this, we need to ask ourselves: Exactly how does this benefit Jesus? How will it grow our relationship with him? Does it grow our relationship with him?—are we abstaining because this is something we want, or he wants? Didja bother to ask him what he actually wants us to do without?

That’s most of the reason Christians pick something difficult to abstain from. It’s a reminder Jesus is infinitely more important than our favorite things. Really he should be our favorite thing, and during Lent that’s what he oughta become, in a far more obvious way than usual. And after Lent, oughta remain.

For this reason we shouldn’t just pick something we oughta give up anyway. If you figure, “I really oughta give up adultery for Lent”: Well duh. And you oughta give up adultery period. Don’t figure you’ll quit shoplifting, or verbally abusing people, or smacking your kids around… but only till Easter. Don’t save obeying God till Lent. Nor start sinning again once it’s Easter! Just stop.

Put some wisdom into your choice. The first time I abstained for Lent, I picked coffee. I love coffee. Makes sense to pick something which might have enough of a hold on me to tempt me. Problem is, when I have my coffee right after I wake up, the first words out of my mouth are, “Thank you Jesus for coffee”—I’m in a thanksgiving mood. From there, I can go on to prayer, devotions, and other ways of honoring him. But when I don’t have that coffee, it takes longer to get into that mood. No, I’m not saying I need coffee to worship Jesus; that’s stupid. But dropping coffee doesn’t help me any. (And lest you’re worried about my caffeine addiction, I usually drink decaf. Not just for Lent.)

Don’t pick a Lenten fast which’ll irritate others, or cause them hardship. I unthinkingly did this myself one year: I went without meat. In itself it’s not a bad thing… but I attended a party, was given the duty of ordering pizza, and selfishly only thought of my fast: I ordered nothing but vegetable and cheese pizzas. The other folks in the party of course wanted meat. They didn’t appreciate how I’d convenienced myself but inconvenienced them: I was behaving exactly like one of those self-righteous vegans who inflict their consciences upon everyone else. Lots of fasting Christians do likewise: If the friends wanna go out to eat, they respond, “Not that restaurant; I’m fasting,” and demand all their friends accommodate their devotion. That’s actually selfishness disguised as devotion. Don’t do that.

My students used to joke, “I’ll give up bathing.” (Of course. They’re kids.) But they smelled enough like foot cheese as it was; they really, really needed to bathe. And lest you get any ideas, don’t you give up bathing. Fasting is supposed to be invisible. Mt 6.16-18 Plus it’s common courtesy to not outrage our neighbors’ noses for no good reason.

Each individual Christian answers to God.

Romans 14.10-13, Isaiah 45.18-25.

One of the many things about the ancients—and therefore the bible, ‘cause it’s ancient—which confuses Christians, especially kids, is the idea of collective guilt, collective responsibility, and collective punishment. Because it’s not how our culture works anymore. You don’t punish a whole family, a whole city, a whole state, a whole religion, a whole country, a whole ethnicity, for the acts of one person, or a few people. Isn’t that in fact a crime against humanity? A war crime? Doesn’t it violate the Geneva Convention?

You may not be aware the reason moderns think this way, is because Paul set the precedent right here in Romans 14: The idea God doesn’t judge entire people-groups, but individuals. The idea we individually stand before God, and have to individually answer for our sins and trespasses, and get individually rewarded or penalized for them. This idea is hinted at many times in the scriptures, but it’s spelled out pretty explicitly in today’s passage.

Thing is, the other idea—that you and I are part of a society, part of a collective, part of a tribe or nation or commonwealth, and if one of us sins we can bring down the whole—is all over the bible too. So much so, Christians will even claim it’s a biblical principle, and use it as the basis for some of their nationalist beliefs. And okay yes, it’s found in the bible… because it’s how the ancients thought. Doesn’t mean it’s how God thinks.

True, there are Old Testament passages where God punishes all Israel because the vast majority of the population is sinning themselves sticky. Yeah, sometimes he orders Israel or its judges to wipe out an entire Amorite city, including any children who might grow up and feel duty-bound to avenge their wicked forebears, because the city’s sins are just so vile. Collective guilt and punishment is found all over the bible. But those who are quick to condemn this behavior when they think God’s committing it, forget God frequently made exceptions to these genocidal-sounding orders. Like sparing Noah and his family when he flooded the land. Like sparing Rahab and her family when Israel wiped out Jericho. Like sparing Lot and his family when God poured burning sulfur upon Sodom. Repentant people got to live—in total violation of the “biblical principle” of collective guilt. Pagan kings would’ve spared no one. God spares lots of people.

Paul saw God’s tendency to judge individuals, not the collective, in the scriptures. Which is why he could confidently say the following when he corrected Roman Christians about criticizing one another, especially the weak in faith.

Romans 14.10-13 KWL

10You:¹ Why do you judge your¹ fellow Christian?

Or you¹ too: Why do you look down on your¹ fellow Christian?

For all of us will present ourselves before God’s judgment seat,

11for this was written:

“The Master says this: ‘I live.

Everyone will bend the knee to me.

Every tongue will confess God.’ ” Is 45.23

12Therefore each of us, by ourselves,

will give a word to God,

13so we should no longer judge one another.

Instead, judge this all the more:

Don’t place an obstacle before a fellow Christian,

nor something to trip them up.

’Cause you do realize some of the reason Christians are so adamant about condemning and penalizing every single misdeed, is this irrational, unjustified fear God’s gonna condemn the whole. I’ve heard so many Christian nationalists insist unless we ban this or that sin from the United States, God’s gonna smite our nation with the worst plagues and famines and natural disasters we’ve ever seen. (And that’s saying something, considering the Great Recession, the Covid pandemic, and the wreckage of the last 20 years of hurricanes.) But what’re they basing these worries on? Well, loopy End Times interpretations, plus the misbegotten belief God has some special covenant with the United States when he has no such thing. He only has a covenant with its Christians—and, as this passage plainly states, it’s with individual Christians.

Therefore neither the nationalists nor us have any basis for persecuting Christians who sin differently than we do. They individually answer to God. As do you. As do I. He knows whether we’ve been following Jesus, whether we’ve been listening to the Holy Spirit, whether we’ve behaved consistently with Jesus’s teachings and our consciences, and how much of it was earnest and how much was hypocrisy. He’s an absolutely fair judge; we are not, which is precisely why it’s not for us to judge. Work on yourself. And don’t trip others up.

The Dinner Party Story.

Luke 14.15-24.

Jesus has two very similar parables in the gospels: The Wedding Party Story in Matthew, and the Dinner Party Story in Luke. Christians tend to lump ’em together, iron out the differences, and claim they’re about precisely the same thing. They’re actually not. The differences are big enough to where we gotta look at the variant parables individually, not together.

In the Wedding Party Story, Jesus compares his kingdom to a king holding a wedding for his son. That’s not a mere social function; it’s political. People’s response to that wedding was a political statement; it wasn’t merely some friends revealing how they’re not really friends. Whereas what we see in the Dinner Party Story is an act of hospitality, generosity, and love on the homeowner’s part… and the invitees blow him off because they’d rather do anything than spend time with him. The rebellion and sedition we detect in the Wedding Party Story isn’t in this story. These are just people being dicks to a guy who just wants their company.

God just wants to love his people, and give us his kingdom. And his people would honestly rather do anything else.

Luke 14.15-24 KWL

15Someone reclining at dinner with Jesus,

hearing this, tells him, “How awesome

for whoever will eat bread in God’s kingdom!”

16Jesus tells him, “Some person is having a large dinner,

and is inviting many.

17He’s sending his slave at the dinner hour

to tell the invited, ‘Come! It’s ready now!’

18And every one of them

is beginning to excuse themselves.

The first is telling him, ‘I’m buying a field.

I seriously need to go out and see it.

I pray you, have me excused.’

19Another is saying, ‘I’m buying five teams of oxen.

I have to try them out.

I pray you, have me excused.’

20 Another is saying, ‘I’m marrying a woman.

This is why I can’t come.’

21Coming back, the slave is reporting

these things to his master.

Then the enraged homeowner is telling his slave,

‘Go out quickly to the city’s squares and alleys,

and the poor, maimed, blind, and disabled:

Bring them here!’

22The slave is saying, ‘Master, I did as you ordered,

and there’s still room.’

23The master is telling the slave,

‘Go out of the city to the roads and property lines,

and make people come,

so my house can be full!

24For I tell you none of those invited men

will taste my dinner.’ ”

Now y’notice the consequences of rejecting the dinner party are way less extreme than we see in the Wedding Party Story. In Matthew the king who throws the wedding party burns down a few cities, then has an underdressed guest hogtied and thrown out. Whereas in Luke the homeowner who throws the dinner party simply says, “None of those invited men will taste my dinner.” They’re not gonna be dead, nor cast into outer darkness where “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Mt 22.13 They’re only gonna miss out on a really nice meal.

St. Valentine’s Day.

The problem with the feast of St. Valentine, celebrated 14 February, is we don’t know which ancient Christian martyr named Valentinus the day is supposed to honor; and all the stories we have about these multiple Valentinuses (or, if we wanna go with a Latin plural, Valentini) are probably myths.

Here’s what little we know about the three Valentinuses we can name:

St. Valentine’s skull in the Basilica of Santa Maria, Cosmedin, Rome. Eww. The Catholic Telegraph

• VALENTINUS OF ROME. A priest who died in the last half of the 200s, and is buried on the Flaminian Way. Well, mostly; the Basilica of Santa Maria has his skull, and a number of other churches claim to have other bones.
• VALENTINUS OF INTERAMNA. A bishop who died around the year 270, who is likewise buried on the Flaminian Way. St. Julius (whom Catholics call Pope Julius 1; he died in 332) had a basilica built in Terni in his honor.
• VALENTINUS OF… SOMEWHERE. A Christian who suffered in Africa along with a number of companions.

Yes, that’s everything. You thought there was more? That’s because in the absence of actual history, people made up stories about Valentinus. Some of these things might’ve been done by other Christian martyrs, but now St. Valentine’s name is tacked on to them. Some of them might be total fiction. There’s no way of knowing; that’s always the problem with Christian mythology.

Because we really do know nothing about him but myths, the Roman Catholics decided to delete his feast day from their general calendar in 1969. Orthodox Christians have feast days for the first two Valentines on 6 July and 30 July, respectively. As for the Catholics, the calendar marks today as officially Sts. Cyril and Methodus Day. So… happy St. Cyril’s Day! Or St. Methodus’s Day! Or both! Have fun really confusing your date tonight by giving them a St. Methodus’s Day card.

As you likely know already, merchants and restauranteurs have adopted this day as a celebration of romance, and hope you now feel heavily obligated to give something thoughtful to your significant other. Preferably something they sell. That’s pretty much all people know Valentine’s Day as. Which is fine; there’s nothing wrong with appropriately appreciating someone you love. Have fun with that.

It’s gotta be super awkward for the Sts. Valentines though. Especially if they were celibate.

The Lᴏʀᴅ created the land and plants.

Genesis 1.9-13.

The creation story in Genesis 1 follows a logical progression. On day 2, after creating a ceiling of the skies, and dividing the waters of Earth into above-the-ceiling and below-the-ceiling, Ge 1.6-8 God now turns to below-the-ceiling. Everything above the ceiling is now no longer part of the creation story.

And now that I’ve written this, no doubt some of my readers are gonna say, “Well, but we know what’s above the ceiling. There’s the second and third heavens.” Or the nine heavens of Dante’s Divine Comedy, or the seven heavens of the Babylonian Talmud, or the 10 heavens of 2 Enoch. Paul’s “third heaven” 2Co 12.2-4 is one of the 10 heavens, also known as paradise… but we don’t know whether Paul was confirming there literally are 10 heavens, or simply referring to the then-common pop culture idea of where paradise is. Not that Christians don‘t claim they totally know—and that’s just their pride talking. They really don’t.

The writer of Genesis didn’t speculate what was beyond the ceiling, and unless we have actual, biblical revelation of what God built up there, neither should we. Besides, we know better (or, if we have any sense in our brains, should know better): The writer of Genesis isn’t describing our literal universe. And isn’t so much trying to. The point of the creation story is to rebut ancient pagans who claimed other gods conquered and arranged the universe to their liking. They actually didn’t. The LORD didn’t need to seize creation from anyone; he created it.

And what’s beyond the ceiling isn’t for us to know. Now let’s move what’s below the ceiling. God’s gonna create dry ground and put plants on it.

Genesis 1.9-13 KWL

9God said, “Water from under the skies:

Gather to one place.

Dry surface:

Be seen.”

It was so.

10God called the dry surface land.

The gathered water he called seas.

God saw how good it was.

11God said, “Land:

Sprout vegetation.

Plants:

Scatter seed.

Fruit trees:

Make fruit which has seed in it

by species, on the land.”

It was so.

12The earth produced vegetation,

grass scattered seeds by species,

trees produced fruit which had seed in it, by its species.

God saw how good it was.

13It was dusk, then dawn.

Day three.

In the pagan myths, the gods which conquered the already-existing universe were only interested in setting up the world for their personal comfort, and to rule. They really had no interest in land, plants, crops, or even life.

Well, except for one of them, the fertility god. In the case of the weather and fertility god 𐎅𐎄/Hadád, whom the Canaanites and Hebrews referred to by his title בַּעַל/Baäl, he wound up overthrowing the other gods and becoming the high god himself. Me, I gotta wonder whether the Canaanites decided Hadád was the high god only after they noticed how the LORD was both high God, and the weather and fertility God. (And the God of everything else.) In pagan myths, the fertility god would be the only one of ’em interested in creating and cultivating life. In our creation story, our God is the only deity in the story, and it’s the same God who creates every important thing in the universe. These aren’t the tasks of individual gods; nothing’s delegated to subordinate gods. There’s only the One God, and he effortlessly does everything by himself.

The “Help me have faith” prayer.

Jesus was once presented a demonized boy, whose father kinda saw Jesus as their last hope. Mark tells his story thisaway:

Mark 9.21-24 GNT

21“How long has he been like this?” Jesus asked the father.

“Ever since he was a child,” he replied. 22“Many times the evil spirit has tried to kill him by throwing him in the fire and into water. Have pity on us and help us, if you possibly can!”

23“Yes,” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”

24The father at once cried out, “I do have faith, but not enough. Help me have more!”

Jesus’s response was to throw the evil spirit out of the boy, and cure him—and tell his students nothing but prayer could throw out this sort of evil spirit, which merits a whole other article on that subject. But today I wanna focus on the boy’s father’s desperate cry to Jesus: Πιστεύω, βοήθει μου τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ/pistévo, voïthei mu ti apistía, “I believe, [but] help my unbelief.” The way the Good News Translation puts it is closer to what this father meant by it: He had enough faith in Jesus to come to him and beg for help, but man alive did he need more.

And that’s always a good thing to pray. It’s humble; it recognizes we’re deficient in just how much we trust God. We gotta put more faith in him! Often we turn to him for help as a last resort—we’ve tried every other way out of our jam, but they haven’t got us anywhere, and finally we figure, “Well, there’s prayer. If nothing else, we can try prayer.” God should’ve been our first resort, but we don’t trust him enough. Sorta like Jesus should’ve been this guy’s first resort, but he figured he’d try Jesus’s saints first, and see if St. James the Less and St. Jude and St. Thomas and the other saints in the Twelve might answer his prayers instead, Mk 9.18 ’cause Jesus was busy with other stuff. (Being transfigured, actually.) Unfortunately Jesus’s students weren’t yet up to the challenge. They had their own faith deficiencies.

But since we already know we oughta be praying in faith, when we know our faith in God simply isn’t gonna be good enough, “Help my unbelief,” or “Help my unfaith,” or “Help my doubts,” or every similar cry of “Help!” is the right thing to pray. We need some of that mustard-seed-size faith which can get trees to uproot themselves and jump in the ocean. Lk 17.6 We’re not gonna pretend we totally have it when of course we don’t. Even those of us with amazing testimonies of God-experiences in which we saw for ourselves as he did miraculous things, can get wobbly in our faith sometimes. By all means we should ask for more.