Christ Church Rockville Lenten Devotion

Deut. 7:6-11 
Titus 1:1-16 
John 1:29-34 

When I was a little boy, I was taught and encouraged to give up something for Lent. Forty days without something I liked or loved: soft drinks; or candy; or ice cream. It was  an effort to follow Christ's lead of fasting for forty days and forty nights. As a young adult, soft drinks, candy or ice cream choices were too easy. So smoking or alcoholic beverages were better challenges. But as a baby boomer in a Western educated industrialized rich democracy (WEIRD as Jonathon Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind calls it), none of these choices came close to the sacrifice of forsaking food for five and a half weeks. 

In reference to Titus 1-16, the qualifications for bishops and elders were more stringent behavior modifications: " ..not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just holding fast the faithful word he hath taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both exhort and to convince the gain sayers." 

Doesn't suppression of anger impulses for a bishop's candidacy - which is probably expected to be maintained year-round if selected - constitute a larger sacrifice than forty days' denial of creature comforts? 

Such tests of will power may keep you, the non-bishop candidate, humble and endear you to other people. It may qualify you to be among “the meek who will inherit the earth”. Perhaps. But only through such mind-over-matter willpower can the human come close to that result. 

— John Allnutt

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