Lent 1, Year A

It was a day when my kids were young and the house was a mess.  During those years when my kids were young, despite the fact that my attempts to keep the clutter from accumulating were constant, it seemed like the house was always a mess.  Although I’ve got a fairly high tolerance for mess, it had gone on for so long that it was really starting to get to me.  I was grumpy.  Blaming my husband and kids inevitably resulted in their blaming me and each other.   In desperation, I turned to a website called Flylady.  

I started out, even then, with all the excuses for why this wouldn’t work.  But it actually did.  There are parts of the website, and of Flylady’s personality, that are definitely cheesy, but they also have a kind of endearing charm.  The basic idea is that she assigns you one task each day to do for 15 minutes.  Today is the day you spend 15 minutes decluttering in your living room; tomorrow you spend 15 minutes cleaning the ceiling fan and ceiling lights; the next day you spend 15 minutes cleaning the inside of the fridge.  You can go to the website or sign up for a daily e-mail.  Each assignment comes with a little pep talk.  She suggests you put on some energetic music.  As I tried it, my family got used to hearing salsa music in the house, followed 15 minutes later by my timer going off.   There are also routines for the daily things like dishes and laundry, but the key to what makes this system work is that it’s 15 minutes.  Even if the task isn’t pleasant, even if I’m tired, I think to myself: oh, come on, you can do it for 15 minutes.  And you can.  

The problem is that more overwhelmed you feel by how much clutter has accumulated, the harder it is to begin, so you never get anywhere.  Flylady gets around that with the simple instruction: just do 15 minutes.  And although 15 minutes isn’t enough to make everything look nice, it turns out that it is enough to see a noticeable difference.  Flylady reassures us, her “flybabies”: “Your house didn’t get dirty in a day.  Babysteps.”  My house has never been perfect, but after I started with Flylady it definitely became better.  

Over the years, I gradually shifted away from doing the specific cleaning task she assigns for 15 minutes, but even now I still set the timer and do 15 minutes of some cleaning task.  The temptation to just flop on the couch and do nothing is a strong one, and the 15 minute time limit is what enables you to overcome the temptation.  And once you see that you’ve overcome the temptation one day, you have a little extra strength to overcome it the next day, and even more strength the day after that.

That’s one of the things going on with the 40 days of Lent.  Overcoming all temptations constantly until you die is simply too overwhelming.  Choosing one temptation to overcome for a time span of 40 days is do-able.  And because every Sunday is a feast of the Resurrection, you can even have a day off every Sunday.  All you really have to do is abstain for six days, and then you get a break.  

The reason that our Lenten fast lasts for forty days is that Jesus fasted for forty days, as we see in today’s gospel reading from Matthew, as well as in Mark and Luke.  The number forty is often used to represent the concept of a significant amount of time, but not forever.  The use of it here recalls other times of difficulty that lasted a significant amount of time, but not forever.  How long does it rain as Noah is in the ark?  Forty days.  How long does Moses fast on Mount Sinai before he is given the Ten Commandments?  Forty days.  How many years do the Israelites wander in the wilderness?  Forty years.  There is a sense in which forty is a time set aside to prepare for what comes next.  Our own Lenten practices are not an end in themselves, as if asceticism or renunciation were our goal.  Our Lenten practices are a preparation for the joy of Easter, when our fasting turns to feasting and rejoicing.

If we consider what it would involve for any of us to become truly Christlike, it is overwhelming.  Jesus overcomes all temptation, even the most demonic.

None of us are sinless, and we don’t have to be.  The good news is that God does not call us to be messiahs; God calls us to be disciples.  You can start from where you are.  You can take baby steps.  If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of doing something every day for the rest of your life, you can do it for forty days, which is actually only six days in a row.  Once you have done six days, you know it is not impossible.  You can do another six days.  You can choose one temptation, and give it up for forty days, with once-a-week breaks.  If you have not already chosen a Lenten practice this year, it is not too late: you can do that today.

What are our biggest temptations?  They might not be what we expect.  Normally, we think of racecar driving as dangerous, and sitting on the couch at home as safe.  But ask any cardiologist how common it is for people in North America to die from a sedentary lifestyle.  Many estimates say that physical inactivity is responsible for 1 in 10 deaths in North America.  In reality, it is sitting on the couch that turns out to be one of the biggest dangers in our society.  

The same thing is true of our spiritual health.  When people’s faith dies, it is not usually a big crash and burn.  People’s faith usually just becomes gradually more sedentary until it finally stops.  The ancients knew what they were talking about when they identified sloth as one of the seven deadly sins.  One of the most dangerous temptations we face is the temptation to do nothing in our spiritual lives.

Now here’s the encouraging part.  If you’ve been a couch potato for years, you don’t need to start by running marathons.  In fact, if you try to do that, you will get overwhelmed and quit and go right back to the couch.  When people ask, “How much exercise is good for me?”  The answer is any amount.  If you are doing zero, getting five minutes of exercise a day will be beneficial.  If you’re already doing five minutes, you will benefit from getting fifteen minutes.  The people who successfully improve their health and strength are the ones who start from where they are and gradually build from there.

The same thing is true in our spiritual lives.  The encouragement I hope you will remember from this sermon is this: any amount of spiritual activity is beneficial.  If you are getting zero spiritual exercise now, getting five minutes a day will be beneficial.   In fact, any daily attention to God is beneficial. To pray the Lord’s Prayer takes approximately thirty seconds.  To read one verse of scripture takes less than thirty seconds.  How hard is it to overcome the temptation to do nothing?  Babysteps.  You can do this.

And the more you do it, the stronger you become and the easier it gets.  Praying Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer from the Book of Alternative Services, including the scripture readings from the daily lectionary, takes approximately fifteen minutes.  Fifteen minutes a day will not provide an immediate overhaul of your spiritual life, but it is enough to make a noticeable difference in your sense of your relationship with God.

The woman who took on the nickname Flylady is a woman who was dealing with depression.  Her house was a wreck, and she realized that it’s hard to feel good about yourself when you’re in the midst of constant chaos.  So she began by simply shining her sink once a day.  She added one new routine a month, and eventually, she worked up to doing 15 minutes a day of decluttering and cleaning.  She found that when her house was chaotic, she felt chaotic, but when her house felt peaceful, she felt more peaceful too.  She realized that taking care of her surroundings was worth some effort, because taking care of her surroundings was a way of taking care of herself.  She chose the nickname Flylady because Fly, F, L, Y, is an acronym for Finally Loving Yourself.  It was not the only component of her recovery (therapy and medication were helpful too), but it was an important one.  I expect it was important not only because the results of a peaceful home were therapeutic, but also because the action of taking care of yourself rather than neglecting yourself is therapeutic in itself.  

The same thing is true of our spiritual lives.  The results of cultivating our relationship with God are beneficial, and even the action of making an effort to care for our spiritual life is beneficial.  In a way, loving God is a form of loving yourself, just as receiving God’s love for you is a form of loving God.