REDEEMING THE TIME

Ember Saturday in Lent

Bill is a dentist in New Braunfels, Texas. He is the quintessential “decent” man (I use the word in its oldest—and best—sense): devoted to his family and respected by his community. He was surrounded by his wife, son and grandchildren, but even so, I was lucky enough to spend a few minutes with him last night at a big Texas Barbeque—on a Friday night in Lent—eating thick slices of beef brisket (nothing in Texas is quite like anywhere else—while almost every Knight of Columbus Hall in the area serves Friday night fish frys, the big Protestant church in town has “wild game” dinners on Friday nights, just to show the Pope can’t tell them what to eat!).

Bill and I didn’t get together to defy the Pope, but as part of a large gathering to raise money for an ongoing charity he’s devoted to. Hundreds of people came to the Coliseum in Seguin to eat brisket and donate towards the St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Honduras and World Missions BBQ and Auction. It’s one of Seguin's largest annual fundraisers; throughout the year its monies help sponsor trips to Honduras—Bill goes and provides free dental care for a week or two each year, but so do doctors, veterinarians, teachers, horticulturalists, college kids from the local Lutheran University, “all sorts and conditions of men”—and women—come together to make life better for those suffering and in need. Like many a Texan, Bill doesn’t talk about himself much, or too easily, but he told me when he learned about the mission work, he couldn’t help but throw in with it. “I’ve been given so much, and the need there is so great,” he said. “I just sort of thought it was my duty.” He obviously still does. He’s been involved since the early 1990’s.

This scene, with local variations, happened in hundreds, more likely, thousands of places yesterday, as people came together to support relief or charity works. Some come for the brisket or catfish or bean soup, but there’s a more fundamental reason, so fundamental that sometimes we can’t put it into words. We come because of suffering.

Deserved or not, we’ve all suffered. Despite the many and great differences between us, every human being shares this: we’ve suffered pain and tragedy and loss. When we do, regardless of our faith (or lack of it), our wealth (or lack…), our intelligence (or…), in any of the myriad ways we're different, at some point we each cry “Why?” “Why me? It’s not fair.”

There's no answer that will satisfy that cry. We can tell ourselves suffering is meant to “teach” us something—patience, compassion, tolerance—some quality we need to “learn,” but as good as those things are, the answer doesn’t address the anguished cry of the suffering soul. It can’t. We haven’t come up against an intellectual conundrum. We’ve come up against evil.

God didn’t make us to suffer, He doesn’t take pleasure in it, He doesn’t want us to. More than you or I ever can, God hates it. He created us to take pleasure in His creation, to share it with Him. Whether you take the Genesis story of Adam and Eve’s fall from Grace as a literal fact or a profound parable, the effect is the same: we consented to evil and that changed everything. We can talk about original sin and Adam’s guilt (as Adam tried, from the beginning, to shift the blame to Eve—“the woman”—and even, ultimately, to God—“whom Thou gavest to be with me”), but none of us need to trace our ancestry to find the blame for evil and sin. “My own heart teacheth me,” the Psalmist says, speaking for us all, “the wickedness of the ungodly.” Scripture doesn’t explain sin or suffering, but it leaves no doubt we are intimately involved in its cause.

We can’t make evil go away. Social scientists at the beginning of the 20th century confidently prophesied in an article in the Scientific American that the future would be one of unlimited prosperity across the globe. Poverty and war would cease. Evil was not socialized or educated out of existence. It’s here for the duration.

So are we. We can’t do away with evil, but we can do something even better. We can transform it. We can redeem it. You and I may not be able to explain why there is suffering, but we can assure that suffering has meaning—that it’s transfigured into redemption.

How?

We can keep Lent with Jesus. We can fast and pray and give alms. We can struggle to combat sin in our lives—the sin we commit, don’t worry about anybody else’s. Examine your life; uncover the evils you cherish, and expose them to God. Go to confession and receive forgiveness, and enter spiritual combat renewed. Then, think of Bill, the Texas dentist. He hasn’t given all his money away, but he has given some of it. He hasn’t abandoned his family, but he has left them for a time to help others. He’s kept his responsibilities—but added to them. He is redeeming not only his time, but the time in which he lives. He’s not going to Honduras until June, but his sacrifice—and that of his family as he goes—is a Lenten one.

How will you redeem the time? Ask the Lord and see where He leads. It may be to a brisket supper on a Friday in Lent.