by the Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
Every year in Lent my family and I engage in that bit of pious fun known as Lent Madness. If you aren’t familiar, the good people at Forward Movement generate a March Madness style roster of saints, and then commission theologians, clergy, and authors to write reflections that go beyond the basic hagiography. The saints are usually from Lesser Feasts & Fasts, but occasionally stray into individuals who are honored in other branches of the Christian tradition. The saints face off each day in Lent, narrowing round by round from the initial 32, to the Saintly Sixteen, then to the Elate Eight, ultimately to the Faithful Four and the championship itself where the Golden Halo is bestowed. Participants vote each day on the saint they favor to win in a head-to-head matchup, and the winners are announced. It is certainly a bit of church nerdly fun, but also a great way to dig deeper into the lives of the saints.
At our breakfast table, as we discuss each matchup and as we vote, we try to define why, based on the reflections provided, we favor one saint over another. Inevitably one of our boys will remark on one of the saints with some variation on this comment: “Sure, they died for their beliefs. But, did that saint actually DO anything?” Almost always, at our breakfast discussions, the saint whose story indicates some kind of significant accomplishment, especially those who acted for justice or stood up for others, or gave generously, or performed a miracle – those are the saints we choose to win in a given matchup.
“Did they DO anything?”
I love this question. I will admit it is one that even if I don’t voice it, I am thinking too as we discuss the lives of the saints. My inner voice is asking to review their resumé of accomplishments. I suppose in part this is attributed to my desire to be known by my own actions. And, in part this stems from living in a world where making a difference, actually “doing something” about this or that or another problem we see or experience, seems very difficult. It is tricky and sometimes daunting to “do something”, say, about injustice or suffering or inequality! And, so, we desire to be about the doing.
But, there is a shadow side to this emphasis on doing. In our desire to recognize and participate in “doing something”, we can forget that we are also called to BE someone. Being is an essential part of our humanity. As the old saying goes, we are human beings not human doings! What about all those saints whose spiritual resumés are not full of accomplishments but are littered with accounts of their attitudes, beliefs, and inner traits? What about the saint who showed tenacity or refused to recant their faith, the saint who found meaning amidst suffering or who stayed true to themselves as an example for others? What might it mean to value the parts of our being as much as our doing?
This Lent at St. John’s we are reading the classic text from Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning, a deep reflection on Frankl’s time as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. In that book Frankl attends to several themes, not least of which is the ability to find or make meaning amidst life’s greatest hardships. One of the messages that pervades his story, is the truth that events and circumstances are not what make life intolerable or unbearable, but rather the absence of purpose – when we forget our reason for being, our deep and abiding why, that is when suffering and circumstance can overwhelm and destroy us.
Out of his experience of living through the darkest moment in modern history, Frankl writes, “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
Lent is a time when we are called to examine and repent of the suffering we have caused and the suffering caused on our behalf. It is a time of fasting and stripping away so that we can attend to the essence of who God is calling us to be and what God is calling us to do. In this season we meditate on the life of Jesus and his witness, who he was and what he did, and on the saints who modeled their lives on his. We draw close to what it means to be a people of both being and doing, and renew our commitment to live faithfully in light of these two essential threads of human existence, striving to be loving, honest, caring, just, and faithful, so that from our being, what we do will matter and last and make a difference in the world we have been called to serve!
