Lent 2021 - Journeying with Joel - Can you spend 40 days this Lent in one passage of the Bible?

Fancy a challenge, or rather fancy joining me in a challenge I'm setting myself.

Could you spend 40 days this Lent in one passage of the Bible?

Don't get me wrong, I know I'll read plenty more of the Bible, the Old Testament and New Testament, and I'll undoubtedly preach about other bits of the Bible, you might do too, but still...

What might happen to you, to me, if each day in Lent I came back to the passage from Joel we read on Ash Wednesday.

It's a funny, three-chaptered book in the middle of the minor prophets. I'm not confident he gets much of a look in throughout the other 51 weeks in the year, but every Ash Wednesday the Anglican church includes Joel 2:1-2,12-17 in its main service. I mean we don't even include the whole chapter, just a few select verses.

You can read them here, or the whole chapter here.

So that's eight verses in total. 

Eight verses from one chapter from one of the 39 books of the Old Testament, which itself is out of 66 books in the entire Bible.

I hear lots of people say that Lent isn't about giving stuff up (despite the ubiquity of the question: what are you giving up this Lent?). Instead, people tell me that Lent is about taking up practices, behaviours, habits and hobbies that will help their walk with God.

One of these disciplines is reading the Bible. There's this consensus among Christians I meet that they want to use Lent to 'read my Bible more.' This often leads to ungovernable reading plans, early alarm roll calls, and urgently downloaded Apps. And so many people plunge themselves into a swimming pool of guilt as they struggle to keep up with the volume of Bible they attempt to ingest.

What I'm suggesting is eight verses. Eight verses you might read every morning. You could read that as your coffee brews, or your washing bowl fills, or as you brush your teeth. How long does it take you to read eight verses? Doesn't sound like much, does it?  

You could read the verses and then have a read of this blog (if you want?). I'll try to blog each day on a new aspect of Joel I'm noticing.

Fancy it?

I do. It's both a serious challenge, but also a playful one.

And I hope that might characterise your Lent: serious and playful. 

And for a moment more, use your imagination, how might you feel, think, act if you were to commit to this challenge? What might happen to me in the rising to the challenge?

Lent through Joel 1: First things first, Christian, its all about the heart, all of it.

Yesterday (yes, I know...typical tardiness) was Ash Wednesday. Rather surprisingly, I was asked to preach at the Ashing service.

Well actually, I was asked to offer a short reflection.

So I really shouldn't have rolled my sleeves up (metaphorically) to do some actual investigation of the text. I chose to preach on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.

As I lay in bed this morning, contemplating the rest of Lent, I was struck that there really was so much I had wanted to say, but couldn't even hint at, let alone say.

So I've decided to try and extend my reflection on Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 across the forty days of Lent. Each day I will explore, briefly, another aspect of this reading and what it might say to us as we journey through Lent.

So here goes...ready?

God doesn't want part of your heart, he wants it all. You are to be wholehearted.

As I lay awake in bed on Tuesday evening, having drafted my sermon, in those few moments before I drift off to sleep, and that's genuinely about a minute normally, I felt a prompt deep within me that I had "missed the point."

Sure, I'd noticed that God speaks directly, in the first person, only in verse 12 of Joel 2.

"Even now, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."

Now as it was Ash Wednesday two things had preoccupied me: the idea of a return, and the combination of prayer-aids (fasting/weeping/mourning). But it was as if God told me to re-read the sentence. I was planning on saying, "God wants your heart."

But that's not what it says - unfortunately.

That would have made the call very fitting for Valentine's Day. When so much money is spent by couples on gifts and meals, while constantly holding back some of their heart, awaiting a better option, another heart to pursue. (Not all I appreciate!)

It's easy to give some of your heart. To be part time, to offer some commitment.

But God is patiently asking for nothing less than all our hearts.

And that is why I need Lent.

There are parts of my heart I don't want to give God, sins I cherish and cling to, attitudes of self-righteousness that allow me to justify my moods and tempers. I even use some religious habits to protect me from really giving myself to God.

Lent then is the season of the year where we step into a wilderness, we try to wean ourselves off those things that seek to control or dominate. We acknowledge the things that have a piece of our heart.

I think Joel offers some insights into how we might do this. Perhaps you'll accompany me as we work through this call to return to God with all our hearts.