Lent - 40 Shades of Gratitude

If you follow The Archers you’ll know that Alan the Vicar has put forward a novel idea for the village’s Lenten observance. Let’s give up complaining, he’s proposed, and every time we offend, let’s put a fine in the sin-box and give the proceeds to charity.

I quite like that idea, though it needs a bit of calibration. Does “complaining” only cover what we do publicly, or what we are overheard doing? Does it only cover what we say or write, or should it include what we think as well? Does it only apply to named people or organisations (“The Vicar doesn’t visit enough”; “Bridge Farm yogurts have lost their taste”) or also to the ubiquitous “they” (as in “Why don’t they mend the potholes in our roads?” or “They don’t care that our trains never run on time”)? And when is a negative comment not necessarily a complaint (“Our bins haven’t been emptied this week: that’s going to cause problems, so we’d better phone the Council”)? And are Ambridge folk still allowed to talk about “bad weather” or a “poor wi-fi signal”?

Maybe the casuistry of complaining is too complex. And to rub your nose in negativity doesn’t exactly lift the spirits. That’s the trouble with Lent. It’s not that giving up things isn’t often very good for us - fasting and self-denial are important aspects of a healthy spiritual (and ordinary human) life. But so much depends on our attitude, our motive for undertaking whatever Lenten exercise or discipline we opt for. So I’m much more encouraged by a tweet from one of my favourite Twitter clergy, @sallyhitchener. “This year I'm taking up #GratitudeForLent - 40 days, 40 thank you notes to people to whom I'm grateful, for small or great things. Want to join me?”

I think Sally gets right to the heart of Lent. For a start, she accentuates the positive, always a good antidote to the negativity of complaining. But she isn’t calling for the kind of generalised goodwill clergy are so proficient at while never sacrificing their gift of vagueness. She sets a clear objective that is, as business-speak has it, SMART: Specific, Measurable (she’ll know if she’s achieved it or not), Assignable (clear about whose task this is, in this case hers), Realistic (it can actually be achieved) and Time-related (in this case, 40 days). The Muslim month of Ramadan is characterised by smart objectives for the fast which makes it all the easier to get a handle on (I don’t say easier to observe). I believe a Lenten observance that sets smart goals will be helpful in at least contemplating the journey that lies ahead.

But much more important is the content of Sally’s Lenten resolution. “Gratitude for Lent” - what could be more true to the spirit of Christianity than that? You could say that gratitude is where Christian discipleship begins, as we acknowledge with thankfulness the tender mercy of the God who has loved us in Jesus Christ and called us to be citizens of his kingdom. So to practise gratitude in Lent is to go back to the very foundations of faith. The clue is in the principle of eucharist. That word literally means “Thanksgiving”. So to live eucharistically doesn’t only mean participating in the service of worship at which we celebrate together the great acts of God. At a deeper level, it means cultivating thankfulness as a habit of the heart, training our deepest selves to respond to life in a spirit of gratitude and praise to God our Creator and Redeemer. In Lent, that gratitude is given a paschal shape as we prepare to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, the redemptive event from which our very identity as Christians is derived.

I used the word “training” just now. Training is what the Greek word askesis means. An ascetic is someone who takes their training seriously, reckons that it’s something worth investing in. Yes, the three great disciplines Jesus speaks about in the Sermon on the Mount, prayer, fasting and giving alms, are basic to the classic Christian understanding of askesis. But motivating them all, I think, has to be a sense of thankfulness, the eucharistic acknowledgment that these disciplines are not ends in themselves, but are meant to deepen our engagement with God whose goodness has invited us into the adventure and challenge of discipleship. The ascetic journey is to travel more deeply into God’s heart of love. It both draws on our thankfulness and enhances it as we discover how infinitely indebted we are to the Love that moves the sun and the stars.

So Lent, this annual season of renewal, this springtime of the Christian year, invites us to find new ways of practising the habit of eucharistia. Where do we start? Sally gives us a practical suggestion. Her forty thank you notes will get us thinking about forty ways in which we need to be grateful - to other people, and through them, to God himself. And alongside these forty shades of gratitude, why not pray the General Thanksgiving each day? I don’t know a better way of seeing off our tendency to complaint and negativity. Indeed, I believe we shall discover that thankfulness is truly life-changing because it transfigures our perspective on life. The Thanksgiving Prayer says that we should be grateful above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. Which is what we look forward to celebrating at Easter. Here's the General Thanksgiving in its original, magnificent form in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.