In an exquisite love poem to his wife, Micheal O’Siadhail writes: “As when late last night you started telling me How even as a girl you’d known your dream would be Bringing others’ dreams about.” (Matins for You, Our Double Time, Bloodaxe Books, 1998)
Lent, which began on Wednesday, is a time to get in touch with the big picture of reality and with the core desires and dreams that inspire us. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying, wrestling with his vocation. He was tested through hunger and the temptations of reputation and power. He emerged announcing a vision that he called “the Kingdom of God”. This is deeply rooted in his Jewish scriptures, and above all it is about a world in tune with a God of love, generosity, compassion and joy. He imagines this world in parables and vivid images, and gives signs of what it is like by healing, forgiving, welcoming the marginalised, and gathering a community of friends. He also embodies it against opposition, and Lent culminates in remembering His death and resurrection.
What might a 21st-century Lent be about? The classic wisdom of Lent needs to be listened to. It is a time to begin or renew good habits that orientate our lives to God and the Kingdom of God. The four basic practices are prayer, fasting, study and giving. It is foolish to ignore how lives have been and are being transformed by taking these seriously.
But it is easy to miss out on the vision such practices are meant to serve. Lent is a time to dare something beyond the habitual, to imagine responses to God that reflect something of God’s own breathtakingly surprising creativity, generosity, wisdom and superabundant, joyful and sacrificial love. Lent cries out for the extraordinary and extravagant. Are Jesus’s 40 days of fasting an excessive response to the outpouring on him of the Holy Spirit in His baptism and to His Father’s affirmation: “You are my beloved Son, in whom my heart delights”? If we too are loved like that we are liberated to dream dreams and take risks. In line with O’Siadhail’s love poem, our dream could be “bringing others’ dreams about” — above all the dream of Jesus for the Kingdom of God.
What could this mean? We might try prayer that goes beyond set times and “takes as long as it takes” as we stay up for a night or go on a retreat. Or we might fast for a while not only from food but also from media and electronic communications to allow us to focus on essentials without distraction. Or we might study something that really stretches us. Or study with new partners — a transformative practice for me has been studying the Bible, Tanakh and Koran with Jews, Muslims and fellow Christians. Or we might give extravagantly and sacrificially to a cause or person in need.
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But remember that God’s Kingdom is a dream for the whole world. In recent weeks I have been deeply moved by almost daily communications from a dear Libyan friend who is part of the “Network of Free Ulema — Libya”. It is a diverse alliance of religious leaders, teachers, doctors, judges, engineers, academics, writers and others, men and women from across Libya. Besides anguished appeals for help, and descriptions of killings, bombings, brutality and innumerable kidnappings by Gaddafi forces, they also offer a vision of “upholding the highest religious, spiritual, moral and human values ... We believe in the richness of plurality, and the wisdom of dialogue and communication with all other faiths and cultures.”
Then, like a sign of hope for such a world, came the blog of another friend: “I am a Jewish scholar and I am aware how many of these same religious scholars condemn the policies and often the very legitimacy of the State of Israel... But today I name them friends ... Like the cries of the children of Israel, the pleas of these Libyan religious scholars command our attention. I hear this as a call to call them friends and to act.”
Let us this Lent pray for and perform signs of hope for the Kingdom of God. “Your Kingdom come!”
David F. Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity and Director of the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme at the University of Cambridge. His latest book is The Future of Christian Theology (Wiley-Blackwell, £19.99)