Stewardship of Life

My season of sacrifice and self denial

By Rob Blezard, March 1, 2012

‘IT’S PERSONAL’ blog

I can truly relate to what Jesus is saying in this Sunday’s Gospel lesson, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me“ (Mark 8:34b).

Deny myself? Oh yeah! During Lent I’m all about self denial. Take up my cross? You better believe it! Until Easter, my life will be a regular via dolorosa. When I signed up for the Jesus team, I left myself behind. Nobody said following Jesus would be a walk in the park. I’m learning that the hard way.

Here’s how I know: For Lent I’ve given up sweets.

Since Ash Wednesday not a single sugary treat has entered my mouth. And need I point out that Ash Wednesday was more than a week ago? No cookies, no chocolate, no cake, nothing. For more than a whole entire week. (Except, of course, on Sunday, which doesn’t count in Lenten sacrifices.)

There are some who downplay my sacrifice. A “Christian” friend who is into the so-called “social justice” thing tells me giving up sweets for 40 out of 46 days is not a big deal, not when 925 million people in the world are malnourished and 16,000 children a day die of starvation (according to bread.org).

But she totally misses the point. I’m not one of those malnourished people giving up sweets for Lent. I’m a middle-class North American. Malnourishment isn’t a big problem in my culture. Just the opposite. Here in the United States 74 percent of the population is overweight, and one in three is obese (U.S. Centers for Disease Control).

It’s easy to “sacrifice” when you have nothing to begin with, but when you are accustomed to having everything, as I do, sacrifice becomes a lot harder.

Here’s how hard it is for residents of the United States to “give up” the common Lenten stuff:

Sugar: Including sugars from corn, beets, cane and other sources, Americans consume about 100 pounds per capita of added sweeteners each year. That comes out to about a quarter pound per day, so my Lenten sugar fast of 40 days means I give up about 10 pounds of sugar. Now that’s a sacrifice!

Television: The average American watches 34 hours of TV a week (Nielson Company)! You can’t expect people to quit — not when Cupcake Wars and Jersey Shore are on. Of course, there ARE some dumb shows, too.

Driving: The EPA says the average American drives 1,000 miles a month. We have a lot of places to go, and a lot of things to do. How else would we get there? Walk? Ride a bike? Unlikely. (See “obesity,” above.)

Alcohol: The per-capita consumption of alcohol in the United States is about 2.5 gallons, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Considering a regular can of beer has about half an ounce of alcohol, that’s a lot of hooch. You don’t have to be Lindsey Lohan to know that giving up booze takes self-denial.

Smoking: The CDC says there are 45.3 million smokers in the United States, half of which try (unsuccessfully) to quit every year. But here’s the deal: They’re addicts. You can’t expect them to give it up, even for Lent.

Which really brings me back to my original point. When we become accustomed to creature comforts, it’s like an addiction. You can’t expect us to just give them up just by making up our minds to. It takes work, it takes suffering, it takes agony. In other words, when we give them up, it’s a big, big deal.

So when it comes to self denial, taking up my cross and all that stuff, you know I’m there. After all, I’m giving up sweets.

Photo by Randy OHC, used by Creative Commons license. Thanks, Randy!