Spring Training
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
February 25, 2004—Ash Wednesday
Matthew 6:1-6; 16-21
I don’t know if you all are as excited about this time of year as I am. There’s something in the air and we know great things are ahead of us. Of course, I am talking about the fact that spring training has begun in baseball. I sat down yesterday and read all the articles online about Nomar Garciaparra’s press conference in Florida, about the Alex Rodriguez/Derek Jeter tensions. I have already bought my tickets for two of the four games of the Red Sox/Orioles home opener at Camden Yards. This is a great time of year.
See, the interesting thing about spring training is that you get a glimpse of what the entire season is going to be like. You get to see how that new pitcher is going to shape up, how somebody’s home run production will likely be, how a team’s chemistry is shaping up inside the clubhouse. In spring training you get a tantalizing glimpse into the way the season will shape up.
It is no less the case with us. In effect, as we enter into Lent we begin our own training for our Christian lives.
How do we do this? What are the regimens that we use in this training?
In the reading from the Gospel today we hear the words of Jesus instructing his disciples on their spiritual disciplines of charity, prayer, and fasting. In it he instructs us not to perform deeds of charity so that others may see them, but to let our almsgiving be secret. We are told not to pray in public so that others may see us. And not to fast that we look gloomy. Sometimes these things are read so that Jesus appears to be saying “Don’t pray in public” “Don’t give visible charity” and “Don’t fast”. Jesus is saying nothing of the kind.
Jesus reminds us that when we do these things we do them for God, not for our own glory. When we give alms to the poor, it is supposed to be about the poor and needy, beloved of God, not about us. Now, people may see you giving to the poor. When you write a check to a charity, someone is going to know your name. The point is not to give only in secret—but to give only when you are unconcerned with reward.
The same with prayer and fasting. We here are gathered in public prayer. We are making visible signs of such prayer on our foreheads. We are engaging in abstinence from food or in fasting. Christ reminds us that we do these things for spiritual transformation within, not to be seen as pious from without.
So often are these disciplines associated with Lent that we forget that their application is much broader. Just as in spring training, the disciplines and the regimens we go through now are not irrelevant to the regular season. In the same way our Lenten disciplines are not irrelevant to our Christian faith the whole year long.
Does that mean you have to give up chocolate or meat or whatever it is the whole year? Remember, Jesus teaches us that it is not in the act itself, but in the intention, in the inner spiritual meaning. Our Lenten disciplines are designed to train us, as our spring training, for the spiritual disciplines of self-sacrifice and devotion to God that last us the whole year.
When we see it this way, we come to understand that our Lenten journey is not a journey that ends at the Resurrection, but is our training, our spiritual spring training, for the journey that begins at Easter and lasts our whole lives long.
