How much have you been Lent?

Homily preached at Eltham College on 27th February 2009 based on St Matthew iv.1-11

Do you really know who you are?

How would you go about
explaining who you are
to someone who has never met you?

Well chances are,
shortly after you have told them
your name and your age,
you’ll start talking about
your interests and hobbies:

how you enjoy going to parties
and dancing to Lady Gaga,
or sitting at home
reading The Brothers Karamazov;
how you can wield an epee with remarkable skill
or fill in a Sudoku in four minutes flat.

Are you really you because of what you do?

Let’s just say you are not allowed
to explain who you are by your interests
and what you do.

Who are you now?

Well, now perhaps
you’ll try to say something about who you are
by where you live,
where you go to school.

You might start talking about
what you and your family own,
what make of Apple Notebook you own,
what size shoes you take,
the fact that you love kebabs
or a frappuccino
with extra cinnamon.

Are you really you because of what you own?

So now let’s restrict the options further.

You cannot explain who you are
with what you have.

Who are you now?

David’s son,
brother of Phil,
Eric’s friend,
Mia’s boyfriend?
Is that who you are?

That’s sounds like different people.

What about what you remember?

The time you first lost a tooth,
your first words,
your Bar-mitzvah,
that embarrassing incident
with the spoon,
bouncy castle
and tub of mayonnaise?

That’s all in the past, that’s not you.

Let’s say
you are not allowed to explain who you are
using what you own,
what you have done, do,
or what you hope to do,
who your family and friends are,
what you look like
or hope to look like,
or using any memories whatsoever.



Let’s say that you have to say who you are
without using your physical being
or even your thoughts.

Who are you now?

Are you even you
any more without these things?

If you believe that you still exist
even when these things are all gone,
then congratulations,
you cannot be a materialist.

You have just had a glimpse into the wilderness.

In the wilderness,
there’s nothing to define who you are
apart from you yourself.

You come face to face with the person that you are.

It’s like looking in the mirror,
only without the benefit
of hairspray, Clearasil and deodorant.



Is that something that you’d find pleasant,
stuck in the middle of nowhere
with just yourself for company,
warts and all?

And yet some people choose to do just that!

Spend time in a self-inflicted wilderness
trying to discover who on earth they are.

There are people who try to find out
something about who they are
by leaving things behind
which merely distract them from the truth.

In this day and age it’s difficult
to find a modern wilderness,
though Slough and Gravesend
certainly seem to fit the bill.

Indeed for folk who have families
and commitments it is difficult
to just drop everything to find out who we are.

For this purpose,
the three Abrahamic Faiths –
Islam, Judaism and Christianity -
stress the importance of fasting.
In the Christian faith,
the Lord Jesus Himself
chooses to spend time alone in the wilderness
to find out more about Himself.

Later He tells His disciples that
fasting is a necessity in order
to demonstrate to ourselves
that we are not defined
by our needs even for food.

Fasting in former days meant
spending dawn to dusk without eating.

These days,
a fast for a Christian can mean
to give up something we enjoy
to show that what we enjoy
isn’t the centre of our world,
that there is more to us
beyond what we do, say, think
or even fail to do say or think.


However, fasting is easier said than done.



It’s uncomfortable,
and boring,
and you get withdrawal symptoms.

The twinge of hunger
when a chocolate cake is brought into the room,

that feeling of not knowing what to do
since you’ve stopped watching Skins,

the waking in the middle of the night sweating
because you’ve gone without your fix
of swallowing a tube of Smarties in one go.

If it takes the forty days and nights of Lent
giving up console games
or Facebook
for you to realise this about yourself
and also about other people,
then isn’t it worth it?

Of course,
like the Lord Christ,
you will be tempted to give up,
seek out something
to make it more convenient to you
or to make the withdrawal symptoms go away.

Fasting does take strength of character,
and it is precisely that character
that we try to seek in the wilderness
that Lent provides for us.

You see, you exist.

You exist with a dignity,
a humanity and a personality
that can never be taken away from you.

Though you’re not exactly prepared to admit it,
you are actually worth knowing,
each single one of you.

You cannot be defined by things,
or words,
or actions or even ideas.

You are you
and you have every reason to be proud
of being who you are
– no exceptions.

What will it take for you to give up
before you find out more about how wonderful you really are?