First Sunday in Lent
March 5, 2006


When was the last time you were in “Time Out?”

For many parents and children, the term ‘time out’ conjures images of punishment for a wrong doing. But instead of being a corporal nature, like a spanking, time out would send the unruly child to their room or to some other place way from the fun and frolic of unpunished life, until the child would ‘learn their lesson’. It is a strategy that attempts to mold children’s behavior by withholding something good, rather than inflicting something painful. People who discipline this way hope to create a more thoughtful generation, with less scares and scars than the era of physical punishment.

I wonder if many Catholics view Lent as a 40 day time out, as a kind of non-corporal time of punishment for misdeeds. Or, if not that, at least a ‘voluntary withholding of something good’ (like soda or alcohol or eating snacks between meals and the like), so people can ‘learn their lesson.’ Lent has taken on a kind of somber air, a rightful time of reflection and correction, but always with undertones of Catholic guilt of I am not successful in my attempts to amend my life.

I wonder, though, if there is another image of ‘time out’ that is more apt for this season? Instead of the punishment notion of time out, what if you switched it to the sports metaphor of ‘time out’. March Madness is upon us, with all the thrilling basketball games that will be played. And if you look at the use of time outs in basketball, the notion takes on another meaning. Time outs are used at crucial moments of the game in order to plan strategy, to shift momentum, to change direction and to draft a plan for a successful outcome. Time outs are limited and cherished, and are reserved usually for only the most important moments of the contest. (Unless, of course, you are Mike Martz, but that is another story…) Time outs allow the team to focus their thoughts, to regain their stamina and to align their wills to the deciding point of the contest.

With this metaphor of ‘time out’ in mind, listen again to the gospel reading. “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan, among the wild animals, but the angels ministered to him.” Jesus didn’t wander off into the desert in search of a quiet place and got lost. Rather, his ‘coach’, the Holy Spirit, drove him there. Fresh from his baptism, where he hears the voice from heaven saying that He is God’s Beloved Son, he is sent there to focus his thoughts, to align his will even more to the will of the Father, and to draft a plan for the preaching of the kingdom. It is crucial that he start his ministry ‘correctly’. By his ‘time out’, Jesus is then ready for the mission that the Father sends him on.

So, too, is our Lenten preparation a time out of the best sort. Perhaps we are just weary, out of breath from the business. Then use this time out to catch your breath, to restore your stamina. Maybe there has been loss or grief or change of job or change in our health. Use this time out to regroup, to refocus. Take these days to huddle around the coach in prayer. Lent is the time for us to gather with others who are on the journey, to draw energy and support. Time to set the course and strategy for the next part of the journey – our journey toward the dying and rising of Jesus. In that context, I invite you to the parish mission – beginning this Sunday night – either one night or all of them or as many as you can. Let it be a focused part of the time out we call lent.

40 days is a long time out. Forty days is long enough for good habits to stick. Long enough to reflect on the direction of our lives and make changes, long enough to regain our strength and momentum for the moment the whistle blows, and the game resumes at its crucial, cruciform, cross shaped moment. For that is exactly when Lent ends: at the Triduum – at the celebration of THE PATTERN that is meant to become the pattern of our lives – the dying and rising in sacrificial love for others. If our Lent does not leave us ready for resuming that way of living, then we’ve missed it.

But for now, the coach has called time out. So huddle up. It’s lent. 40 days of time out. Let’s use it wisely…