First Sunday of Lent, 2024 - Deny Self

What did you give up for Lent? One of the traditions associated with the six-weeks Lenten journey is the practice of “giving up something for Lent.”

This practice of “giving up something for Lent” is commonly linked to Jesus’s teaching about discipleship. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). We give up something for Lent as a way of denying ourselves. We commonly deny ourselves something we enjoy—chocolate, caffeine, soft drinks, alcohol, sweets, sugar, Facebook, video games, etc. The Catholic tradition of eating fish on Friday during Lent is rooted in this practice of giving up something for Lent—in their case, meat. Personally, I traditionally give up rhubarb.

The thinking behind this practice is that the inevitable desire for what we give up becomes a prompt to desire God—to think about God, to turn to God, to pray.

In my mind, the practice is based on a misunderstanding of Jesus’s teaching about denying self.

The phrase “deny themselves” is one of three phrases that Jesus used to describe what is involved in being his follower—a disciple. Deny themselves, take up their cross, follow me. These three phrases teach us that being a follower of Jesus is to engage in a way of life that is different from the way the rest of the world lives. It is to embrace a way of thinking and living that is different from how the world trained us to think and live.

As you undoubtedly know, a cross was a Roman means of capital punishment. It was used exclusively to punish those criminals who were guilty of insurrection—those who dared to challenge the ways of Rome and defy the power of Rome. Jesus taught that to be his follower was to live as an insurrectionist in defiance of the ways of Rome. To be his follower was (is) to learn a way of life that is at odds with the way Rome—as well as the rest of the world—lives.

“Follow me” was a technical term used by rabbis in recruiting potential students (disciples). It was an invitation to learn from the rabbi by living in relationship with him. To be a follower of Jesus was (is) to live in relationship with him, learning from him a different way of thinking and living—a way that was (is) at odds with the way the rest of the world (represented by Rome) thought and lived. This different way of thinking and living was called the kingdom of God. It was thinking and living shaped by the character of God and patterned after the ways of God.

These two phrases—take up their cross, follow me—are clues to understanding the term “deny themselves.” The term is a reference to our identity—an identity based upon how the world trained us to think and live. When we reject the way the world trained us to think and live—“take up their cross,” we turn loose of the identity we created by conforming to what the world said we needed to be and do if we wanted to be accepted and valued. I call this identity our constructed or manufactured self. This pseudo-identity was constructed through self-effort. It is based upon how we measured up to the expectations of the world in which we grew up—family, society, church, culture. This identity is not our authentic or true self—the person God created us to be. It is a persona we created to present to others.

Because this manufactured self was constructed through self-effort, it is an egocentric self. It is me-focused, hence the term egocentric. It operates out of a self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit.

This manufactured, egocentric identity is fed by comparing and competing. It unconsciously sees itself as better than others—particularly those who fail to measure up to the expectations expressed in society’s religious laws, moral standards, behavioral codes. Judging and criticizing reinforces the manufactured self’s sense of being better than “those people.” An unrecognized spirit of arrogance lives at the core of this egocentric identity. 

To be a follower of Jesus is to turn loose of this manufactured identity—the persona we created in order to be valued and accepted by the world. It is to discover our true self—the person God created us to be—as we walk in relationship with Jesus, learning and living the ways of God he taught.

As we walk with Jesus, a servant spirit—the spirit of Jesus—grows in us (Mark 9:33-37), displacing the self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit of the manufactured, egocentric self. As the servant spirit grows in us, we surrender comparing and competing, criticizing and judging along with the better than-less than thinking that props up our manufactured, egocentric identity. As long as we cling to the identity of our manufactured self, we cannot genuinely serve others. We will be caught up in protecting and propping up the identity we manufactured by conforming to what the world told us we needed to be and do in order to be accepted and valued.

To follow Jesus is to die to the manufactured, egocentric identity we created in order to be accepted and valued by the world. This false identity is what we give up for Lent. It is what we give up to live as a follower of Jesus. It is what it means to “deny themselves.”