Lenten blog | April 15, 2025

HOLY TUESDAY

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for Holy Tuesday, April 15th:  Psalm 71:1-14; Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; and John 12:20-36.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

On this tax-day, as thoughts turn to our funding of what’s left of the government, I’d like to begin with Thomas Paine’s Revolutionary period pamphlet The Crisis.  It begins with these famous words:  “THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

These words of Thomas Paine were published on December 23, 1776, not quite six months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  The fight for freedom was not going well at the time.  In December 1776, the Continental Congress was forced to flee from Philadelphia because it could not be held.  The government was on the run.  George Washington was so desperate for a victory when Paine’s pamphlet was published that he and his troops planned a daring sneak attack by crossing the Delaware River on Christmas Night, but that victory was still in the future as Paine wrote.  It was in this dire situation that Paine raised the motivation of FREEDOM.

To bolster the spirits of the Colonists Paine wrote those often-quoted words:  “THESE are the times that try men’s souls.”  He dismissed the “summer soldier” and “sunshine patriot” as unworthy of the historic task the Colonies had undertaken.  He lauded the ones who stood strong in spite of repeated set-backs.  And Paine urged them forward in this struggle because they were fighting for an idea – FREEDOM.  Tyranny, authoritarianism in any of its unpersuasive forms, must rely on force and intimidation to survive.  No people embraces the tyrant or authoritarian; they bow instead.  Paine, however, countered tyranny not with threats of greater force, but with a greater idea, the idea of freedom. 

The 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord is this weekend.  John Adams knew this struggle firsthand.  He argued that the Revolution did not begin with the shots fired in these two Colonial towns, but with the idea of freedom that had been born and nurtured on this continent since the Pilgrims and Puritans.  It was the idea of freedom that distinguished the “summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” from the ones who would endure the struggle and gain the victory.  Freedom is our nation’s founding principle.  We have failed it often and forbidden it to others even more often, but it is a principle that calls us forward.  In spite of our past failures, freedom goads us to do better.  The hypocrisy of praising freedom and then denying it in practice is so unsettling that it either must be abandoned or it will lead to change.

Paul tells the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (5:1)  Jesus set us free through a gospel that honours and recognizes the worth of every individual, and through His death on the cross which is Jesus’ absolute rejection of the false power maintained by tyrants and authoritarians who deny freedom to their sycophants and subjects.  A power that has to be enforced because it has no idea that motivates allegiance, no idea such as freedom, will last only as long as force can be sustained, and the history of tyrants has shown us that such energy is not limitless.  Caesars are gone, but Christ crucified remains.

When Paul is writing his Epistles, the church is small, young and vulnerable.  It had no power, but it had an idea.  And that idea was lived perfectly on the cross.  It is an idea of sacrifice for the greater good, and the complete rejection of self-serving power and wealth.  In Paul’s own “times that try men’s souls,” in Paul’s own time when “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” are wholly insufficient followers, Paul surprisingly points to the idea of the cross:  “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  The cross should have been a symbol of defeat, but for Paul it was the idea that made all the difference in the world. 

On these last days of Lent, let us find the time to ponder what we think the cross means as the power and wisdom of God.  Let us hold up the idea of the cross in comparison to the ways of the world and to those who are powerful in it.  As Paine’s words honouring freedom inspired people in their bleakest moment to continue the struggle, may Paul’s focus on the cross and its “foolishness” inspire us to live by its idea and continue the struggle to stand up for generosity and community and against the presently popular notions of greed and self-pride.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.