Lent starts at the end of February and with it sometimes come Lenten
resolutions – promises to give up or take up actions for the forty
days of Lent. These resolutions, like New Year's resolutions are
often well-intentioned but not well-kept, and are usually to do with
improving either your physical health, your character or even your
spiritual health. But it's not just around New Year and Lent that we
try to improve ourselves; all year round we are faced with
motivational slogans, particularly on social media.
One
rich vein for motivational words is Rudyard Kipling's 1910 poem
“If-”, a poem which even if you haven't had to learn it, still
manages to be memorable enough that odd lines will pop into your mind
for no apparent reason. “If-” is a masterpiece of Victorian
“righteous certitude”, a series of pieces of 'wisdom', which if
kept, Kipling claims will give you the Earth and make you a Man. It
does contain some good advice, as relevant now as then, if not more
so: “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, / But make
allowance for their doubting too; / If you... being lied about, don’t
deal in lies, / Or being hated, don’t give way to hating.” But
although Kipling wants to present a picture of the ideal (hu)man, the
image we get is of someone that is stoical to the point of
inhumanity.
This is demonstrated by
the words which are famously written above the players’ entrance to
the Centre Court at Wimbledon: “If you can meet with Triumph and
Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same.” Whilst it
is trying to encourage us to be gracious both in victory and defeat,
to truly follow it you have to care very little about anything.
Similarly, “If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, / If
all men count with you, but none too much” encourages an aloofness
which would render you incapable of love. Also the lines “If you
can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds’ worth of
distance run” are a warning against idleness, but too easily become
a guilt-inducing pressurizing to workaholism.
And as ever, even the wisest person fails to live up to their ideals,
just as we all fail to live up to the standards we set for ourselves,
whether they are resolutions or not! The one exception to this is
Jesus who gave wise advice for living as well as living out his
message perfectly. His most famous 'wisdom' teaching is to be found
in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), which ends with the parable
of the wise and foolish builders where Jesus says “everyone who
hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise
man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). As an
antidote to Kipling, and particularly to the “sixty seconds’
worth of distance run”, Jesus says “do not worry, saying, “What
shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we
wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly
Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”
(Matthew 6:31-33).
But Jesus knew we will
fail to live his way, which is why he died so our sins could be
forgiven. Lent reminds us that we need to be better, but that we
cannot be better without forgiveness for our mistakes and the power
of God's Holy Spirit to live his way. Even so we will never be
perfect until we receive eternal life in his presence.
