A letter from Rebecca Young in Indonesia
February 25,2010
Dear friends,
With the beginning of Lent on February 17th, Christians worldwide have entered into our time of preparation for celebration of Jesus' passion that begins approximately forty days from now. This past week, I found my own ways to observe Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday.
Becca and friend Sri Yuyuni shared Shrove Tuesday pancakes on Feb 16, Jakarta.Even though I am far from home and from a source of maple syrup, I made pancakes Tuesday night that I served with syrup made from palm sugar. Because a Muslim friend, Sri Yuyuni, was here visiting me from Aceh, I asked if she would be interested in joining me in this Christian cultural practice. I wish I had remembered to take a photograph of her, seated politely at my dining room table and looking elegant in her veil, but at the same time clearly not knowing what to think of pancakes and syrup. "It's very sweet," was the most positive comment she could come up with.
Our meal together prompted a short discussion on fasting. I explained how we as Christians forgo one of our favorite things for the next forty days. "Forty days!" Yuyun exclaimed, thinking of how the Muslim period of fasting was a shorter thirty days. "Yes," I said, "But we don't give up everything. Just one thing, not all food and drink like you do." "But we get to eat every night, and in the early morning hours before sunrise," she noted. It seems we both wanted to make the other feel as if her tradition's fast was more of a challenge.
This discussion led to my friend's recalling how, as a teenager, her mother had a hard time waking her up during the fasting period in order to eat before sunrise. "I never felt like eating that early," she explained. I thought how teenagers are so similar the world over, no matter what their religion. It's always a fight to make them get up early and eat properly.
Priest Suyatno Hadiatmojo wears Javanes attire as he processes into Ash Wednesday services at Saint John the Disciple Catholic Church, Somohitan, Java, Feb 17.But back to the topic of Lent, and in light of the importance placed on this period in western Christianity, I thought you might be interested in what happens during Lent in Indonesia. Although there is no major celebration akin to our Mardi Gras, the ten million Catholics in Indonesia do have services on Ash Wednesday. Here in Jakarta on that Wednesday afternoon, I saw people who proudly wore a cross of ashes on their forehead.
Interestingly, the smudgy grey mark on their foreheads somewhat resembles the mark that many Muslims have from a lifetime of bowing down to God in their daily prayer. Both marks, either the ones etched permanently by long practice or the ones worn for a few hours as a sign of entry into a period of penitence, are visible signs of the bearer's religious devotion. This past Wednesday both types of marks could be seen among the citizens of Jakarta and numerous other cities in Indonesia, where Catholics and Muslims live side-by-side practicing their different ways of expressing their love for God.
Lent is not, however, a generally recognized or observed concept among Indonesia's 21 million Protestant Christians. The Indonesian language has no word for it. The definition given for the English word "Lent" in an Indonesian theological dictionary says, "The period of 40 days (not counting Sundays) beginning from Ash Wednesday until Easter that is observed by Roman Catholics, the Eastern Church, and some Protestant churches as a period of fasting." The dictionary uses 32 Indonesian words to express the meaning contained in the four letter English word, "Lent."
Reflecting on possible reasons why Indonesians don't recognize the word Lent, I came up with the following scenario. Christianity originally came to Indonesia via Dutch missionaries in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were Reformed Christians, meaning they were cousins to us as Presbyterians. They would have so recently experienced the Reformation that they would not be particularly inclined to emphasize a ritual like Lent, which, rightly or wrongly, was perceived of as a Catholic way to earn points to enter heaven. Martin Luther, not one to mince words, thought that fasting in order to have one sins forgiven was like punching Jesus in the mouth ("The Sermon on the Mount," Luther's Works 21:158). In other words, for a human to do something in order to attain salvation was to insult everything that Jesus did through his suffering and death on the cross.
The Christian traditions that the Dutch missionaries taught the Indonesians were the ones that emphasize God's grace in our lives: Christ's birth, death and resurrection, and the sacraments of baptism and communion. Therefore any traditions that suggested humans had to do something to earn God's favor were omitted, including fasting. Since that time, Lent has been reclaimed in new ways by Protestant churches in the West as a proper way to prepare oneself spiritually for the Easter season, without implying that the things we do might win us a seat in heaven.
Although Indonesian Protestants have not yet caught on to this new interpretation of the meaning of Lent, it can serve as a reminder to us in the West to avoid seeing Lent as something we do to get praise from God or from others. By prayer, meditation and fasting during these forty days, we do not win God's favor but instead open up ourselves to receive God's already bestowed favor, as the amazing gift of grace that it is.
In Christ's Peace,
Becca
P.S. I've given up chocolate for Lent. Let's hope the Easter Bunny can find Indonesia, because I'm especially looking forward to that basket this year! Some Catholic Indonesian friends are giving up red meat, others tea and coffee, and one couple I especially admire is giving up angry words.
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 132
