A Lenten Reflection

FORTY DAYS IN THE WILDERNESS

(AND FIVE MINUTES IN OUR PARKING LOT)

A Lenten Sermon by Reverend Leon “Peaches” Watkins

The folding chairs looked like they had been there since the Carter administration. The coffee, which had been brewing since approximately the same era, could strip the finish off a '78 Buick. The drum kit in the corner appeared to have survived at least one minor flood. The cinderblock wall featured letters painted by someone who was very inspired and very tired: JESUS PAID IT ALL (WE CHECKED THE RECEIPT).

Reverend Leon “Peaches” Watkins made his way to the front of the sanctuary carrying a sack lunch, a can of Diet Dr. Pepper, and a bag of Doritos that was conspicuously, almost defiantly, still sealed. He set them on the podium with the careful deliberation of a man laying out surgical tools, smoothed his notes with one palm, squinted at them like they'd said something offensive, and looked up at the congregation.

“Alright now, church,” Peaches said, his voice smooth but already suspicious. “I been hearin’ about this thing called Lent.”

He had, in fact, been hearing about it from his cousin Rochelle, who had started attending the big church over in Collierville—the kind of church with a coffee bar in the lobby and a lighting rig that could guide aircraft and/or interrogate suspects. He had discovered Lent like a man who finds a treadmill at a yard sale and assumes it’s haunted. Peaches had done his research, which involved reading an article online and watching three YouTube videos, one of which he did not trust on account of the man’s haircut.

“Apparently,” he said, consulting his notes with theatrical dignity, “it’s forty days where you give stuff up, feel real bad about your sins, and eat like a medieval goat.”

From the third row, Earl spoke up. “What kind of goat we talkin’? Because I ain’t doin’ kale.”

Peaches nodded solemnly. “Brother Earl, this goat has seen kale.”

He paused. “I tried it for twelve minutes this morning and nearly met the Lord ahead of schedule.”

The giving-up, Peaches explained, was where things had started to go sideways.

“They told me, ‘Peaches, you gotta give something up for Lent.’ So I said, ‘Alright, I’ll give up carbs.’”

From the back, Sister Velma didn’t look up from cleaning up an orange juice catastrophe that had been provided by the child next to her. “That’s how I know this ain’t the Spirit. The Spirit would never lead you there.”

Peaches placed a hand over his chest. “Sister Velma, my entire being bore witness against it.”

He let the moment breathe. “I got halfway through that sentence and my body filed an appeal.”

He had tried, in good faith. He had stood in his kitchen at 6:47 that morning, staring down a paper plate with a single hard-boiled egg on it, and he had felt, he said, the particular spiritual loneliness of a man who has voluntarily removed biscuits from his life and cannot justify the decision in any known language.

“But then they told me,” Peaches continued, “that Lent ain’t really about carbs. It’s about reflectin’ on your sins.”

Miss Trudy leaned over to her neighbor. “I already got a highlights reel.”

Peaches nodded. “And that’s where the theology got… interesting.”

He opened his Bible with deliberate flair, the pages responding like they knew this was their moment.

“I went lookin’ in the Scriptures,” he said, “like a raccoon in a Taco Bell dumpster—aggressively and without dignity.”

“What I found wasn’t Jesus sayin’, ‘Y’all take forty days and feel terrible.’”

He tapped the page.

“I found Him prayin’—John 17—‘Father, make ‘em one with us. Like We’re one.’”

He looked up slowly.

“So I said, ‘Lord… if I’m already one with You…how would I get closer? If You already took my sins away, then what exactly am I supposed to be mournin’?’”

Earl again: “Maybe the egg?”

Peaches pointed at him. “That egg was a trial, but it was not my trespass.” He leaned forward on the podium. “Am I supposed to stare at forgiven sins like they’re gonna un-forgive themselves if I don’t supervise ‘em?”

A low murmur rolled through the room.

“Now walk with me,” he said, already pacing. “Garden of Eden—God breathin’ life into Adam.” He made a brief, illustrative gesture. “Like He’s inflatin’ a pool float with eternal implications.”

A teenager whispered, “That’s a lotta air.”

Peaches nodded. “He had already started putting His life into us in a way.”

“Then you got the Tabernacle,” he continued. “God movin’ into a tent in the wilderness just to be with us.”

He lowered his voice. “Of course, since He can’t be around our sinning, it was like ‘I wanna be close… but please respect the curtain.’”

Sister Velma: “Like my kitchen.”

“Exactly like Sister Velma’s kitchen,” Peaches said without hesitation.

“And then the prophets start hollerin’,” he went on, warming up. “‘One day God ain’t just gonna be among y’all… He’s gonna be in y’all.’”

He pointed out at the congregation.

“And now, thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, He is.”

He let that sit.

“So again I ask,” Peaches said, spreading his hands, “why is my stomach speakin’ in tongues, and all of them mean ‘biscuits’?”

“I felt that,” someone said.

He had skipped his usual breakfast, and he intended for the gravity of that decision to be fully appreciated. Reverend Watkins was a man who believed breakfast was not merely a meal but a covenantal act of faithfulness.

“By 10:30,” he said, “I had a vision.”

He raised one finger. “Not of Jesus.”

A pause.

“Of a sausage biscuit. Radiant in glory. It hovered. It rotated slightly. It had theme music.”

A wave of agreement moved through the room.

“And right there,” Peaches said, “I remembered what Jesus said in Mark 2:19.”

He looked up. “ ‘Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?’”

He tapped the podium. “And I said, ‘HE AIN’T LEFT. If He’s still here, why am I actin’ like He stepped out for groceries and might not come back?’”

Marveen Choate straightened like a flag in a stiff wind.

“And then Matthew 28:20—‘I am with you always.’”

Earl frowned. “Always always?”

Peaches nodded. “Always always.”

He paused. “And always… includes March.”

The breakthrough came, as Peaches’s breakthroughs often did, while he was seated somewhere. This time, he had felt undignified while he was contemplating a forbidden pastry.

“I’m at my table,” he said, “starin’ at a Pop-Tart like it’s the burning bush.”

“What flavor?” someone asked.

“Strawberry,” Peaches replied. “Canonical.”

“And I start thinkin’… what if Lent is folks reachin’ for something… that Jesus already brought ‘em into?”

The room grew quiet.

“What if they’re rehearsin’ sorrow… while Jesus is sayin’, ‘You’re one with Me’?”

“What if they’re actin’ like the veil is still up…”

He mimed tearing fabric.

“…and Jesus already handled that situation permanently? Ripped it like a Hulk Hogan t-shirt.”

Heads nodded. A few people laughed softly.

Peaches leaned in, voice steady now.

“Listen,” he said. “Jesus died for your sins.”

“All of ‘em,” he added. “Past, present, future. The ones you did, the ones you’re thinkin’ about, and the one you’re gonna commit in the parking lot when somebody takes your spot.”

A man near the window adjusted in his seat.

“That’s serious,” Peaches said. “That’s not light.”

He paused.

“But He didn’t stay dead.”

“And He didn’t rise halfway,” Peaches continued. “Jesus didn’t come out the tomb like, ‘I’m back-ish.’ He didn’t step out that tomb sayin’, ‘Alright now—y’all feel bad for about forty days every year, and we’ll revisit resurrection later.’”

He shook his head.

“No, sir. He said you are in Him, He is in you, and the Father is in Him.”

He opened his hands slightly.

“That means you are in a group hug that started before you arrived and ain’t lettin’ go when you slip.”

A soft “amen” drifted through the room.

“So if you wanna give something up for Lent,” Peaches said, easing back, “I got some suggestions:”

“Give up thinkin’ God is still mad at you.”

“Give up the idea that forgiveness expires.”

“Give up starin’ at your sins like Jesus didn’t already delete the file.”

Earl raised a hand. “Gone gone?”

Peaches nodded. “Not recoverable. And if you wanna fast,” he added, “fast from unbelief.”

“Fast from that whisper that says you ain’t enough.”

“Fast from treatin’ Easter like a destination you gotta earn…”

He tapped the podium gently.

“…when Easter is the ground you’re standin’ on.”

He looked out over them, voice softer now.

“If you came in here thinkin’ you needed to suffer your way closer to God…”

He shook his head.

“You’re already there. Whatever great thing you were planning on doing whenever you finally felt clean enough and close enough to God, praise Jesus, please get to doin' it.”

He smiled, calm and certain.

“And if you feel like you gotta earn Easter…”

He let the grin spread.

“Easter already earned you.”

He held the moment.

Then he reached for the Doritos.

The bag opened with a triumphant crinkle. Laughter moved through the room, the kind that comes when truth and absurdity shake hands.

From the back, right on time:

“Reverend Watkins,” church custodian Sister Velma called out, “if you get cheese dust on the lectern again, you are gonna experience a different kind of suffering.”

Outside, the next week, the sign by the road read: SUNDAY SERMON — “LENT? EVERY DAY IS EASTER.” Below it, in smaller letters, someone had added with a marker: REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED. PLEASE DO NOT FAST FROM COMMON SENSE. Below that, in different handwriting: NOT THE DORITOS – THOSE ARE PEACHES’.

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