I recently read about an announcement that
appeared in a church newsletter. The announcement read as
follows: “The National Conference on Prayer and Fasting will
be held here in about two weeks. The cost of the Conference on
Prayer and Fasting includes all meals.”
Fasting is as old as humankind. It is a part of
almost every religious expression—Judaism, Christianity and
Islam being only three. Fasting is one of several disciplines
on the Christian journey. Other disciplines include prayer,
Scripture, meditation, and Eucharist.
Fasting is one of our spiritual disciplines,
yet it is probably the least practiced among Christian
believers today.
Oh, we touch upon it lightly at the beginning
of Lent. The question is often asked, “What are you giving up
for Lent? Are you giving up ice cream, or sweets, or
desserts?” Let me tell you something. Giving up brownies for
Lent is not fasting.
We sometimes think of fasting as a form of
religious dieting. Lowering our intake of calories constitutes
fasting. I recently read about some rules for dieting. These
might interest you.
1) If
you eat something and no one else sees it, it has no calories.
2) If
you drink a diet drink and eat a candy bar at the same time,
the calories in the candy bar are canceled out by the diet
drink.
3) If
you fatten up everyone else around you, you look thinner.
4) Cookie
pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking cookies
causes calorie drainage.
5) Foods
that have the same color have the same number of calories.
Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, cottage cheese
and banana cream pie, mushrooms and white chocolate.
6) For
every burp, subtract 25 calories.
We even give dieting spiritual trappings. We
make it one of the Beatitudes: Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst, for they are sticking to their diets.
Dieting may be good for you, but dieting is not
fasting.
We sometimes associate fasting with voluntary
suffering or pain. Scripture passages give some evidence of
this. Here are three of them.
· My
knees are weak through fasting; my body has become gaunt.
(Psalm 109:24)
· Then
I turned to the Lord God to seek an answer by prayer and
supplication with fasting and sack cloth and ashes. (Daniel
9:3)
· Even
now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with
fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. (Joel 2:12)
Certainly those are not terribly inviting.
We are also conditioned to have some fear of
fasting, partly because we have a preoccupation with food.
People say, “Oh, I could never do that. I could never fast. I
like to eat too much.” Someone even said to me recently, “I
get hungry just thinking about fasting.”
My own journey with this discipline has been
somewhat erratic and unclear at times. It may be time to
revisit the spiritual discipline of fasting. Let’s examine
life in the fast lane.
WHAT IS FASTING?
First of all, we need to answer the question of
what is fasting. Fasting is choosing to cease taking in food
for a period of time for spiritual reasons. Fasting is
choosing hunger for God over hunger for food. Fasting is
choosing to be empty for a while so that God may fill you.
Fasting takes on different expressions for
different people. Some people fast only during the daylight
hours. The Islamic month of Ramadan includes fasting from
before dawn until after sunset for one month. Many Islamic
peoples have yogurt and milk products at 5:00 a.m. and then
eat dates after dark during that period for one month.
Others include fasting as part of one day each
week. Our United Methodist Council of Bishops made a covenant
with one another recently to fast all day Friday until 3:00
p.m. Sometimes fasting includes one 24-hour period from supper
one day until supper the next day. Perhaps even 48 hours would
be an appropriate time for fasting. (Forty-eight hours is the
longest that I have ever personally fasted.) A few people
carry out extended fasts—taking on only water, juice and broth
for a period of several days.
Fasting is always associated with prayer. They
are mentioned together in the Bible. As someone has said, “If
you are not going to pray, it is not necessary to fast.”
Frankly, fasting is assumed in Scripture. It’s
part of the faithful life before God. There are no
instructions on fasting in the Bible. It is simply done. It is
mentioned over and over. Listen to this quotation.
You can’t read very far in any direction in
the Bible without realizing that fasting was part of the
natural rhythm of life for the people of God. They expected
and planned to fast as naturally as they expected and planned
to eat. To them, fasting was woven into the rhythm of life
like day and night, summer and winter, sowing and reaping,
waking and sleeping. There were times you ate and times you
fasted.[i]
Richard Foster once wrote, “The list of
Biblical personages who fast reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of
Scripture: Moses the lawgiver, David the king, Elijah the
prophet, Esther the queen, Daniel the seer, Anna the
prophetess, Paul the apostle, Jesus Christ the incarnate son.”
[ii]
The most prominent story of fasting in the
Bible is probably the episode in Matthew, chapter 4, where
Jesus fasts for 40 days in the wilderness. Baptized by John,
he moves immediately to the desert, where he fasts for 40
days. This is a time of prayer and reflection for Jesus. He is
contemplating the role given to him by God. It is also a time
to summon strength and courage for whatever lies ahead.
Like others in the Bible, Jesus assumed fasting
as part of the religious experience. He often said, “When
you fast…” He never said, “If you fast…”
John Wesley practiced fasting. His practice was
sometimes fitful, even a bit rigid. Basically, however, Wesley
chose to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. He took no food on
either day until about 4:00 p.m., when he had the typical
English tea. His day of fasting was associated with much
prayer. One source indicates (and I cannot verify this) that
John Wesley refused to ordain anyone into the Methodist
ministry who did not practice fasting.
Wesley was also wise enough to make adjustments
for health. If it was necessary for health reasons to abstain
from fasting, Wesley felt that was certainly acceptable. This
is an important thing for us to remember. No one should fast
in such a way as to endanger his or her health.
What is the value of fasting in 21st
century life? I can think of two values worth considering.
PERSONAL DISCIPLINE
First, fasting is for personal discipline.
Fasting helps us get a grip on consumption. Someone wrote
recently, “Consumption is killing us. Go fast and live.”
Here is a somewhat strong, even provocative
quotation on the subject.
Our preoccupation with food has entered the
realm of the absurd. Look at any magazine—page after page of
succulent, sauce-laden, sugar-sparkling, fat-glistening food.
It’s a kind of culinary pornography. McDonalds’ golden arches
and Coca-Cola’s logo are more widely recognized symbols than
the cross of Christ. Our world’s most prevalent iconography
enshrines food.
[iii]
I have been reading (with most of you) about
the collapse of the Enron Corporation. The event has become
the most precipitous corporate implosion in U.S. history.
Twenty thousand people lost their jobs. Most of them had their
retirement savings totally wiped out as well. I know that the
issues with Enron are complex and confusing but the event also
is a symbol of consumption gone amuck.
Unfortunately, the Enron effect is growing.
Capitalism is a wonderful system, but it can easily go awry.
It can foster greed and gluttony.
Jesus calls us to some form of personal
discipline. Fasting is a way to walk toward that discipline.
SPIRITUAL STRENGTH
The second value of fasting is to gain
spiritual strength. Is that not what happened to Jesus in the
desert? In human terms, Jesus emerged from the desert after 40
days in peak condition. He came out of the desert like a
fighter who had been trained hard.
Notice the first temptation that comes to Jesus. He is tempted
to turn stone into bread. The tempter hit him at the point of
greatest vulnerability. Jesus gives a swift and unflinching
rebuttal to the tempter: “You do not live by bread alone.” One
implication of that episode is this: if you do not fast, you
may not be able to stand when the day of testing or temptation
comes.
Look at it another way. Will there be another
terrorist attack on America? Is al-Qaeda as powerful and
dangerous as they say? I don’t know the answer to that
question. Sometimes the cynic in me says that it’s all a
political game to increase the defense budget in Washington.
However, I do know this. A discipline, well-fasted faith will
stand the tests.
Another example: what holds you together in the
face of unexpected medical crises? What keeps you going in the
midst of a sudden tragedy that cuts across the fabric of your
life? Not fasting itself, of course, but fasting makes you a
spiritually stronger person.
I engaged in a one-day fast on Ash Wednesday
this past week. In the midst of it I walked the prayer path of
the Labyrinth. The result for me was an absolute spiritual
peace and calm about some prayer issues that had been with me
for a number of days. I learned from that experience. I want
to keep it moving.
I intend to try the Wesleyan model for fasting
during Lent. I intend to try a 24-hour fast every Wednesday
and every Friday (unless you invite me to lunch!) Stay tuned.
Fasting is a discipline for spiritual strength
and conditioning.
