March 26, 2006

Phoning Home: Fasting
Matthew 4:1-4; 6:16-18

Food and culture have always gone hand-in-hand. From the lamb stew, pita bread and goat’s milk of the ancient Near East to the burritos, burgers and banana splits of the modern world, food expresses and at times even helps define various cultures around the world. When I travel to new places, I am always eager to experience the food. Usually, at least. I’ll be careful to watch out for the roasted maggots that I hear are a popular snack if I ever visit Cameroon!

No culture of which I am aware, however, is more fixated on food than are we here in America. The combination of wealth, manufacturing technology, busy schedules, Hollywood, and sophisticated marketing strategies has left many of us virtually panting for the next quick, culinary fix. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed recently that Americans are 25 pounds heavier than 40 years ago. Since 1970, the proportion of U.S. children who are overweight has more than doubled, and our children have become prime targets for marketing ploys. The average child—not mine, and I hope not yours—sees about 40,000 commercials on TV each year, many of which depict Oreos, Coke, Pop Tarts and other “delicacies.” And imagine this: McDonald’s Happy Meals, according to Dr. Michael Brody, chairman of the television and media committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is one of the world’s largest toy distributors. McDonald’s Happy Meals, Brody announced, sells more toys than Toys-R-Us and Wal-Mart! Food, and rarely good food, is everywhere. Just think about the multiplication of food items in the local grocery stores over the past few decades.

It sounds strange to us, then, when we read in Matthew 4:2 that Jesus fasted for forty days and nights. It sounds downright intimidating to our modern sensibilities when Jesus, in Matthew 6:16-18, seems to assume that his followers will fast as well. “When you fast,” he says, not “if.” Fasting, to be sure, is never presented as a commandment in the Bible, any more than prayer or the other spiritual disciplines are. These are, after all, disciplines, not laws. What we do find in both the Old and New Testaments, however, is a clear depiction that fasting serves a crucial role in the spiritual lives of one leading character after another. David, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and the leaders of the early Church, just to mention a few, join Jesus in practicing the discipline of fasting. Perhaps we should, too.

As the Bible depicts it, fasting involves the voluntary giving up of food for spiritual reasons. Three important items stand out in this definition. Fasting, first of all, is voluntary (although highly encouraged and sometimes a specific calling). Second, fasting involves giving up food (today people sometimes speak also of “fasting” from other activities or commodities that are of great importance to us and that demand our time and attention—television, video games, shopping, and so on). We might participate in a partial fast in which we simply omit certain food items from our diets for a period of time. Or we might engage in a total fast—refraining from eating altogether—for a matter of hours, days or even weeks. And thirdly, fasting is a spiritual exercise. In talking about the discipline of fasting, I have in mind neither crash diets aimed at losing weight nor hunger strikes to bring about social or political changes. Such fasts can offer certain health benefits and at times—not often—result in needed changes within a society. But that is a different story altogether. Fasting in the biblical sense is an exercise that we follow in order to nurture our souls. When we fast, we listen to God. We talk to God. We experience God. Fasting, like prayer, begins and ends with God.

What more specific reasons, however, lie behind this ancient discipline? Why might we seriously consider making fasting an ongoing part of our spiritual practices? Let me suggest three main reasons, reasons that focus on God, ourselves and others.
1. GOD: Fasting expresses our heart’s deepest longings to God. We do not fast to coerce God or to manipulate him, as though we can somehow force him to do whatever we want. But the truth of the matter is that genuine and sincere fasting moves God. The prophet Joel phrased it this way:
“…return to me (the Lord) with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with
mourning;
rend your hearts and not
your clothing.
I’ve come to think of fasting, not as the spiritual equivalent of nagging or fussing—we are not called to act like spoiled children holding our breath in our attempts to get our way—but as an indicator of the seriousness that we attach to our relationship with God and whatever it is that we are fasting about. When my son wanted a new and more costly trumpet, for example, I told him that if he played diligently for a few years and showed me that he was serious about playing the trumpet, then I would buy him one. Two years later, he had a new trumpet. The same sequence unfolded when my daughter wanted a new violin. By playing diligently for a period of time, my children demonstrated to me that they meant business—they were serious about their instruments.

Fasting, I believe, sends similar signals from our hearts to God’s. When we fast, we demonstrate to God that we are serious about being his disciples. We mean business about the situation, decision, or need that we are fasting over. “This is important enough,” we in essence announce, “that I am willing to wait and to fast.”
2. SELF: Fasting provides a concrete exercise for practicing self-denial. Jesus, you will recall, instructs all of us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him. Paul, likewise, remarks about “beating our bodies and making them our slaves.” In reality, however, we often feel that we are the slaves and our bodies are the masters. Think for a moment or two about the temptations that you perhaps faced just this week. Or in your mind jot down where you would place your level of self-control on a scale of 1-10. When was the last time that your will, your wishes, and your body lorded it over you? This past week? Yesterday? This morning?

So how do we work with God in moving from slavery to freedom? How do we begin “crucifying our flesh” and regaining a meaningful sense of control? Frankly, I know of no better way than to practice in a genuine way the discipline of fasting. Just try it. Make up your mind that you are going to fast for even a brief period of time, and how does your body react when it receives the news?!? “You can’t do that,” it screams. “What gives you the right to deny me my pleasure? Who do your think you are?” In effect, when you decide to fast, your body moves into a state of rebellion—for a season. But eventually, you begin to learn that you don’t have to say “yes” to every temptation. You don’t have to do whatever your body urges you to do. Slowly but surely, you regain a degree of self-control that will serve you well when you face other, more trying situations in which self-control becomes essential. Like running, lifting weights, or performing other physical exercises transforms our bodies and makes them strong, so fasting builds character and strengthens the soul.

3. OTHERS: Fasting creates a sense of solidarity with others who are needy or struggling. For those of us who have so much, it becomes increasingly more difficult to even imagine what many people around us and throughout the world face from day to day. People who have little if any food. People for whom pain is a way of life. People who have nothing. For most of us here today, we can go virtually anywhere we choose and enjoy anything that we want. But many people in the world simply cannot. How can we begin to sense, even in the most rudimentary way, what it might be like to genuinely want for something? We can fast. We can deny ourselves, and perhaps even share what we have saved through our fasting with others. Fasting exposes us to want. Fasting leads us to compassion. After all, if our miniscule acts of self-denial cause us discomfort, imagine the pain of those who suffer far more than we do.

Everyday, we are bombarded by invitations to go there, do this, or eat that. More and more it feels to many of us as though we are controlled by urges and slaves to our passions. Is this what God desires for us? And yet we pray for discipline and self-control, as though such virtues are simply spiritual commodities that God showers upon us when we ask. The transformation that God longs to bring about within each of us is indeed an act of grace on his part, but again, he welcomes—expects—our cooperation. How de we demonstrate to him that we mean business? How do we regain control of our urges and live disciplined lives? And how do we begin to relate more deeply to those in our world who have so little? We can go to the spiritual exercise room. We can fast.