Spiritual Disciplines: Fasting (2)

Introduction

Who here is familiar with the word “Hangry?” It’s a conjunction of hungry and angry – hangry - and it refers to the how one can easily get moody or irritable when hungry. Maybe some of us can resonate with this. Let’s be honest. Maybe some of us skipped breakfast, and are in this state of being right now. In addition to hangry, Hannah and I also speak about being "sungry" (sad because you're hungry) and "tungry" (tired because you're hungry). I sometimes feel a bit faint with I’m hungry, but we don’t use “fungry”, because that makes it sound like I’m fun when I’m hungry, which I’m definitely not.

In light of our feeling hangry, sungry, tungry, and maybe fungry, why would we ever choose to fast? Fasting is the spiritual discipline we ar discussing today. Why would we choose to intentionally spend time abstaining from food, or sometimes water, when going without can make us so miserable? With a number of spiritual disciplines available, why not pick one with fewer consequences? Leave fasting to the monasteries. I found one quote I really loved: “fasting is the kale of the spiritual disciplines. We know it’s good for us, but we don’t seek it out on the menu.”

Today, we are going to consider (1) what fasting is, (2) what fasting isn’t, and (3) how we fast today. A personal disclaimer: my mum’s side of the family is from the north, and I used to live there as a small child, so I tend to naturally transition between talking about “fasting” and talking about “faaasting”.

What Fasting Is

If you Google fasting, you’ll find many search results which all talk about the bodily benefits of fasting, especially for dieting and weight loss. However, as we talk about fasting in the Christian faith, we are not talking about a weight-loss program. Instead, it is a spiritual practice, which like other spiritual practices, is all about nurturing our relationship with God. Fasting is a practice which has as its end, not being hungry for food, but being hungry for something more than food. It is about feasting on the presence of God himself. It’s not about what is missing from our stomachs, but what or who is filling our hearts. Fasting is a time to temporarily suspend the eating of food to focus our heart and mind on God in Christ as the true bread of life, as the manna from heaven.

When we are hungry for our temporary sustenance, we can be prompted to think on God who is our eternal sustenance. When we would be eating, we can instead in that time be praying, and dedicating time to our relationship with God. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, and as we feel weak without food, we dedicate ourselves to falling back, depending, and resting on the God who is our power and strength.

We all need more of God’s presence to feast on, and fasting is way to facilitate this spiritual appetite. The practice has a range of different applications throughout Scripture. I’ll name four example here.

1. Guidance: in Acts 13, a group of Christians dedicate some time to fasting, and in that time they experience the Holy Spirit calling them to appoint Barnabas and Paul to go on a missionary journey. Then they spend more time fasting and worshipping, before laying hands on Barnabas and Paul to send them on their way. It is in the process of fasting that they make space to receive the wisdom and guidance of God through the Holy Spirit.

2. Grief: In 2 Samuel 1, when David is grieved by the death of Jonathan and King Saul 1, he has his men respond with a time of fasting. In this, fasting is a way to physically express the sorrow and mourning in our hearts, and shows God and ourselves that we seeking our comfort and understanding through him.

3. Repentance: we know the Jonah story. After a whole ordeal with a run away from God, a boat, a storm, a fish, and a beach, Jonah preaches to the people of Nineveh calling them to repent. They receive that message, and they express their repentance in fasting. Repentance has both an inward and an outward reality. Inwardly, repentance takes place in the heart, and outwardly it manifests itself in changing behaviour. Fasting is not necessary for repentance, but for the Ninevites is a helpful way of physically expressing a repentant heart.

4. Preparation: in my sermon on solitude a couple of weeks ago I talked about Jesus spending time alone in the wilderness. He spent this time fasting as a time to prepare himself for public ministry. That’s why Satan tempts him with “turn these stones into bread.” But note what Jesus says in return: “man cannot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Clearly, he doesn’t say one cannot live without bread, but that bread is not enough. Fasting is a time to set aside our temporary nourishment to be reminded of our greater need for eternal nourishment.

Interestingly, in each of these examples, fasting takes ordinary situations – needing wisdom, feeling grief, regretting, and wanting to change behaviour, preparing for a task – and dedicates them to God. It is an intentional act to spiritually immerse ourselves and our situation in and with God.

What Fasting Is Not

This also enables us to say a few things about what fasting is not. Because there are a few misconceptions about fasting that I think it would be really helpful for us to address.

1. Fasting is not a denunciation of food. There’s two types of people okay: there’s those who eat to live, and there’s those who live to eat. I consider myself in the latter category. I love food. I have a passion for food. Personally, over the last few weeks I have fasted breakfast and lunch on Wednesdays, to then break my fast in the evening when we eat dinner at the marriage course. By the time the marriage course comes, and we eat, I am hungry, and I love the food. That is not a problem. I’ll be totally honest with you, on Wednesday evening I had three servings of sausages. Perhaps that’s too far, I don’t know. Fasting is not a practice where we as spiritual beings free ourselves from the bad physical matter of food to which we are chained. It’s not like that. Food is good. We don’t fast because food is bad, but because God is good, and we want more of him on our mind and in our situations, and fasting offers a way to do that.

a. In fact, when we fast, we realise how much we take food for granted, which makes us more grateful for it when we have it, and more grateful for the God who provided it for us.

b. In our hunger we can also be prompted to pray for and connect with those in the world who do not have the same access to food as we do.

2. Fasting is not a hunger-strike. “God, I want this that or the other, or I want an answer to this prayer, and I am not going to eat until you give it to me.” Fasting is not about holding God ransom or making demands of him. Rather, fasting is something we do as a response to a spiritual prompt or situation, to invite him in, and to dedicate it and ourselves to him.

3. Fasting is not a break from luxuries. Fasting in Scripture is always assumed to be with food and sometimes water. I recently spoke to a lady who attended an underground church in a communist country, and they fasted two days a week every week. And when she moved to the UK, she was shocked to find out how many of us here abstain from luxuries like chocolate and TV rather than essentials. I found it quite convicting, because the truth of it is that we are so comfortable here in this country. But part of the point of fasting is that it is uncomfortable; it is our discomfort that prompts us to look beyond ourselves and to God. Abstaining from things like TV or social media to spend more time with God is a really good idea, but fasting is about something more than that.

4. Fasting is not a practice for the spiritual elite. It actually benefits everyone. Fasting exposes our weakness. When I go without food for a day, I realise that I am not nearly as strong or disciplined as I would like to think I am. I also get hangry, or sungry, or tungry. Sometimes all three. Fasting doesn’t create those emotions. Jesus says that the things that comes from our mouths proceed from the heart. Fasting brings to the surface my broken character and my weakness. And in that weakness, I see my need for God, for his grace. That’s not just for the spiritual elite. We all need more of God, of his grace and presence in our character, lives, and situations.

Practical Steps

I’ve noted five practical steps which I think will be helpful for us as we think about how we might interact with the gift of fasting.

1. Be honest about our reasons. Why might we want to fast? In the reading we heard from Isaiah 58, the people of God cry out “look at us! We’ve been fasting so much, we’ve been so hard on ourselves, give us some credit here!” Israel was boasting of their fasting, but they had been oppressing the poor and the homeless, they were far from God in their behaviour, and there was no sign their fasting produced any form of repentance, holiness, or awareness of God’s character and his will. The Ninevites fasted as an expression of true repentance. Israel in this passage fasted instead of repentance. God sees to the heart of things, and he knows the hearts of his people. Before we fast, then, we should consider; why do we want to fast? Could it just be because it’s the Christian thing to do, or because we want to feel we’ve done something? Or is it because we sincerely want to grow closer to God? We really more to be more like Jesus? It’s important we fast for the right reasons, and if we are struggling with this, we can pray and ask that God might help us fast for the right reasons.

2. Be specific. How are we going to fast? Fasting is flexible and it’s important to work out what works for us. Fasting is not a box to be picked but a gift to be unwrapped, so we want to make sure we use it in in the best way possible for us. Writers sometimes talk about different types of fasting; absolute fasting – no food or water, normal fasting – no food and only liquids. Partial fasting, juice fasting. There’s also timescales that are worth thinking about; lunchtime fasting, daytime fasting, are we doing it once a week? If we find fasting intimidating, maybe start with something simple. In winter, I quite like the sunrise-sunset fast. In summer, I’m not so keen on the idea. Whatever it is, it is really helpful if we set it out in advance; what we are and are not permitting ourselves, when we start and finish, and what we are doing with the time we would be spending eating.

3. Be reasonable.

a. Sometimes I am feeling a bit faint or sick, and I have to drive somewhere. In those situations, I’ve decided I’ll drink something like a glass of milk. I’ve determined that for me, that is the right step. I don’t want to fully break my fast, but I also don’t want to crash into someone and cause serious injury – I’m sure God would rather I had the glass of milk. This isn’t a legalistic thing.

b. I also allow myself one solid food when I fast: mints. This might seem like a niche point, but I promise, it’s for everyone else’s benefit. In the ancient world, I’m pretty sure everyone had bad breath all the time, and they were probably used to it, and didn’t really notice it. I’m sure I’m not the only one, however, that is especially prone to bad breath if I haven’t had anything to eat. So personally, I do allow myself mints. It probably also helps not letting others know that you’re fasting.

4. Be private. Jesus is emphatic that we shouldn’t advertise our fasting. He warns against those walking around all weak and solemn to show they’re fasting. At that point we undermine the point of the fast, and we show that we aren’t fasting for the right reasons.

a. My first time fasting – it all came out at dinner time. Sometimes we don’t get it right. We just need to pick ourselves up and try again next time.

b. Sermon that called us to speak on the microphone about our experiences of fasting. This was a little bit strange when the reading was about how you shouldn’t tell anyone when you’re fasting. However, the benefit of it was…

c. Standing up in chapel and opening with the phrase: “as I am coming to the end of our 100 day fast.” Immediately made others feel spiritually inferior.

Be (1) honest, (2) specific, (3) reasonable, (4) private.

Power in Weakness

I’d like to close with a point about paradoxes. Our faith is permeated with paradoxes or contrasting images. One of the main ones is that of power in weakness. In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul complains about a “thorn in his flesh”, but as he reflects on that weakness, he rejoices, because it is in his weakness that God’s power is made perfect in him. The weaker he is, the more space there becomes for God to work. Which is why he says ‘for when I am weak, then I am strong.’ That sounds so counter-intuitive. It seems more appropriate for us to say “for when I am weak, then I am weak”. But no, paradoxically, God says that his power comes to us in our weakness, so ‘when I am weak, then I am strong.’

There’s so many paradoxical images like this one; gaining from losing, experiencing joy in suffering, the first being last and the last being first. Power in weakness. It is through Christ’s moment of greatest weakness – his death on the cross – that he receives his highest exaltation, as the resurrected and later ascended Lord. This is my point: Weakness is the vessel of the Holy Spirit’s power. It is when we are weak and vulnerable, including but not limited to when we are hangry sungry and tungry, that we most need rely on God, and it is when we do that that we make space for God to work. We make room for him our lives. John the Baptist said it like this: he must become greater, I must become less.

I’ll be honest with you; this is an experience that I deeply resonate with as an aspiring preacher. I’ve preached before, feeling a bit big about myself “oh I’ve got a preaching gig”, and I preach my sermon, and I come down, and nobody has found it useful. That’s happened. Because when I lack humility, I don’t leave space for God to work, and when God is not working, the Spirit isn’t going to do anything with my sermon. Alternatively, I have come up here feeling weak and inadequate, with what I feel is a bit of a floppy sermon, and more often than not, those have proved to be the most effective sermons, where people have been touched by the Spirit, and have found my sermon useful for their spiritual life. That is a deeply humbling experience, because it reminds me that I have no power here. God works through the service, the community, the liturgy, the sermon, the worship, because that’s what he does. The more we are aware of our own weaknesses, and the more we rely on God, we elevate him as the greater and reduce ourselves as the lesser, and the more God does. And so God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. Weakness is the vessel of the Spirit’s power.

Fasting is a way of stepping into that weakness. The intentional, physical and practical abstinence of food highlights to us both our physical and our spiritual weakness. In that weakness, we press further into God. We focus on our need for him. On our need to be close to him. And the more we press into God in our weakness, the more we make space for the power of God. The same power that raised Christ from the dead, that is now in us by the Holy Spirit. The power that is made perfect in our weakness.

Prayer

Father, please would you help us to remember the purpose of fasting. That is not about what is missing from our stomachs, but what or who is filling our hearts. Thank you that we can feast on your presence, your holiness, your grace, your justice, your righteousness, your power. Please would you help us reflect on where fasting fits into our own spiritual lives. Would you help us be honest about the disciplines, to be specific, and reasonable, and private – because we want to fast for the right reasons. Please would you help us fast for the right reasons. That our fasting might be a love-offering to you which produces good fruit.

Father, thank you that your power is made perfect in our weakness. Father, we are so small. We are so vulnerable, and weak, and so easily led astray. But Lord, thank you that you love us anyway. And thank you that it is in our greatest weakness, in our vulnerability, that your loving-power makes its home. Father, please give us the humility to press into you in our weakness, in fasting, but in all areas of our lives, that we can make space for your presence, and your power. The power that will see us home in glory. Not because we are strong, but because you are strong. Thank you that you are strong, and that you are who you are. And all the blessed of God said amen.