Dare You Fast?

Lent is around the corner, and we are faced with that issue of giving up something. Shrinking our excesses. Reducing our needs and complaints. Looking for something to show us we can do without for a limited time, even though we might be successful at this because we know it’s only for a short time. I don’t think this was the point of the holy season that follows Carnival. Carnival in Rio and all over Latin America is really going to the excess, doing all those things stored up within your mind that you think you need to do, then sobering up and getting back to work when Ash Wednesday comes.  It doesn’t really imply giving up because during the festival time you did things you saved up all year to do in a wild and crazy manner, like a vacation. Well, at least here in Latin America. 

What I want to tackle is the idea of fasting. I think fasting has been overused and has lost its original intention. Fast and pray for me, someone says. The Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church hang onto fasting as a way of suffering for the soul.  They say, do without so you know what it is to do without. God won’t pay attention to your prayers if you don’t suffer somehow. Or maybe you just need to prove you have that discipline in your soul, that’s okay. But to do without, to suffer to please God, I don’t think that is what God wants. The only fasting prescribed by the Laws in the Old Testament was for the Day of Expiation. Later more were added to commemorate national disasters and to implore God’s mercy. Most important is that inward religion be accompanied by outward observance. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it, to look like you are at death’s door or to broadcast it, so everyone thinks you are a mighty religious person. 
I was moved by a passage from Isaiah 58:5. God says, “Fasting like yours today will never make your voice heard on high. Is that the sort of fast that pleases me, a day when a person inflicts pain on himself? Hanging your head like a reed, spreading out sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call fasting, a day acceptable to Yahweh?  Is not this the sort of fast that please me: to break unjust fetters, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break all yokes? Is it not sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor; if you see someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin? Then your light will blaze out like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. Saving justice for you will go ahead and Yahweh’s glory will come behind you. Then you will cry out for help and Yahweh will answer. “ 

Isaiah continues with God’s words: “If you do away with the yoke, and the clenched fist, and malicious words, if you deprive yourself for the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light will rise in the darkness and your darkness hours will be like noon. Yahweh will always guide you…. He will give strength to your bones, and you will be like a watered garden like a flowing spring whose waters never run dry.” 
What wonderful words from poetic Isaiah, I think this is the kind of fasting that we should seek in our lives, not just during Lent, but all the time. Fasting is not about me. It’s about reaching out to others. It’s sharing your food with the hungry, not giving up eating. It’s clothing your naked neighbor, not going naked yourself. It’s fighting for justice and freedom, and not letting speaking out frighten you nor delay in your helping forgotten men. Yahweh’s fasting is satisfying and relieving the needs of the oppressed and the afflicted. This is what He wants. This is the kind of spiritual action that is much more important than giving up chocolate or walking on our knees and an empty stomach to a statue. God wants us to be good citizens of the world and to care about our fellow man. It’s sad that this comes with the idea of reduction or giving up or suffering on our part, because that’s not the intention. Doing good should be the outward expression of our inward feelings. 

Although I admire the desert hermits who cut themselves off from all luxury and identification with life, I don’t think that kind of fasting of life is what God expects us to do. In this day and time, when there is so much tragedy and so much injustice and hunger, we need to get involved with mankind. We need to sacrifice our comfort and our favorite hobbies now and then to leap into the thick of things and try to make a difference. This is what Yahweh plain and clears tell Isaiah. 

Lent is a time when maybe we can structure our lives to be more like Jesus. We accompany him at that time in our spirits of memory. He was having his desert experience for forty days complete with Satan’s harassment. But in that desert experience, Jesus was learning about silence, about fortitude before temptation, about the presence of His Father and the point of his being on earth.  Because Jesus withdrew from the worldly world and went to a barren place, He was better able to listen. So maybe instead of not drinking coffee or Coca Cola for a while, what if we siphon off a half hour a day for our spiritual refreshment. Make it like a desert experience.  Close off all around you. Seek the silent. Sit in a chair and meditate about Jesus and his life and the words of the Gospels. Give God a chance to come into your mind and reorder it. Maybe you will have a reawakening that can change your whole attitude about what you are doing and where you should go. Some of us are in moments of change. Will restraint from eating from dawn to dusk make a difference? No. Not if we keep trying to make it through our daily routines. So, wouldn’t it be better to eat the little we need to eat so our bodies keep working properly, and choosing instead to give up a bit of our busy time to nourish someone’s spirit? 

If we cannot hear Yahweh guiding us, then we won’t know where to go. If we can be assured, we are in his hands, then “He will give strength to your bones and you will be like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters never run dry.”  Just a few minutes a day on a regular basis is all God asks for. If we think first of Him, then the rest of our day cannot be a disaster. It’s a neat habit, and maybe, when Lent ends, it will have so delighted you because you have that daily moment when you can pray with and think on God, you will not give up that habit. It will become a fixed reward for yourself. A strange way to fast. But a more reasonable one which Yahweh will sanction. 


 ~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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