FASTING: RELYING ON GOD
Isaiah 58: 1-9
Matthew 4: 1-11

           Today, we come to the conclusion of our five week series on the means of grace; our exploration into those practices that enable us to encounter God’s grace face-to-face. I am going to assume that the first four practices we explored—prayer, Scripture study, worship, and Communion—were not much of a surprise. In fact, when we think of spiritual disciplines, prayer and Scripture study are often the two that are thought of the most quickly. As we come to this fifth week, there are a multitude of disciplines I could have chosen as this week’s focus. Out of all those disciplines, I chose this week’s focus—fasting—for a few particular reasons. First of all, I chose it because it is not often spoken of in the church. Secondly, there has been a movement (at least in the church in America) to recover this practice as a spiritual discipline. Because fasting has, in effect, fallen by the wayside my aim today is to explore how we encounter grace through this discipline and also provide some “how-to’s”, some direction, in participating in a fast.

           First of all, I want to emphasize that fasting is very Biblical. I have heard from some that fasting is just something the church has borrowed from one of the Eastern religions or one of the mystical religions. As we look through the stories of Scripture, we see our ancestors of faith regularly fasting. We read in Exodus of Moses fasting on Mt. Sinai in preparation to receive from God the Ten Commandments. In the books of the prophets (which we will begin exploring this fall), we see the messengers of God fasting. From our text from Isaiah, we can make the inference that fasting was a normal part of life and spirituality for historical Israel. From the Matthew text, and accounts in the other gospels, we see that Jesus also fasted. Those are but a few examples of fasting mentioned in the Bible.

           With this Biblical foundation, fasting also became a common practice throughout most of the history of the church. It was practiced and encouraged by the leaders of the early church. It continued through the Middle Ages and the time of the Reformation, when the church split into the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. Even as little as 250 years ago, fasting was promoted as a spiritual discipline. John Wesley even refused to ordain as a Methodist preacher anyone who would not commit to fasting twice per week! Gradually, though, the discipline fell by the wayside and ceased being advocated or practiced much in the church. In the last generation or so, though, there has emerged a renewed interest in the discipline and a renewed sense of advocacy of fasting as a discipline whereby we as Christians might encounter the grace of God.

           Fasting is really not that difficult to define. Anyone who has had surgery could probably tell you what fasting is. It is simply the abstaining from something, for a specific purpose—medical, spiritual, etc. Obviously, I most interested today in the spiritual purpose of fasting. Usually, when fasting is mentioned what is most thought of is the abstention from food—it is the most common type of fast. However, especially for spiritual purposes, it is important to acknowledge that some people simply cannot abstain from food. I know there are several among us who are diabetic, for whom not eating could have harmful effects. There are also other health-related issues that could be complicated by not eating. This doesn’t mean that these persons are excluded from grace though! There a multitude of things from which we can abstain. Basically, anything that threatens to consume all our time, energies, attention, or resources is a candidate for a fast. We live in an age of constant media stimulation—there is always another TV program on or website to browse or video game to play. We live in a time when personal schedules are so jam-packed that we barely have time to breathe or think or relax; so many things work to demand our time and attention. From that demand, though, we encounter the primary means by which we encounter grace through fasting and abstaining from something.

           The most important thing fasting does for us or helps us do is acknowledge our dependence upon God. I want to refer back to the first sermon of our series. In that sermon, I said that asking God for something through prayer was our way of acknowledging to God that we cannot do something on our own, that we were dependent upon God. The same is true with fasting. So often, we are tempted to allow things to take the place of God and God’s providence for us. Consider Jesus fasting in the desert. After forty days, Jesus was vulnerable to the temptations that Satan threw his way, “Hungry? Satisfy yourself by turning stones to bread. Want power? Worship me and all the things of the world are yours.” With each temptation, though, Jesus relied on God to provide the answer to the temptation and the strength to endure. Fasting is a way to put things in their proper perspective. It is a way for us to allow ourselves to be dependent upon and consumed by God rather than earthly or human things! Think of something you “cannot live without”. Is that thing going to provide for you what God can provide for you? If you were to lose it, would life still go on? This past Friday evening, my family and I were in Springfield on our way to the football game in Pawnee and I discovered that I had left my cell phone on my dresser at home. My wife will attest to the fact that I am usually surgically attached to that device! It felt strange to be without it—just in case I needed it. I went six hours without the security of my cell phone! Six hours without using my phone to look up something on the internet, check my Facebook page, or send a text or email. You know what? When I got home that night, I discovered that I had not missed a single thing! There were no calls, no texts, no emails..nothing! It was then I realized how dependent I had allowed myself to become on this device that fits into the palm of my hand. Fasting has a way of revealing to us what controls us and upon which we place the highest priority; a way of revealing all those things that threaten to consume us and make us dependent upon them and not upon God.

           The second way we encounter grace through fasting is that it allows us to receive direction from God. Again, in the Biblical story, we see persons using a fast as a way to see more clearly God’s direction for them. How many times have you asked God for direction in your life? How many times have you asked God for direction for the life of the church? It occurs to me that if we really want God to answer, it would make sense to give God the room to answer. For those who are parents—has the following scene ever played out in your house: A child asks a question and before you can answer, the question has been repeated multiple times? I think that might accurately describe interplay between us and God. We ask and ask and ask, wondering what is taking God so long to answer when God is there saying, “Will you give me a chance to answer!?” Friends, if given the space, God will answer us. It might not always be the answer we want or in our timeframe, but God will answer us. The problem is that we have so many other things to do that we forget to give God that space. Fasting allows us to put aside those distractions and focus only on God. As those distractions are put away, we are able to open ourselves to the movement of God’s spirit and allow God to fill us, to answer us, to guide us.

           Here’s the big question though…how do we do it? How do we fast? I will confess that in all my years in the church, I have never (that I recall) heard a sermon on fasting or been taught how to fast. So, as I mentioned in the very beginning, I want to provide some practical instruction for us on how to fast. The first thing we must do is to decide to do it. It might sound a little odd, but we have to decide when and how we are going to fast. While not impossible, it is more difficult to get up on day and just decide to it. It is much easier when a fast is planned and we know when it is going to happen. Secondly, we must decide how long to fast. It could be part of a day, a full day, etc. There is no set length that a fast must be in order to be effective or pleasing to God. However, it is best to start small. A marathon is 26.2 miles; one wouldn’t just run a marathon without training and building up to it. Likewise, it isn’t suggested someone new to the discipline try to fast for more than a day at a time—unless we feel God prompting us to go longer. Without that divine prompt, an attempt at a long fast in the beginning will most likely just lead to frustration and us not getting anything out of the fast. Thirdly, we must decide what kind of fast it is going to be. As I said earlier, anything that threatens to consume us is a candidate for a fast. It is really person-specific for what is going on in their life right now. Finally, fasting MUST be accompanied by another discipline, most often prayer. If we are not coupling the fast with something else, we are simply “doing without” and not opening ourselves to God and God’s grace. That was what God was charging Israel with through Isaiah. They were simply going through the motion of the fast and doing nothing to enhance their relationship with God through it. The fast was not transforming or beneficial; it was just something they did. A true fast, though, should draw us closer to God and the heart of God and to the grace of God.

           Many of you may know that at the 2010 meeting of the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference, our Bishop, Gregory Palmer, invited each congregation in the Conference to set aside one day per month (he recommended the first Thursday) as a day of fast. A day to set aside something and acknowledged the church’s dependence upon and seek God’s direction for our congregations and our leaders. This coming Thursday is the first Thursday of September. I want to re-issue the Bishop’s invitation to each one of you and invite you to join with me and with one another in a day of fast—in a day of seeking God’s will and direction for our church and our community. Since this day also falls close to the Labor Day holiday, I want to invite us to be interceding before God on behalf of all those in our community who find themselves without work. There are so many whose deepest longing is feel useful and provide for themselves and their families. Will you join together in praying especially for these people and also for how God would use us to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to our community? If you decide to do this, great. If not, that is between you and God. No one will come knocking on your door to check on you.

           I have ended each of the last four sermons in a similar way, and I’m going to do it again. Friends, God is just waiting to unleash wave upon wave of grace upon each of us, upon our church, upon our community, and upon our world. However, God forces no one to take what is offered. The choice is ours: receive it or refuse it. Will you receive God’s grace and allow God to transform you? Will we as the church allow God to transform the world through us? AMEN.

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