Tag Archives: fasting

Sometimes you have to start over.

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You are working on a project and things get complicated. There are revisions and modifications. The documentation doesn’t keep up with the adjustments. Someone becomes the keeper of the knowledge and the explanations. Then everyone gets in a hurry and doesn’t care to hear the explanations any more, they just want to have the knowledge. And sometimes, the knowledge itself gets shortened, gets condensed, gets convoluted.

And that kind of confusion can happen on one simple project over the course of a few months.

Imagine a much larger project, one spanning millennia. After thousands of team members and hundreds of project managers, such a project can become large, overgrown with rules unrelated to purpose, with practices that are believed to be about something that was never intended. What had been a laser-sharp purpose to change the world has become an hierarchy committed to surviving.

When John’s followers come to Jesus to ask about fasting, they are coming from within the old structure. They even acknowledge this by saying, “we fast and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t.” [Matthew 9:14-17]. They are assuming that fasting is the way to show obedience, to be spiritual.

And then Jesus talks about how sometimes you have to push reset on the project, you have to start over, you have to make a new garment or start with a fresh wineskin.

 But it isn’t just about the container, about putting new stuff in new containers. Jesus says, “while the Bridegroom is around, you celebrate.”

Don’t decide what God will want and then do that no matter what. Instead, be with God and follow his lead. If he is having a party, then fasting is inappropriate. If he is speaking softly, then waiting and listening is the right thing to do.

Otherwise, everything gets complicated.

relationship rewards

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“Store up treasure in heaven.”

That’s what Jesus tells us. Don’t spend your energy on stuff that gets eaten up by financial declines so that you panic about how much less you are worth this week than last week.

Because, of course, if your measure of your worth is in your portfolio and your portfolio declines precipitously, then your heart will decline precipitously as well.

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Isn’t it intriguing that this image Jesus paints of wealth being devoured rings so true in an economic decline? And isn’t it intriguing how much energy the people in the mirror are putting into thinking about how many more years we are going to have to work before retirement? Isn’t it intriguing how cranky and insecure and strategic we are getting?

And yet, what does it mean to store up treasure in heaven and how does that help now?

If treasures are like rewards, then the first half of Matthew 6 answers that question. Giving, praying, and fasting, done in secret, bring rewards.

What?

You mean that if I look for people in need and help them, that is storing up treasure? But how could that have reward? We are just seeing Jesus, after all (Matthew 25).

You mean that if I am talking with God, that is storing up treasure? But it’s conversation! It is it’s own reward.

You mean that if I am going about fasting with a smile on my face, combating injustice, bringing freedom to trapped people, that is storing up treasure? But it is so fulfilling!

All three of these things that Jesus says are rewarding are rooted in deepening our relationship with God.

I’ve thought of storing up treasure as acquisition. But gold in heaven is the least valuable thing. The conversational relationship is the real treasure.

And it starts now.

maybe it is not about me

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Okay. Here’s the deal. I want to talk about fasting.

I want to talk about what the reward is.

I want to talk about this incredibly cool image that God paints in Isaiah about fasting not being about being selfish and simply not eating the food you have, but it’s about sharing a meal with people who don’t have food.

I would love to consider the irony that a person fasting might actually eat, giving up not food, but reputation to be eating with the people that no one else will eat with.

It’s not, according to God, about laying around feeling weak, but it’s about actively breaking bonds, taking the time that you would spend on eating and researching injustice or breaking up fights or writing letters to the local foodbank.

It’s not about reveling in my ability to choose to not eat but it’s about helping people who don’t have the freedom to decide anything about anything, the people who are trapped in all kinds of bondage.

I would love to talk about the fact that the people who pursue active fasting  are told by God that they can call out to him and he will listen to them. He will hear them and will choose to not listen to the people who are involved in showy fasting, the kind that gets attention for the suffering that it inflicts on the faster.

I would love to examine what beside food we could give up, what ways we could pursue justice. I would love to spend time working through all these things.

But I keep needing to look at my email in the odd chance that something will show up. And I keep checking my twitter feed to see if someone responded. And there are so many things I…

fasting looks like fun

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What an odd title.

Fasting isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be difficult. It’s supposed to be challenged. Intentionally refraining from something that is important to you, that is essential to your well-being, is a difficult thing.

The longer the fast, the harder it is supposed to be. Spending 40 days fasting, as Jesus did, has to be grueling. Spending three weeks fasting like Daniel did would be challenging. Spending a day without food for many of us triggers headaches.

And with all of that difficulty, Jesus says that when we fast, people shouldn’t be able to tell by looking at us.

In that comment, Jesus makes it clear that he knows people inside and out. When most of us are doing something difficult, we like other people to know. When we spent the night not sleeping, we make sure that people understand why we are cranky. We help them to have the appropriate amount of sympathy for us. We often remind people of how busy we are. We frequently help people know our burdens.

And Jesus says, when you are giving up food (or whatever you are fasting from), don’t look miserable. (One translation says that the hypocrites “disfigure their faces,” an apt description of us when we are trying to look like we are feeling miserable.) Instead, wash your face, comb your hair, look as alert, as happy, as normal as you can.

Will our family know that we are missing a meal? Yes, of course. Will that negate the value? Probably not. Unless we are fasting to impress them.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the outcome of fasting which tells us why we are doing it. For now, this thought.

The hardest part of fasting may be that people won’t know. Which is, of course, the point.

when you fast

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Don’t you love the difference the choice between two words can make?

One word makes things optional. One word makes them expected.

One word makes you think about the perhaps. One word makes you think about the procedure.

One word is about whether. One word is about how.

One word is “if”. One word is “when”.

Jesus talks about fasting in Matthew 6:16-18. He starts this section of his sermon with “When you fast.”

He could have made it completely optional by saying “if”. He could have removed it from consideration at all by not talking about it all (thereby leaving the conversation about fasting up to commentators – “The fact that Jesus didn’t mention fasting suggests that he found it an unimportant element of spiritual life.”)

Instead, fasting shows up three times in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life. The first time is when Jesus himself fasts for 40 days prior to his temptation. The third time is in Matthew 9 where John’s disciples ask Jesus why both they and the Pharisees fast and Jesus’s disciples don’t. The second time is here where Jesus is talking about how to fast.

Because we are looking at Matthew as kind of a handbook for what it means to be a follower of Jesus, let’s take a look at these three. One tells us that Jesus himself saw value in fasting, particularly before the beginning of his ministry. The third tells us that both groups of super-religious people saw fasting itself as an observable measure of spirituality. In the second Jesus says that if fasting is done for how it looks, then what humans think of you is all it is good for.

Said differently, if you want people to be impressed, then be public about your fasting. If you want God to listen, be incredibly private.