“Fasting: Foolish or Faithful”
Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ash Wednesday Service
February 13, 2013
By Rev. Richard K. Kamanu
Today, fasting is a lost practice. Since Vatican II, Catholics do not require fasting. Except for Episcopalians and Lutherans, most Protestants do not know what fasting is. And very few Lutherans and Episcopalians take fasting seriously. Yet, fasting has always been a part of religious devotion, both Christian and non-Christian. For instance, the Bible takes fasting for granted. In looking for a text commending fasting, I could not find one. Fasting is assumed. Jesus took for granted that people would fast. Jesus twice says, "When you fast," not "if you fast," or "you should fast." When the Disciples could not perform a miracle, Jesus explained that it could be done only by prayer and fasting. Jesus fasted. Paul fasted, The Apostles fasted. Luther fasted. The Wesley brothers fasted. It has been a universal practice to fast until the time of the radical reformers in the 16th century. If fasting has been a universal practice of religious people, there must have been a reason for it and there must have been some value to it. Are we the losers for not fasting today? Lent is the traditional time to fast. As we approach another Lent, we face the question: to fast or not to fast. How will you answer?
When Fasting is Foolish
If you say, "No," to fasting, it will be because you claim that fasting is foolishness. You see no sense in it at all. The world, for one, says that fasting is foolish. Fasting means you must be hard on yourself. You must deny yourself some comfort or pleasure. The world does not go along with this. The world loves comfort and ease. It is not for discipline, but for permissiveness. It believes in indulgence and dissipation. It is like the little girl who fell and hurt her knee. When her mother kissed it and comforted her, she said, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the world would be covered with cushions so that little girls like you would not get hurt?" This is the feeling of the world. It says to us that we should be easy on ourselves. You owe it to yourself to treat yourself. A TV commercial has a young lady using a certain hair color and asks, "Don't you think I am worth it?" The sense of the world is expressed in an outdoor restaurant sign saying that you can have ‘all the shrimp you can eat’. That is it: indulge yourself, stuff yourself to overflowing. Do not deny or deprive yourself. That is foolish. You live only once; live it up and have a good time. Fasting is the exact opposite of that philosophy. Fasting calls for pulling in the reins on yourself. It means saying "No" to yourself. It demands discipline and denial. Who in the world wants that?
The world thinks fasting is foolish also because our fasting is mere tokenism. The world laughs at some of us Christians by saying, "When you fast, you give up little things that do not really matter." They are trivial, shallow, and superficial. You give up itsy-bitsy things like Cokes and candy, or coffee and cake, these are not demanding. How can you say you make a real sacrifice with that kind of fasting? Then, too, if you fast on one thing, you compensate with something else. For example if you give up desserts, later you are hungry and make up for it by having a sandwich which ordinarily you would not eat. If you say that you are going to fast on coffee, you use tea as a substitute. If you are serious about fasting, why don't you give up things that you feel you cannot possibly give up? If you cannot stop smoking, why not try it as a Lenten discipline? If it is liquor, let the bottle alone for forty days. Could you do it? If you say you cannot, it shows the world is right by claiming that your fasting is meaningless. It is a sham. Not only that, the world notes that we who fast can find it very convenient during Lent to break the fast. If we have given up desserts, and we are eating in a friend's home, we say we must break the fast to avoid offending the hosts. Isn't that a cop-out?
When God Opposes Fasting
Fasting is foolishness to God also when fasting is the wrong kind. God in Isaiah's time condemns the kind of fasting participated in at that time. Fasting can be an end in itself, an aspect of our religiosity. In Isaiah 58, God points out that while the people are fasting, they engage in their usual sins: "Seek your own pleasure, oppress all your workers, quarrel and fight." God asks, "Will you call that a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?" You see, fasting is always connected to repentance. Being conscious of sin, a person would repent and show his/her repentance sincerely by putting on sackcloth, put ashes on his head, and engage in a fast. That is why the first day of Lent was called "Ash Wednesday." It was a special day of repentance. People went to church where they were marked with ashes while the priests recited: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust" to remind the people that the wages of sin is death. Thus, people were called from their sin and urged to return to God. Fasting is identified with a change of mind and heart, a true sorrow for sin and the desire to do better. False fasting is when you go through the motions of fasting, but do not make any effort to change your wicked way of life. What fasting is done today is largely divorced from any serious effort to change one's wicked ways or to execute social righteousness.
Fasting that is foolish actually supports sin rather than helping to get rid of it. You can fast for the sake of building up your ego. It can be a matter of pride. When you fast, you can go around telling everybody what you are giving up for Lent. Jesus condemned this in the Sermon on the Mount. He said that; when you fast, you should not let men see or know that you are fasting to prevent you’re doing it for self-glory. Jesus said you should not put on a dismal face but wash your face - yet still fast! Look how fasting can produce pride! Suppose one says that he is fasting from cigars. His friend says, "But I am fasting from my lunch every day." What is a cigar to a lunch? The one fasting from lunches feels he is doing so much better, is a better Christian, and leaves the impression that he is holier than the other man.
It is possible, also, to use fasting in terms of works righteousness. If we are hard on ourselves and really sacrifice through fasting, we may get the idea that this ought to count with God on our behalf. It should show how good we are and how hard we are trying to please God. All of the denials and sacrifices are supposed to stack up merit so that, at judgment day, God will give us an okay. This puts us back to pre-Reformation times when all the prayers, fastings, pilgrimages, indulgences, and other good works were supposed to get one saved. We need to be reminded that we do not get to heaven by our fasting, but only by the grace of God through faith in Christ as Savior. So, if you decide not to fast because it is foolish, you may be right. That kind of fasting should not be embraced or practiced. God would not frown upon you if you did not want that kind of fasting.
Fasting is Fruitful
On the other hand, if you decide to fast, it would be because you are convinced that the right kind of fasting is fruitful. God approves this kind of fasting and God blesses it, too. Through Isaiah, God talks about fasting in terms of "loosing the bonds of wickedness, let the oppressed go free, share bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, cover the naked." From this kind of fasting comes God's blessings: Answer to prayer - "You shall call, and the Lord will answer." You shall be healed - "Your healing shall spring up speedily." You will be made right with God - "Your righteousness shall go before you." You will have enlightenment - "Then shall your light break forth like the dawn." In the face of these facts, do you not think it would be wise and beneficial to practice fasting this Lent, the season of repentance and fasting?
Suppose you do fast in the right way. The right way means that you will truly turn from your evil ways and will do what you can to help the poor, defend the innocent, and work for a more just social order. What benefits can be derived from a sincere and strict program of fasting this Lent?
One value that will come to you is self-mastery. When you fast, you learn to say "No" to yourself. It is usually called self-denial. You deny the self. You say "No" to yourself when you want to do something indulgent or wicked. Without this ability to deny self, a person does anything they want to as long as they can get away with it. In the days of Robert E. Lee, a mother who had him serve as godfather asked him at the baptism what she should teach her boy. He said, "Teach him to deny himself." This is not easy, as anyone who tried it can tell you. It is sometimes the most difficult thing in the world to do. You may want something with all your heart, but you know you should not have it because it would hurt you or others. It calls for an exercise of the will. It demands self-mastery. When a little girl fell and hurt her knee, someone asked her how she kept from crying. She answered, "Oh, I just said to myself, 'Stop that,' and made myself mind me."
This struggle with yourself goes on all through the period of fasting. You see, you fast on something or some activity that means the entire world to you. That is why you give it up, because it is a sacrifice to deny yourself that item. For the forty days of Lent, you are tempted repeatedly and more and more severely by the Devil to indulge and give up your fast. Suppose I decide to give up coffee for Lent. Let me tell you it is a struggle not to have a cup when you come to the kitchen first thing in the morning and smell the odor of the coffee. It is a struggle to say "No" to yourself when no one is around. "Nobody," the Devil says, "would know about it." Then he would argue that it is such a little thing to do; it is no great sin. After all, don't you think God wants you to have all good things? This is a small sample of what you face day after day as you fast during Lent. It is an exercise in self-mastery. When you come out of a Lenten fast, you are a far stronger person. You have the joy and satisfaction that you are in control of yourself.
Another thing that makes fasting fruitful is that it makes you choose the top priority in your life. If you fast, you must decide who really is your God. What are the priorities in your life? What is of first value? What is your scale of values?
It is common knowledge that many gods exist in our corporate and individual lives. What we give top priority to is what constitutes our god. For many, self is the god who is seen in our selfishness and self-centeredness. To deny self is to deny that god. Many have the god of materialism. Devotees of this god can be seen these days as they grab for items that are scarce. When Johnny Carson jokingly said over The Tonight Show that toilet paper was scarce, the women of America went out and bought up all the toilet paper, and then there was a real shortage! In the days of the gas shortage of the 1970s, people filled up their tanks and kept them filled. One man went to a service station to fill up his tank and he needed only eleven cents worth. Then he gave the attendant a credit card to pay for it! This coveting, this craze for the material things of life, shows who our god really is. Fasting helps us to deny ourselves material things.
In the light of these gods, which are nothing other than top priorities in our lives, fasting helps us to renounce these false gods and give full loyalty and devotion to the true God. We sacrifice false gods to glorify the true God seen in Christ. If God is our God, then we have a new scale of values. Fasting helps us to put first things first, to put God first and ourselves last in the scale of values.
So, here is the question for each of us: to fast or not to fast. If the answer is negative, you consider fasting to be foolish because of its abuses. If you answer "Yes," you will fast because it is fruitful. If you decide to fast, it will be necessary to make that fasting genuine. It will be an outward sign of an inner renewal. It must represent a change in your heart toward God.
A movie, Ash Wednesday, starring Elizabeth Taylor, is the story of a couple about to get a divorce. The wife thinks she can restore the marriage and win back her husband by going to a distant place for a very painful and expensive face-lifting. She does that and she looks twenty years younger. She is really beautiful, as only Elizabeth Taylor could be. Her husband comes to visit her at a resort hotel and stays but a couple days. He finds that she has not really changed and he sees no sense in going on with the marriage. He leaves to file for a divorce. Isn't it interesting that they chose the title, Ash Wednesday? Are they not saying that a superficial change on the outside will not work? It must be an internal condition of the heart. That is the lesson we learn today. There is no sense in fasting unless it is rooted and grounded in the heart. Fasting that is fruitful demands a radical, inner change. Lent is the time for this kind of fasting. So, how is it with you: to fast or not to fast? Amen.
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