An Acceptable Fast
THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
What is an acceptable fast to God? The very question implies that there is a fast that God deems unacceptable. So, what makes one fast, pleasing, and efficacious, and another, ineffectual and futile, evoking a Divine rebuke? The answer to these questions is found in the fifty-eight chapter of Isaiah's prophecy.
In the Old Testament, every Israelite was called to fast on the annual Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:27–28). This is what God required of his people. Over time, there were occasional fasts observed by individuals like David who sought mercy for the Son born to him by Uriah's wife, as the infant lay dying (2 Sa. 12:22) and sometimes observed corporately, as when the prophet Joel called God's people to fast, repent, and turn back to their God.
In Holy Scripture, we find that fasting expresses different things. Often it is an expression of penitence and grief. It was a way by which men might humble themselves (meaning to fast) as Ezra did on the banks of the river Ahava, seeking safety for his children and goods on their journey back to Jerusalem (Ezr. 8:21). Sometimes fasting is an expression of self-inflicted punishment; this is the meaning of the Biblical term 'to afflict one's soul.' And, some came to think that fasting would automatically gain them a hearing from God. Such were the people in Isaiah chapter fifty-eight.
In chapter fifty-eight verse three, the people of Israel ask of God: "Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?" Their complaint is this: "God, we are fasting; in fact, we're keeping more fasts than the one you require... we are humbling ourselves before you, so why aren't you paying attention?"
Let's approach this in two ways: through the exterior and the interior because there are two aspects of fasting: the physical and the internal. Fasting is a sacramental act, meaning there is an outward and interior dimension. Now, the people of Isaiah fifty-eight are keeping the external requirements; they are afflicting their souls, which is a term the Bible uses to describe various forms of self-denial, including but not limited to fasting from food and drink, or from bathing, and using oil to moisten the skin, marital relations, and so on.
You see, the people are fasting from all of these things, and yet they don't understand why the Lord is dealing with them as He is. Why won't He take notice? They think they deserve reward and praise for their spiritual exercise, and yet, they are enduring hardship without effect? They want to know from God how His treating them is to be understood. In fact, they are demanding a formal reply: "why in our fasting, are you not paying attention to us?" They think they are in the right, and they want an answer.
But they are gravely mistaken; they are not in the right: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Like the blowing of a shofar, Isaiah is to cry out to the people and reveal their sin: for this is an unacceptable fast of futility and undeserving of Divine attention. But why?
"Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?" Answer: "Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers." Here's the problem: externally, they are keeping the fast while at the same time pursuing their own pleasure and desires; the Hebrew word for pleasure meaning the pursuit of your business affairs, pursuing your own purposes, and matters of concern. And let me be clear, God's not judging them for holding down jobs and taking care of their responsibilities. He's judging them because they are totally consumed with themselves and have no regard for Kingdom things.
You see, they fast, while their sole desire is for economic success and material concerns. All the while stepping on, oppressing, and abusing those who work for them. Do you see the problem? How can a fast like this be acceptable to God? How can the outward look right and inward state be so self-centered and inclined to sin towards others? John says, "If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." Jesus says, "to leave your gift before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." The external act of fasting has no effect whatsoever on the interior life. They are suffering from a severe sacramental disconnect between the body and spirit.
In her book, The Biblical Evidence of Fasting, Susan Mathews reminds us that fasting is not a pitting of the spirit against the flesh, but rather body and soul united together against sin, the body and soul being converted together towards the Lord. The entirety of our person must cooperate with God's grace. We must love the Lord with our whole selves, our bodies, and souls. Far from being against the body, Matthews says that true "Christian asceticism is a fight, not against but for the body." The body is a valuable and precious gift of the Creator—who Himself took on human flesh—, but its value is only recognizable paradoxically when it is not pampered but denied, as in fasting: fasting in Christianity is only truly itself when it realizes the sacredness of the body.
Physically abstaining from food and drink naturally increases a fleshly desire to satisfy hunger: fasting heightens physical desires. In fasting, grace helps us to redirect these desires into spiritual hunger for God. Self-denial, not seeking our own pleasure and desires, whether food, drink, technology, entertainment, and so on, shapes the heart's desire and longing for Christ. You see, fasting is not about loss. It's about increase. It is a spiritual discipline given to increase our desire for Divine union, "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God" (Ps 42:1), and again, "My soul longs, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God" (Ps 84:2).
Fasting shows us that if we can give up food, which the body absolutely requires to stay alive, then we can certainly, with divine assistance, give up attachment to the sensual passions—which, contrary to what the world would tell us, one does not need to indulge in to stay alive. If we can master our passions, then we can exercise virtue, by which we begin to master sin and proclivity to unholy desires. Sacramental: body and soul cultivating desire, longing, and holiness through the discipline of fasting. Increased desire for God.
Here's the other problem with the fast in Isaiah fifty-eight: the great disconnect between their outward fasting and interior conversion manifested itself in brotherly strife and contention, "Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist." So get this: their solemn act of fasting, instead of raising them up inwardly, is making these people so moody and volatile that they are literally at one another's throats!
Their spirituality is producing nothing more than a demoralizing and ungodly influence. And to this, God says, "Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high." Consequently, their prayers, combined with such unacceptable fasting, will not reach the heights of heaven; they will not be heard. And this because an acceptable fast is one oriented towards righteousness, not contention and wickedness.
One can fast outwardly while the interior life remains embroiled in sin and unholy affections, as evidenced by the people of Isaiah fifty-eight. It is indeed God's will that a man afflict his soul, his psychical lusts, that he crucify the flesh (for God instituted the fast). This is wholesome and healthy. But fasting without an interior conversion cannot be a wholesome crucifying of the flesh.
Because God is not only interested in the external but the interior life as well. What God wants for his people is conversion, from the lesser towards the Greater. A daily conversion from sin and towards God. A radical reorientation of our whole life, a return to God with all our heart, soul, and bodies, turning from evil, with repentance and resolution to amend our lives, change our ways.
Lenten Fasting isn't an excuse to lament your current circumstances; it isn't an opportunity for bemoaning the rigors of Lenten disciplines, complaining as if someone has imposed a tyrannical yoke around our necks. Fasting as a means of interior conversion- the conversion of the heart- can and should be accompanied by pain and sadness, but it is a lament over sin and the hardness of our hearts. This is Lent's true song of sorrow; this is acceptable and godly grief, of which Paul says, "produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."
Dear Christian, if you will lament over anything, let it be your sins and wickedness. This world offers many sorrows, but our suffering comes more often from a guilty conscience, interior grief plaguing the soul. So in fasting, cry out to God for a renewal of heart. Beg him for strength to begin anew. Most of all, beseech him once again to reveal His great love towards us in Christ, that we might look with horror upon our sins and begin to fear the possibility of being separated from Him by our sinful choices.
Know this, that the human heart is converted by looking upon Him whom our sins have pierced. Therefore, we join in the lamentation of Israel, "Restore us to Thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored!" (Lam 5:21). And in the final analysis, fasting is an outward expression of inward penance for the sole purpose of interior conversion: an inward conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others.
"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?" This... this is an acceptable fast.
And although Isaiah says nothing more of physical fasting, bodily mortification, we mustn't think that God is rejecting fasting. In fact, God assumes his people will observe the fast given in the Law as does Jesus in his sermon on the mount, who says, "When you fast, etc..." The acceptable fast unites the outward and inward, harmonizes the physical and the spiritual. To share your bread with the hungry, open your door to the homeless, clothe the naked, and every work of righteousness... these are the proper external expressions of true, inward conversion: loving others, especially those in need.
The English novelist, Evelyn Waugh, was so committed to the prescribed pre-Vatican II Lenten disciplines that he was known to have carried a tiny scale when dining away from home. Whether visiting friends or a restaurant, he would produce his scale at the dinner table and weigh his portions to ensure they did not exceed Lenten portion regulations.
Like Waugh, you might be tempted to fixate on the amount of food coming in, but do not become so inwardly focused that you regulate and apportion the outward expression of an inward conversion. Be generous in good works, over the top, as though the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. Deny yourself, but give yourself away as well. Did not our Lord say, that "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it?"
Let me put it another way. Lenten Fasting should produce the fruit of righteousness. Turning from sin as the prodigal turned from the pig trough, through self-denial, temperance, and fortitude sets us on the road back to the Father. This interior conversion back towards the Divine Life is evidenced in relation to ourselves, to God, and others: shedding tears of repentance over sins; increased desire for God and Him alone; caring sacrificially for the poor, the naked, the hungry, and the needy. Remember, interior conversion happens in the daily gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, and loving God.
This is an acceptable fast. This is the fast that gets God's attention, whose prayer is heard. If... "we will take away the yoke from our midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness," and instead, "pour ourselves out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted." Beloved, an acceptable fast demands foregoing every sort of lovelessness and wills to practice every sort of love. An acceptable fast accomplishes the continual conversion of the heart.
"If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday." Finally, an acceptable fast is not marked by darkness and gloom but light and joy. "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites ... But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father" (Mat. 6:1617). Hear what our Lord is saying: Fasting, while a form of self-denial, is nonetheless a cause for joy, and it is this joy, rather than the fast, that we should manifest to the world.
Pureness of living brings joy. A clear conscience brings joy. Honest friendships and Christian fellowship bring joy. Serving others brings joy. Drawing nearer to God in Christ must bring joy, for Christ is our joy. Therefore, an acceptable fast is accompanied by joy for true conversion leads towards God and finds him.
Beloved, on this first Sunday in Lent, the fifty-eight chapter of Isaiah's prophecy is like a flashing yellow caution light over a sign which reads as follows: do not offer an unacceptable Lenten fast, but one that is acceptable, fruitful, and effectual. And know this: without the assistance of God's grace, you will not succeed. In fact, unless we pray for God to allow us to share in the meritorious and perfect fast of his Son, to appropriate his abstinence and unwavering obedience in the face of temptation, then we like the first Adam, will succumb to our inherent weaknesses and fail. Let us pray,
Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen+
