Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek Me out; they seem eager to know My ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and You have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from you own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and God will say: Here am I. (Isaiah 58:1-9a)
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I couldn't resist the irony. In the days leading up to the Annual Meeting – featuring a typically gluttonous I'm sure church potluck – I stumbled across this passage from the prophet Isaiah on the topic of fasting! On the whole I suspect that United Churches are known far more for potlucks than they are for fasting. I have to confess that fasting is not something that I've really had much experience with. Everyone has spiritual practices that they find fulfilling, and for a lot of people fasting is one of those spiritual practices. Just not for me. I tried it once. Some years ago to mark Ash Wednesday I actually committed myself to a 24 hours Ash Wednesday fast. I'm not sure what I expected out of it, but what I ended up getting out of it was extreme hunger. Unfortunately, I really didn't feel any closer to God as a result of it. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't fast. What doesn't work for one person may prove to be a magnificent mountain top spiritual experience for another. But what I wanted to think about today was exactly what we mean by fasting – and, maybe more to the point, exactly what God and Scripture means by fasting. We have a tendency to always think of fasting in terms of food. So, I'm going to fast for 24 hours – meaning that I'm going to go without food for 24 hours. But Isaiah in this passage looks at fasting and finds that simply going without food is hardly an acceptable fast in the eyes of God. Like anything and everything else, fasting can become little more than an empty ritual that achieves nothing and changes nothing. It's a little bit like what I was talking about last week, when I pointed out that some of our practices can become “mantra-like” - things that cause us to feel we're doing something worthwhile but actually serve little purpose, and certainly don't push us or challenge us to live our faith. God, of course, desires that we live our faith and not only talk about it or “practice” it with rituals – whether the ritual is fasting or even participating in Holy Communion, as we did last week. The test of whether the ritual is meaningful is whether the ritual makes a difference in our lives. So, this morning, we might do well to ask ourselves: what difference did Communion make to us last week, or was it merely a ritual that we chose to engage in? Did it deepen our faith? Did it bring us closer to God? Did it cause us to change anything in our outlook about life? Did it cause us to act any differently? These are the questions we should always ask about religious rituals, because the ritual (whatever it is) is only useful if it leads to something more concrete.
Fasting is a great case study of this problem – not because it's all that commonly practiced now, but because it's talked a lot about in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments – and many times when it's mentioned, it's mentioned critically, as an example of a spiritual practice that's being misused and even abused by the people of God.
Jesus was certainly aware of this problem. Jesus believed in fasting. Near the beginning of his ministry, as He went into the wilderness, we're told that He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. That is not the type of fast that I think I would be able to handle, but for Jesus it was an event that prepared Him for all that He would endure in the rest of His life, and it also led to His first encounter with Satan – who comes across a hungry Jesus according to the story and tries to tempt Him (unsuccessfully) to eat something. So, for Jesus, fasting was something that provided Him with great spiritual strength. But Jesus was also aware that people could get caught up in the ritual and think that merely practicing fasting was sufficient. He was concerned that people were using fasting in a decidedly unspiritual way – to puff themselves up, and to make themselves look better than they really were. They would do it in ways that ensured that people knew what they were doing and gave them all sorts of credit and honour for being such good, pious people. And Jesus didn't like that, and gave very specific instructions to His disciples about it: “ When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen ...” Jesus is telling His people to make sure that whatever their rituals might be – they need to keep the focus on God, rather than crediting themselves or looking for honour from others for having done it. Don't use your rituals to put on a show, Jesus is saying – use them to bring you closer to God, and being brought closer to God will allow great things to happen in you and through you.
Jesus was saying exactly what the prophet Isaiah said. Isaiah referred to the people as being in rebellion against God. What he meant was that they weren't living as God intended them to live. They were performing the rituals, but they weren't living the life. Even for Israel, apparently, it wasn't enough just to follow the law and obey the rituals – the people had to live as if they meant something, and they had to show the difference God made in their lives. “... on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.” This dishonoured God. It was actually a form of rebellion against God. In fasting or any other religious ritual leads to a pious life rather than a faithful life then it's not what God wants of us. If fasting or any other religious ritual leads to conflict or strife rather than a community founded on Jesus and demonstrating love and compassion in its very life then it's not what God wants of us. If fasting or any other religious ritual becomes a way for us to show off how good we are rather than to demonstrate the goodness of God to those around us then it's not what God wants of us. And isn't there always that temptation? To puff ourselves up or to tear others down? We see it all the time in religious communities who believe that they've found that elusive one and only truth; among Christians who've discovered that they're the one and only true Christians. And it's not what God wants from our fasting or from any other religious ritual we might practice. The rituals aren't what's important. They might well be valuable. They might well provide us with mountain top experiences with God. But in the end they're not what's important. Isaiah's prophecy explained that quite eloquently.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from you own flesh and blood?” If our religion with all its rituals doesn't begin to create at least a glimpse of the Kingdom of God – a Kingdom where the poor are raised up and the hungry are fed and the oppressed are freed – then our religion with all its rituals is nothing more than an empty shell.
I don't want it to be that way. I want all that we do to point people to God and to Christ, to true love and to true freedom and to true life. When we fast – or when we do whatever it is that we do – let's make sure that it's always for the right reason!
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