A Thought For The Week Of March 6, 2017

"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 your own flesh and blood?" (Isaiah 58:6-7) Fasting is an important spiritual practice to some people - and Lent is a time when many choose to engage in ritual fasts as a way of coming closer to God. I tried fasting once. Mostly it was out of curiosity. Many people told me that they had fasted. The Bible talks about fasting. It sounded as if it might be a powerful spiritual experience. So I tried a 24 hour fast - midnight to midnight. Only water. I prayed. I read the Bible. And all I got out of it was extreme hunger! I felt no closer to God at all. Which is perhaps because I hadn't felt called to fast in the first place. I'm sure that fasting is a wonderful experience for those who feel called to it. It just wasn't right for me, and I've never felt the desire (or the call) to fast in that way again. From a Christian perspective, any spiritual practice is really only valuable to the extent that it gives us that feeling of connectedness or closeness to God. Fasting simply for the sake of fasting - making fasting just a ritual and nothing more - seems to miss the point of why people might fast. Fasting for the sake of fasting might give us the sense of having accomplished something, but in the end it's of little practical value. How exactly do we fast to come closer to God? Perhaps that's where Isaiah is going with these verses about fasting. Simply refraining from eating is literally nothing. It's something we choose not to do, but surely we have to replace what we're not doing with something positive. Real fasting has to in some way move us to serve others - because as Jesus would say, service to others is service to God. Isaiah understood that. That's why he spoke of "real fasting" in terms of the beneficial impact that our actions have on those around us. There is still injustice and oppression. There are still many who have difficult finding food and clothing. There are still those who don't even make time for those dearest to them. A real fast should in some way lead us to create a more caring society, to meet the needs of those around us and to be a blessing to our families: all things we sometimes find it hard to make the time to do.