How Should We Fast? [Sermon]
You may know that my wife Mary has been in the hospital for three weeks. She’s improving and may be moving to skilled nursing in the next few days.
If you’ve even spent time in the hospital, you know that time can move slowly. People do different things to pass the time:
- watch television
- read a book
- sleep – at least until someone comes in to wake you for vital signs, food, or medication
- work puzzles
Many years ago a relative – an in-law really – was in the hospital. This in-law liked puzzles. He was working a crossword puzzle when I came to visit him. During this slow time in the hospital, he was working a crossword puzzle. There was a four letter word, and the clue was
Fast time.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
Has anyone figured out the four letter word for “Fast time?”
It’s “Lent.”
Lent begins in 10 days on Ash Wednesday. We will have an Ash Wednesday imposition of ashes here. And Lent is a time of fasting. The liturgical color – purple – tells us this is a time of fasting and reflection.
In times when that fasting included a lot of perishable things, it was important to consume those things before a weeks long fast began, especially before refrigeration and especially in warmer places like southern Louisiana.
So Shrove Tuesday – a day of confession at the end of the season preceding Lent – became Fat Tuesday, a day of consuming the food that would otherwise spoil during Lent.
In French, Fat Tuesday is “Mardi” (Tuesday) “Gras” (Fat).
Mardi Gras grew out of “let’s eat up everything that will otherwise spoil” into one of the biggest regional celebrations. Louisiana’s Mardi Gras celebrations are legendary.
We’re going to have a Mardi Gras event here in in the Social Hall on February 17 at 5:00 PM. It will be great, but it won’t be New Orleans great.
I’m a fan of celebrations as much as I’m a fan of reflection. Life is a cycle of looking inward and celebrating outward. But as we approach Lent, we’re going to hear the question
“What are you giving up for Lent?”
At one point, it was meat, for all of Lent. Later it was just on Fridays. Meat meant mammals and birds, so no beef, pork, mutton, turkey, duck, or chicken. But fish was okay.
But what if it’s difficult to obtain fish? Well, what if there’s an animal that spends a lot of time in the water?
Clergy asked the Pope about this, and it was agreed that some other animals were fish for the purpose of Lenten fasting:
- 🦫 Beavers
- 🐀 Muskrats
- 𐃶 Capybaras
- 🐧 Puffins
and specifically for New Orleans
- 🐊 Alligators
- 🦆 Skunk-headed coots – a kind of duck
People often give up other things for Lent, usually things they enjoy:
But our reading from the prophet Isaiah suggests something different: we need more than to just humbling ourselves before God.
Isaiah writes that the people ask
“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Isaiah 58:3, NRSVue
and the response is
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. You fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
Isaiah 58:3-4, NRSVue
Fasting is not a performance. It is not a demonstration to God and others that you are voluntarily suffering. Bearing a burden for the sake of bearing a burden doesn’t change anything.
Then what kind of fast is meaningful?
Isaiah goes on:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, 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 them and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Isaiah 58:6-7, NRSVue
If we put as much effort into fighting injustice and oppression, into helping the hungry and the homeless, as we did in making ourselves look humble, we could change the world.
We can do both.
If we give up an activity we enjoy, perhaps crossword puzzles, we can spend that time advocating for justice. If we give up consuming something we enjoy, we can give the money we saved to people who are hungry.
Hillel the Elder, a Pharisee, said
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole of the law. The rest is its application. Go and study it.”
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a
Jesus said
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 7:12, NRSVue
So when Jesus says, in today’s Gospel reading
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
he is not demanding devotion to the letter of the law, a kind of statutory morality. Rather, he is telling us to follow the underlying law, the law of loving our neighbors as ourselves, an empathic morality.
The reward of making this world a better place should be enough. But as a little sweetener, we read in Isaiah:
“your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.”
Isaiah 58:8, NRSVue
In Matthew, Jesus says
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.
People do not light a lamp put it under the bushel basket; rather they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”
Matthew 5:14-16
Note that these good works need to be seen, not to make us look like good people. but to give glory to God. I would add that it won’t hurt to let people know that Christianity can be about loving others.
My challenge for this week is to consider our fasting goals.
If we’re going to fast, let it not be a fast to our own misery, but instead a fast to the benefit of others.
Amen.
Let’s sing CH 600 Jesu, Jesu
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
#Fasting #FatTuesday #Lent #loveYourNeighbor #MardiGras #neighbors #ShroveTuesday
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