A call to fast and a call to feast
So I’ve started a new blog and wanted to be a little more focused on what God is directly teaching me through the sacred Word as well as the ideas, burdens, and travels he brings to my wife and I. So let’s start in Matthew 6 and a call to fast.
I’ve read this countless times each time thinking I had a handle on it. I saw it as the ability to fast without makinga big deal about it to others because I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. But then I read it in light of Isaiah 58 where God offers his definition of fasting. It begins by discussing how God doesn’t want Israel’s fast and how they mean nothing because their heart and motivation are completely wrong. They were fasting yet neglecting the poor and widows and placing a “yoke” upon the broken in which they couldn’t bear. God then goes on to say what a true fast would look like. I encourage you to read this. It’s discouraging of all that I’ve thought to be right.
But here’s the implication for me. It seems that denying myself of food or any other material thing doesn’t constitute a fast. Or it might but that wouldn’t make it pure. But maybe fasting involves not only denying ourselves as much as it means inviting others to eat with us, stay in our house, or investing in lives that normally get looked over. Isaiah 58 tells us that a true fast would be inviting in the broken and poor. And this does not mean taking them to McDonald’s, but inviting them into our homes. This speaks to me because I don’t want to extend myself in these ways. But this is what brings God glory. Not eating seems quite easy to me in light of Isaiah 58.
So maybe a call to fast in Matthew 6 is really a call to feast from Isaiah 58. What if it is? What if we have missed the point for so long and fasting has lost it’s value? Most of the people that I’ve talked to about fasting seem to view it as something dead that holds very little value. It seems that if it was used to engage the broken within the church and society, value and enrichment could be brought back to it. It may become more than a dead ritual to some. (Not saying that fasting is completely dead, but it seems to be how some if not most within the church view it.)
Jesus definitely fasted in a traditional way and there is value in it that I can speak to personally. I think there may be more to it than we really recognize.
grace and peace
So is it that the manner in which we live, focusing on food and other daily activities, have become a new yoke and new manner or oppression to us in our walks? It would then follow that a fast would be to eliminate those from our life for a certain amount of time in order to focus more fully on Him. I can also see how, if done in the proper motivation, a relative feast with those who are broken (in any sense of the word) would also constitute a God centered fast in that we are eliminating that oppression of hunger or poverty or emptiness from their lives that traditionally keep them from the Lord. As with many areas of the bible, maybe this is another “Christ fulfilling the law” aspects where we are still to fast, but to do it in a new and more evangelical manner.
Just a thought from a non-seminary student…
I definitely agree that God can use a fast to break us of those things that we tend to hold higher than Him. After going back and rereading the post, I realized that I limited the application which probably comes from where I felt the Spirit working within me in my studies. I think I have abused fasting as something that makes me feel better about myself similar to how some Catholics use self-inflicted pain to become better or suffer for God. There have been times that I’ve fooled myelf into thinking fasting was good, yet I was neglecting other aspects of my walk or avoiding opportunities to serve others that may have held more redemptive qualities.
I hope that makes sense. Please continue to read behind me. I appreciate your insight and understanding of the Word as much if not more than anyone. Hope all is well with you and Katie. Give me a call sometime (I would call you but it seems all I have was your old Absolute number). Love you and praying for you.