Fasting – A Practical Approach
“Lord, why are you weeping?” “Because I was hungry, yet you did nothing while you feasted.”
Each day in this fallen world thousands of my brothers and sisters — your brothers and sisters — starve to death, while so often we think little of wasting food. Is this defensible, and what will Jesus tell us when we come before his judgement throne; will it be along the lines of the conversation above?
A few Sundays ago, my first in York as History fresher, I went along to the Acomb Christian Fellowship meeting where Ross Patterson was speaking. The quintessence of his sermon was that we ought to take the scriptures, the Living Word of God, seriously, and listen to what it has to speak to us. He concluded with a challenge for his congregation; that we should be able to return the following week saying “this is what the Word of God has been speaking to my heart”. Inspired by this I decided to follow up a Biblical theme on which I had recently been thinking — that of fasting.
The Bible I brought with me to university is a Thompson chain reference edition, so I explored chain 3212, “General references to fasting”.1 All these verses were very interesting and forced a radical rethink of my attitude to fasting, but the chapter which really caught my attention was Isaiah 58, which the N.I.V. entitles “True Fasting”. My general method of using the chains is to read the specified verse, then the surrounding chapter so that I come to some understanding of its context, and finally to meditate and pray over as much of the chapter as seems relevant: this would be a worthwhile exercise to attempt right now with the provided verses (or at least before you totally forget this article and it’s contents).
While preparing for University I had come up with the idea of going without food one day a week, thus saving a certain amount of money, which I promised myself would be used to enable the saints to serve the Lord. I still hold that this was a worthy aim, but reading the passage from Isaiah really shook me about my proposed method — it was really a fast for economic reasons. It is essentially saying “What’s the point of just going without food for one or two days a week when others are starving and suffering all the time?”. If we mortify our flesh without the love of God, and consequently a compassion for our fellow-men foremost in our hearts, then we really do it all for nothing. The Bible does not call us to be “compartmentalised Christians”, who have certain times set aside for God, and who look on the rest as their own resposibilty, but to a holistic Christianity, where even our smallest thought acknowledges our Creator.
The idea which came into my head as a result of this study was that maybe what I should be doing was living more simply. Indeed, how could the opulent indulgence of so much of our Western lifestyle be integrated into the model church described in Acts? Even in Britain there are many who can not pay their bills and feed their children, many who wander destitute in our streets. How many of these can not countenance the thought of the loving God we talk about because of the way in which we live? This does not mean that we must give everything we own away, for in many cases that would only be adding to and exacerbating the situation. However, surely more worthwhile than mere abstinence from consumption is a positive attempt to live more simply: that is what the Lord is calling for through the passage in Isaiah — a positive approach which is much more than just having another “thou shalt not” rule to adhere to.
This is not to say that fasting by abstinence is wrong, for to do so would be to ignore so much of the Bible, but I do hold that it is pointless, and indeed unhealthy to abstain from food without setting our hearts specifically upon the Lord: that is to say it would be unwise to fast without attempting to make any other change to the activity of our day. Instead, why not cut down consumption of luxury foods, for example rationing yourself to only one or two chocolate biscuits a day? Eat healthly instead of excessively, which will also be looking after yourself better, and thus also helping you to “Honour God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
Finally, the really difficult part comes in actually applying the savings you make to the service of God and alleviating starvation, injustice and suffering. My suggestion, which I am trying to implement myself, is to give a full tithe of your grant cheque and in addition to be lovingly generous (though not wasteful). As we once again approach the festive season with frightening rapidity, bear Isaiah’s words, and their application, in mind. An excellent book which includes many very practical ideas, and also a well-researched (although now slightly dated) section on the facts of world hunger and global exploitation, is Ronald J. Sider’s “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger”. If my article has managed to challenge you in any way, then read this book and be challenged by an expert …
“But you, son, you did what you could” — pray through the suggested readings, act on what you discover, and make sure that this is the comment that you receive from the Son of God.
1 General references to fasting: Psalms 35:13, 69:10; Isaih 58:3; Jeremiah 14:12; Zechariah 7:5; Matthew 9:15