A Lenten blog, Day 6

The Foothills of Fasting

How many of us have tried fasting at some time or another? For many years I’ve engaged in a short fast from Thursday evening, the time of the Last Supper, to Friday mid-afternoon, when Christ died. It’s called a Wesleyan fast, and it does several things: reminds me of Christ’s Passion, suffering and death, reminds me that life is not about satisfying my own appetites, and of course it benefits my body (if my i am well enough to withstand fasting rigours.

But I’ve only travelled in the foothills of fasting. The bible speaks of a number of people, including Jesus Himself, undertaking 40 day fasts. Neither is this practice confined to the biblical era. I have a friend, a woman who started her own church, who has completed her own 40 day fast. The Chinese Christian Brother Eun claims to have completed a 73 day fast.

In recent times we have become more creative with fasting. Decades ago I was introduced both to the practice of fasting and to the great Christian agency called World Vision by participating in their 40 hour Famine. Those who fasted, mostly rich young western Christians,
got an idea of what it is like to go without. By fasting they raised money for those who were REALLY doing without.

Some years ago my friend Sarah awoke in the night with the words “Lent Event” ringing in her head. Sarah’s minister at that time, a wise and godly man, realised that this was from God. And so began Lent Event. The idea with Lent Event is that during Lent you do without something, eg. filtered Swedish coffee, or fastlagsbullar, calculate what that would have cost you if you had indulged and donate that sum of money to Lent Event.

And as one final example, one of my contacts on LinkedIn, who is the Coordinator of Green Anglicans, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Environmental Network, has introduced me to the concept of a Lenten Carbon Fast, a 40 day feast of practical tips and biblical versus all on how to care better for god’s creation.

All well and good, but I still get the feeling that many Protestant Christians find something vaguely offensive about the very idea of fasting. Why not just send the money to the poor and have done? And more theologically and pointedly, isn’t there the smell of the dreaded “WORKS” around fasting! Didn’t Christ go without so we could enjoy the riches that are in Him? And if that is the case, isn’t fasting, at it’s worst, an attempt to win God’s favour and our own salvation BY OUR OWN EFFORT?

To answer these questions properly we need to return to the scene of Jesus’ own fast, and the temptations that followed immediately afterwards.

I’ll get into that discussion in tomorrow’s blog.

David