Keeping the Fast

A talk prepared for this coming Sunday :-

I was cleaning my teeth the other night, and as I took the toothbrush out of my mouth and rinsed it to put away, I found myself suddenly thinking, “How on earth did my toothbrush get into such a state?”  There it was, all straggly and soft and with bristles sticking out in all directions.  As a means of cleaning my teeth it was no longer much good.

How on earth did my toothbrush get like that?  Gradually, is the answer.  Bit by bit and without me noticing, is the answer.  As with toothbrushes, so with so much else.  Things get tatty and run down and worn out without us noticing.

A friend of mine was complaining to me the other day that he was getting pins and needles and his hand was swelling up.  He was still complaining at work the following day and they sent him to casualty.  Turns out he’d broken his wrist, maybe a couple of weeks earlier taking a tumble on the ice as so many of us did.  He hadn’t realised and had just worked on. Quite often even fairly large problems and deficiencies go unnoticed because we’ve got other things to think about, too much else on our minds.

So here we are in Lent, and that’s what Lent is for.  We need times in our lives when we take a closer look at our selves, take a step back as it were in order to notice the things we otherwise don’t see.  What am I doing that I really shouldn’t be doing?  What have I stopped doing that I ought to still be doing?  What bits of my life, and especially what bits of my spiritual life, are getting saggy and worn out and really no longer quite fit for purpose?  And what am I going to do about it all?

In other words, let’s get back into shape, let’s get back into a disciplined way of living, let’s get back into touch with our spiritual heart, let’s get back in touch with God.

And of course, that last bit is the bit that’s most important.  Let’s get back in touch with God. Jesus directed the attention of his disciples toward those people, chiefly the Pharisees, who made a big deal out of fasting and praying. They anointed themselves liberally with ashes so that people wouldn’t be able to help but notice they were fasting.  They stood on the street corners to pray so that no-one would be able to ignore what they were doing.

Said Jesus - if you do what you do so that people will see you and applaud you, well, don’t be surprised if that’s the only reward you get.  That’s the one you were aiming for, after all.  The point of fasting is that it’s between you and God.  It isn’t what other people see, and what other people say, that matters.  This is between you and God.

A former colleague of mine who happens to be a Muslim used to take gentle but nonetheless serious issue with the way Christians do fasting, compared with the proper Muslim fast - as he saw it - of Ramadan.  During Ramadan, Muslims (as I’m sure you know) fast completely throughout the daylight hours, neither eating nor drinking, and they only break their fast when the sun sets.  Ann and I were in Istanbul one Ramadan, and we felt quite guilty really, every lunchtime, seeing as so many other people around us weren’t eating a thing.

So when my Muslim colleague used to tell me, “We Muslims fast properly, while even in Lent you Christians don’t really seem to fast at all” to be honest, I tended to find myself more or less agreeing with him.  I think I recall saying something about how sad it is that in this secular and materialistic age people here are no longer as serious about things like fasting as they used to be.  Mind you, that might all be changing now, with the news recently that the fasting diet is actually a very good and sensible way to keep your weight down, and maintain your body in good health.

Be that as it may, what I could have said to my Muslim colleague was that Christians aren’t supposed to make a big public thing about their fasting, not even in Lent.  If our fasting is saying ‘Look at me’ rather than ‘Look at God’ then somewhere we’re going a bit wrong.  Nonetheless, we should keep the Lenten fast as a fast, in some quiet but sincere way - because we really do need it.

We need it because we don’t notice as we should when we get slack about our praying or our Bible reading or our charitable giving or our care for one another.  And we need it because we don’t notice the ways in which other things, pleasures, possessions, ambitions, take too big a place in our lives, so that they become idols, little gods in their own right blocking our view of the one true God.  And we need it too because maybe at times our Christian fellowship together needs a little repair and refurbishment too.

But fasting isn’t about beating ourselves up just for the sake of it.  It doesn’t have to be a miserable time.  One prayer I sometimes use talks about the joy of the Lenten fast - and why not use that word?  Surely if we’re drawing closer to God then that should be a joyful thing!  Nor is it just about giving things up.  It’s also about taking things on.  If during Lent we give up a meal, and what we would have spent on that meal goes into our holiday fund for later in the year, that doesn’t seem very right.  If giving something up saves us money, then how we use that money is also part of our Lenten commitment.

There’s plenty about fasting in scripture.  Sometimes the people of Israel seems to have imagined that all they needed to do was to fast a bit and pray a bit, and all their woes would be reversed because God was bound to be back on their side now.  Prophets like Hosea told them in no uncertain terms just how wrong they were.  God isn’t bound to support you just because you press the right buttons, he told them.

In other words, it isn’t what you do with your hands or on your knees that matters, it’s what is happening in your heart.  Jesus knew that very well.  Do things in secret, he told his disciples, so that your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.  It doesn’t matter that no-one else sees what you’re about.

Solving my toothbrush problem wasn’t a problem.  They come in packs of two very often anyway, and the other half of my last pack was waiting for me, pristine and ready to brush, there at the back of the bathroom cabinet.  My friend with the broken wrist is off work for a couple of weeks, but by then he should have healed up OK, and he’ll be back in the thick of things.

I suppose the sort of things the Lenten fast is supposed to sort our might need a little more work.  If my biggest spiritual problem at the start of Lent is that I’m not praying as I should, then just giving up eating chocolate isn’t going to be the total solution.  If I don’t succeed I end up feeling miserable;  if I do succeed I may also be miserable, as life without chocolate isn’t much fun - but I may also be so full of pride that I’m tempted to boast about how well I’m doing.  And at the end of it all I’m probably still not praying.

So we do need to be purposeful about Lent;  sorted out and realistic.  What do I really need to do, for me to be stronger and more effective, better tuned in to the will of my Lord, better able to serve him and to praise him and proclaim him?  Giving things up will help, but only if I’m also taking things on.  And the right things, for me as I am.  Otherwise, it’s a bit as though I’m saying, “Oh, I see my toothbrush is getting a bit threadbare, I think I’ll buy myself a new hat.”

Now at this point you might be thinking, “Well, this is all very fine, but we’re already two Sundays into Lent, why is he saying all this now?”  Well, your Lent might be all sorted out, but it might not be.  Or you might even have given up.

At Lent as at the New Year, we make resolutions full of fervour and good faith, and then we trip up and don’t keep to them, and so we give up and say, “Well, never mind, there’s always next year!”  Fasting is too important a principle to be thrown out just because you missed to keep it on one occasion. I personally think Christians should always fast, and I know a very holy couple - no, I’ll rephrase that, because it makes them sound like the sort of pious head in the clouds types that are no fun, and that’s not them - I know a very jolly but also very prayerful couple who fast every Friday throughout all the year, in honour of Good Friday but also because it just brings them back to God in a firm but gentle way, it’s a way in which they remind themselves each week just who comes in at number one in their lives.

But that was to digress.  Not giving up was what I wanted to talk about.  Purposeful fasting is about making progress through Lent, drawing closer to God, mastering our rebellious selves, bringing ourselves back into line.  It stands to reason that we won’t always manage it first time.  High jumpers at the sports get three goes at the bar, at whatever height it’s set.  We get as many goes as we need, so long as we keep on trying, and with good faith.  We’re not disqualified, just because on this time or that one we didn’t manage to clear the bar.

I seem to be mixing my images rather today.  If you come away from this sermon with a mental image of a chap with a broken wrist trying to clean his teeth as he clears the high jump bar in an athletics contest then (a) hopefully it will at least raise a smile, and smiling is allowed, even in Lent, among God’s people;  and (b) well, sometimes it does seem as difficult as that to get it all right and to be good and faithful disciples . . . but Jesus never did say it would be easy, just that he would be there always with us, and that in the end it would be worth it.  Happy Lent!