On Fasting

I'm grateful that over the past month or two I have had the opportunity to learn a little more about Islam. Also, I paid more attention to Ramadan this year. I have to say that good Muslims take Ramadan more seriously than I've ever seen a Christian take anything, including Lent. These folks are at the mosque every night for a month. No food or water from sun up to sundown. Which means they get up early to eat and end up staying up late in prayer. It's quite a commitment and exercise in discipline. Never in my life have I practiced 30 days of that kind of self-denial.

As part of my Rule of Life, which I continue to tinker with, I am implementing one day of fasting a week into my schedule, in addition to the regular practice of other spiritual disciplines, most notably committing to memory the Sermon on the Mount. But as I have pondered fasting, and actually read a book about it just a few months ago, a passage from the prophet Isaiah lingers in my mind:

"Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself? Is it for bowing one's head like a reed and for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the LORD?
Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke and to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke?
Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
And if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday.
And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail."

This passage reminds me of a few things. First, our personal piety, whether we're talking about prayer, fasting, reading of scripture, confession, etc., is never just about us. Always there is a social aspect to our practice of the sacred disciplines. Our private contemplation must never be divorced from our vocation to serve others. We do not have the option of disconnecting from the world in order to just fast. Our fasting and praying and reading and worship must always take place in light of our service to others, our social engagement, and our struggle for a more just and peaceful world. Said another way, we can fast and pray all the time, but if we don't know how to love people well, we are wasting our time.

Second, the disciplines are not the point. Prayer and fasting are good, vital, even essential practices. But they are not an end unto themselves. They are simply a means to an end, which is being made into the likeness of Christ, or encountering the true self, as Merton might say. A friend recently pointed out to me that the disciplines such as prayer, fasting, silence, and solitude are like a trellis supporting a grapevine. The trellis does not bear fruit itself. Neither does it cause fruit to grow. In fact, in and of itself, a trellis has not much value. But a trellis creates space for the fruit to grow and flourish. Likewise, the disciplines create space for God to work to produce fruit in us. The disciplines are like a trellis supporting the spiritual life.

Finally, prayer and fasting are not tools for endearing ourselves to God. It would certainly be a perversion of the disciplines to try to use them to manipulate God. What God is interested in is not rigid adherence to cold practices, but hearts full of love that feel compassion for the oppressed, that are generous to those in need, and that oppose injustice as antithetical to and incompatible with God's good kingdom.