Fasting

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, February 18, 2024
Mark 1:9-15

    What are you giving up for Lent?  Perhaps you’ve been asked this question before.  For many people, the forty days of Lent is a traditional time to go without something they love, or take something on like trying to pray every day if they’ve gotten out of the habit.  Of course, the faith practices I’ll be talking about these Sundays in Lent are things you can try any time of year, and ideally for longer than forty days, but similar to a New Year’s Resolution, you have to start somewhere!  Lent is a perfect time to try a new spiritual practice to deepen our relationship with God.
As we hear about Jesus going into the wilderness for forty days in our gospel for today, I want to focus on the spiritual practice of fasting.  Probably the most common idea is to give up something you eat or drink, like chocolate, sugar, soda, alcohol, or meat.  Maybe you’ve heard of fasting from other things than food – I’ve tried a “social media fast” giving up Facebook and Instagram for Lent, or a screen/phone fast which may mean putting your phone on do-not-disturb or putting it on a shelf away from you for longer periods of time.  Just as Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan before he begins his public ministry, we take this time before Easter to examine the things we love or the habits we have formed and how they might be getting in the way of our love and faithfulness to God and receiving God’s love and faithfulness to us.  
    Jesus goes into the wilderness to prepare himself spiritually; fasting can be a way we create a “wilderness” abstaining from something while we remain in suburban New York. Have you ever fasted before in the traditional sense of not eating food for a period of time?  Many of us have the privilege of never having to go without food, and we really don’t know what it’s like to be hungry.  Maybe you’ve fasted before a medical procedure for 12 or even 24 hours, but that may be your only fasting experience.  When I was in high school, every year our church youth group participated in Church World Service’s 30-hour famine – we ate our last meal on Friday night and didn’t eat again until Sunday morning breakfast, raising money to combat world hunger in the process.  We did drink 100% fruit juice and water while fasting.  What really made that experience difficult and powerful was going to serve at a soup kitchen on Saturday when we were not eating.  Going without food for a day in a group not only drew me closer to God as a young person, it gave me awareness of what people go through who experience chronic hunger and malnourishment, and inspired a lifelong desire in me to combat hunger in the charities I contribute to and in the ministries I support like our New Life Center food pantry in Uniondale.  Fasting can help us be aware of the needs of others and our call to serve both God and our neighbor.
    Many Christians have down-played or ignored the spiritual practice of fasting in recent years, but it is fascinating to me that fasting is a familiar religious practice among other religions, too, including the month of Ramadan for Muslims and Yom Kippur for Jews.  I was inspired recently by a young person who is currently attending the seminary I graduated from who said that she heard the call to ministry during a time of fasting.  It is important that we fast, whether it is going without food or something else for a time, for spiritual rather than selfish reasons.  Fasting is not a diet plan.  If you have an eating disorder or medical issues that require you to maintain a certain diet, don’t fast!  Think about other ways that you can connect to God, because there are many!  The main idea is to try to go without something long enough to miss it and long enough to put our reliance and trust back on God instead of that other thing, be it food, TV, or our phone so that we have a healthier relationship with that thing as well as with God.  For example, many people tried “Dry January” this year to go without alcohol for the month of January and reexamine their relationship with alcohol, even if they do not consider themselves alcoholics or want to abstain from alcohol permanently.
    Of course, just as Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness, so we are tempted to give in to loving other things more than God.  Jesus is able to overcome temptation better than us some times, of course, but we also pray in the Lord’s prayer that God keep us from being tempted and deliver us from evil.  Here in the gospel, Jesus’ resistance of Satan foreshadows the good news of Easter:  the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus Christ!  Anything evil that is more powerful than us will be defeated on the cross of Christ!  The forty days of Lent can remind us and encourage us of this.
    So finally, as we think about fasting or giving up something for Lent, why forty days? Why not for a month or a week or just a day?  Of course, you should not go without food entirely for forty days; a typical food fast is a day or two.  Some people choose to fast on Fridays in Lent, for example.  Forty days is an incredibly significant length of time in the Bible.  In the time of Noah, it rains for forty days.  Moses leads the people of Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and God provides.  Elijah goes to Mount Horeb to protect himself from King Ahab and Jezebel, and angels wait upon him for forty days.  The prophet Ezekiel lays on his right side for forty days.  And so now we journey with Jesus and the disciples for the forty days of Lent until Easter.  In our struggle to go without something we love for forty days, just like Jesus, God will provide for us and help us resist temptation.  In our giving something up, may we gain greater faith in the good news that the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus Christ!  Amen.