Fasting to Feast

I'll make part of my confession public this week: Lent has been difficult for me this year. And it has been so largely because I have done what I warned my congregants not to do. I have focussed more on my Lenten fast than on the necessary balance of a Lenten feast.

Fasting isn't easy, you see. It exposes the extent of our physical and behavioral dependencies. We may find that, as Lent goes on and the pinch of desire catches us off guard, we tend to rationalize our own rules away in order to get what the flesh wants. We break down. Either under the strain of self-willed obedience to (or under guilt of having broken) the rule we set, we begin to face temptations. Habits with which we thought we had ceased to struggle, desires we usually don't feel so strongly, frustrations we don't usually let get out of hand - all these compound the weakness we feel within ourselves. Fasting stinks.

Jesus, whose 40-day wilderness fast Lent follows, is our help, not just by way of example, but in that he has conquered all by which we are presently daunted. He was tempted by the devil during his fast too. He overcame the devil, though, not by his fast but by his feast. Man is not to live, we find, by bread alone, but by every word of God. Jesus did not conquer the devil by quoting Deuteronomy at him and sticking to his discipline. He conquered the devil by fasting the self-will and feasting instead on the Father's words and the Father's trustworthy will. Jesus, we must remember, is sent to the wilderness not by the Church calendar but by the Spirit - the same Spirit who had (at Christ's baptism) brought down the affirming voice of the Father to express Jesus' belovedness. Jesus is able to fast and become empty of fleshly desire because he is so full of God's word. He is abandoned to the sustaining and sending love of the Father, even in the wilderness. Fasting is opportunity to feast. We quit food because we have our sustenance in joyful-though-difficult abandonment to our Father in whom we are affirmed and whom we have chosen to trust.

To the extent that we fast, we must (if our fast is to be Christlike) choose to feast. For every bite we refuse we must be sure to receive in its place the word of our belovedness to God in Christ. To the extent I have fasted either to prove I could or - God help me - to "set an example", I have really been only feasting on self-will and self-purpose. No wonder I'm so stressed and miserable and tempted.

Oh, our Father, I turn to to you, your beloved, beloved not for my fasting or faithfulness - neither unloved for my weakness and selfishness. Full of you, full of Christ's victory and needless of my own, I choose now to fast self and feast on your words, not as work but as worship. Amen

God Bless You

Our culture operates often under the assumption that “knowledge is power”. Learn the right stuff and you’ll get the right job. The right job is “right” because it pays well. Money buys lifestyle; lifestyle equals success. Right moves are rewarded, wrong moves penalized; people get what they earn/deserve. This philosophy of success and lifestyle leads us to believe that we humans can control anything and everything. If we all buy the right products and dispose properly of the wrong ones, we can even control the planet. I don’t have space here to launch a full-scale attack on this aspect of our American worldview. As a Christian minister it is to be expected that I should decry the cash-rewards system on the basis of human depravity and divine sovereignty. No surprise.

What concerns me, though, is how much the religious culture has bought the same lies: success is determined by lifestyle; the outcome of said success is firmly in our own hands. 15 steps to a happy life. 7 keys to positive living. How to live your best life. These sorts of titles are springing up everywhere claiming methodologies for human attainment of divine success. While the language is decidedly evangelical, with scripture snippets peppered generously, the worldview is often thoroughly humanistic. Bible meets scientific method. Charitable contribution meets get-rich-quick scheme. We seem to be trying to help people towards their God-intended success in life. We're certainly helping our book sales.

But I don’t want to be successful…at least not at the expense of a much more important attribute – blessedness. To be blessed is to have favor bestowed upon us based not upon our own worthiness (or even cooperation) but rather upon the worthiness and will of the one who blesses. Successful are the rich; blessed are the poor. Successful are the winners; blessed are the meek. Successful are the conquerors; blessed are the peacemakers. You’ve heard it said that knowledge is power, but I say to you that God brings our strength to an end in weakness so that he might be shown strong.

Lent is nearly upon us (more about that in a few days). Our temptation may be to give this up and take on that so that we can convince God to grant us religious success. We often seek “blessing” as a result of our own good deeds. Blessedness, though does not begin with our action, but with God’s good pleasure toward us. If we fast, let it be because we are blessed, not to get that way. May the Lord in his true favor toward us expose the extent to which we have become manipulators within a manipulative culture. May our successes crash and burn that we may find ourselves blessed.