You Call That Fasting?

Like a good fast this won’t take long, but unlike a good meal it may not go down well.

It is fasting season for many churches right now. The beginning of a New Year is often a reset time for churches: refreshed vision,  goals for prayer, lives reconsecrated – all good.

Fasting is an assumed spiritual practise according to Jesus. (Matt 6.16-18) Jesus stated, “When you fast …” not, if you fast. His description of a fast is focussed on being rewarded by the Father and not by public accolade. So far so good. But implicit in his description is the fact that fasting can change your appearance; fasting has impact on how you look and feel, which is why he said to mask the effects of fasting, otherwise the only reward you’d receive is that people notice your apparent display of piety. (6.17) What value is that?

Moses made the point that denying oneself and fasting are the same thing.  He called it afflicting your soul. Throughout church history fasting has always been taken seriously and involved the uncomfortable affliction of feeling hungry.  Jesus’ wilderness fast was without food for 40 days, after which Matthew tells us “he was famished,”  which is another way of saying he was starving. (4.2)

I suspect we have changed a serious spiritual exercise into a fast-lite experience. Some encourage us to fast from social media, or from Netflix (has anyone asked if Netflix is even a wise habit to begin with?), or from coffee for a few days – now that does have the possibility of affliction: headaches and dizziness. Or fasting from fast foods, which is ironic. Or fasting from chocolate, or some such pleasure.  You call that a fast?

Even the oft-mentioned Daniel fast was only vegetables and water, and that fast was for the specific purpose of separation from the excesses of the Babylonian court; a dangerous thing for Daniel to suggest. Aside from, it says that after 10 days they “appeared better and fatter.” Inconvenient. (Dan 1.15) Many Daniel fasts I have heard of are essentially everything minus meat, hardly a Daniel fast, which is  a way of fasting when you’re not really fasting. 

Whatever we suggest it is often not fasting as Jesus taught and practised it, nor the practice of the church historically.  Fasting is going without food, and it isn’t very comfortable; it isn’t fun, or easy. It can have side effects due to poor eating habits, which we will have to walk through to gain the benefit of fasting.  

Of course, some people shouldn’t fast because of underlying health conditions, and some are doing jobs that require utmost concentration – surgeons and pilots, for instance. Otherwise, most of us can stop eating food for at least 1-3 days without doing damage; on the contrary.  

I’m not sure what we call fasting is fasting.