HUNGRY FOR CHRIST
“Staying in Touch
with God” --- A Lenten Sermon Series
“Jesus answered him,
“It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Luke 4:4 (NRSV)
It is no great revelation that Jesus was
“famished” after going without food for 40 days.! As the old Action News commercial announced,
“That’s not news!” What does strike us
is to learn that despite a physically weakened state, Jesus’ spiritual state
was strengthened to the point of being able to not only successfully withstand,
but overcome the devil’s full assault. There’s something to fasting.
If Jesus considered fasting important
enough in which to engage, shouldn’t we?
Pastor Shane & I are asking you to
examine your spiritual life this Lent.
What acts of Christian spirituality are you missing? What promises to bring you into a deeper
relationship with God & neighbor that is not on your spiritual radar screen?
Is this oversight due to your own ignorance & slacking, or might
your failings partially be laid at the feet of your pastors?
As we have examined our preaching,
Pastor Nancy & I noticed a handful of spiritual disciplines about which
we’ve spoken little or nothing in our sermons.
So, perhaps, before we ask you to consider & correct your behavior, we start with our failings as your appointed Christian
spiritual leaders. Sound fair?
We’ve taught about prayer, the reading
& study of scripture, service to others, worship & communion. Last winter, we studied John Wesley’s Three Simple Rules. This Lent, we will touch on five spiritual
practices that we’ve neglected to teach, & perhaps you’ve neglected to
practice. They are: fasting, solitude,
meditation, submission, & simplicity – all things which can be done on your
own time/schedule.
The goal of these, & all, spiritual
exercises is to help us grow faithfully in relationship with God &
neighbor. Indeed, we believe that the
closer we draw to God, the more of the Spirit’s fruit will be manifested in us for
others -- more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness & self-control (Galatians 5:22). Pastor Nancy said in last week’s sermon: we
imitate & become like the persons with whom we spend the most time &
admire & watch. It’s true. So, let’s spend time with Christ & become
more like him.
Gyms improve the body. On-line classes improve the mind. Spiritual exercises improve the self,
relationships, & deepen our identity in Christ.
Staying in touch with God is not
easy. As UM Bishop Reuben Job makes
clear, there is so much stuff that “keeps us from God, that fills our life to
such an extent that there’s no room for God.”[1] Spiritual disciplines, then, make room, &
keep us connected to God in a world which deceives us into believing that we
can do it on our own. Many days, we’re
like spiritual 3-year-olds, insisting we can do it all by ourselves, or 21st-century
Adams & Eves who delude ourselves into thinking we know best & can do life
better than God.
The tried-&-true biblical practices we’ll explore this Lent help remove those temptations & obstacles that hinder us, that hurt us, that depress & discourage us, that madden us, that negatively impact our physical health & damage relationships. Spiritual disciplines put us in God’s power & presence when we employ them. They help us live boldly now & confidently into an uncertain future. They remind us that we belong to God & are God’s children. How often do we forget that?
The course many of us are on is not
healthy, & we know it. God knows it,
too. God knows we need help, so he gives
us these methods to stay in touch.
The first spiritual discipline in this
series is fasting. Food in church has
often been at the extremes, from the punishing bodily sacrifice of the Opus Dei community, popularized in Dan
Brown’s “The DaVinci Code,” to the 180-degree opposite of being addicted to
food. Think of some church suppers! The best practices, a model put forth by John
Wesley, places U.M.’s in “the extreme center.”[2]
So, what is fasting? What do we believe about it? How do we practice it?
Voluntarily not eating is
well-documented in both the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament, as well as
the New Testament. Old Testament Jews, though,
not unlike that Opus Dei community,
would often add other self-sacrificial/ mortifying practices to fasting that
helped draw attention to themselves (not unlike anorexia). Jesus was opposed to such self-aggrandizing
displays
(Mt. 6:16-18). Early Christians, then, followed Jesus’ method
of (more) modest fasting without the add-ons.
There are many types of fasts. There’s the “40-day & 40-night fast,”
such as Jesus undertook. I’ve known
persons who’ve completed such fasts.
They require medical monitoring & supernatural aid, but can I tell
you stories!
A more common biblical fast is to not
consume food from morning ‘til evening.
Let’s be clear, unless one is engaging in that “40-day & 40-night
fast,” total denial of food & water is not only unhealthy, but also not scriptural.
There are also (& let me be
careful in pronouncing this!) half-fasts.
(Put a slight pause between those two words. If you speak them too fast…!) An example of the half-fast would be choosing
to eat only after one’s workday is complete, which in Bible times was around 3
o’clock (pm).
Abstinence is another kind of
fast. No, it does not refer to a method
of birth control, a hot topic among researchers & politicians, alike,
nowadays. Abstinence, in the case of
fasting, refers to persons, who for reasons of health (diabetes, medication,
etc.) or demanding physical labor (firefighting, construction labor, etc.) must
eat, but consume smaller quantities. The
Bible does not specifi-cally mention abstinence, but neither does it condemn
it. Jesus taught his followers to heed
the spirit, not just the letter, of the law.
A second kind of abstinence – the most
popular kind – gives up certain pleasurable foods. There are the Roman Catholic who eats no meat
on Fridays, the pastor’s wife who gives up chocolate for Lent, or the UM who
eschews the covered-dish pot-luck supper for the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper.
Fasts can be one day a week as a
regular spiritual discipline. They can
be employed during Wednesdays & Fridays in Lent, Holy Week, or other
special times, too.
Why fast? There are lots of reasons, many of them
accomplished quite naturally. Persons in
the grip of strong emotions, be it sadness during a death or the joy of
passionately engaging in a certain task, often fast. Others choose to fast as an act of contrition
for sins or as an aid to being a better person.
Still others may decide on a simpler lifestyle, reject the concept of
excess taught by our culture, & be in solidarity with humans who don’t have
an abundance of food. They may donate
their savings to food cupboards & feeding/hunger ministries. All faithful reasons to fast, each of them.
Fasting helps us pray. Let’s face it, many times we forget to
pray. Many more times, we don’t even
think about (consider) fasting. It is
one of the most powerful forms of prayer.
While praying often asks God for things, fasting shows God how sincere
we are, what we’re willing to give
up. Fasting may accompany a group of us
who pray for someone in need (a child with leukemia, a critically-injured
friend), or as you personally seek a spiritual blessing, or even as a congregation
prays for God to bless some major undertaking.
(It’s not that fasting is bartering or coerces God in some magical
sense, but it does reveal our heart, & opens us to God & God’s will in
new ways.) Fasting transforms us.
Fasting, quite literally, empties us
for God to enter. While many of us
complain about our lack of will power when it comes to food, in fasting we rely
on God’s power to fill us & do what we cannot. Rather than selfishly filling our lives with
things we truly don’t need, or that do harm, fasting helps us deny ourselves
& gives us a hunger for Christ. In the process, we move closer to him &
one another.
In the Name…. Copyright
2010 by G.D.Knerr at