Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 51:1-17
2Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
One evening when I was a younger man in my first career after college, my boss was regaling some friends with a story from the previous weekend. Now, this was one of those years with an early Easter and a late spring, so everyone was more than a little stir crazy. One Saturday morning the weather finally broke and he was out on the golf course.
As he tells the story, he shot a great front nine. The skies were clear and the weather was warm. The winds were mild and it was a perfect day on the links. He went into the clubhouse feeling great. He got a Polish sausage and doctored it up just right, mustard, ketchup, onion, pickle relish and sauerkraut. There was a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye until that moment, the moment he remembered that it was Lent. He suddenly remembered that he had given up meat for Lent.
Everyone hearing the story lets out a moan. They ask him what he did; did he eat it or what? He finishes the story telling his friends no, he didn’t eat it. He threw it away. He shook his head and went out to shoot the back nine. Of course after his close encounter of the sausage kind he lost all concentration and the back nine was a disaster. Condolences were offered all around the table.
This is when I imposed myself on the story. I came up behind the boss, put my arm around his shoulder and said, “Why’d you do that? You know there’s no meat in a Polish.” He then asked me if there wasn’t any work I should be doing and discretion being the better part of keeping my job, I went back to work.
Fasting is one of the traditional paths taken on the journey through Lent. Sometimes the fast is celebrated by giving something up for Lent like my boss did. This often leads people to give up meat or eggs or dairy during the forty days. Some Eastern Orthodox groups not only give up meat and eggs and dairy for the fast, they give up fish, wine, and olive oil too.[1] Some other peoples fast completely, eating and drinking nothing during daylight hours until sunset when the fast is broken.[2] Each of these Lenten fasting practices is about eighteen hundred years old, so the fast is nothing new.
On day preceding Ash Wednesday, to prepare the household for the fast, all fats and oils are removed from the home. The preparation is an inspiration for Carnival as we know it. The time before Ash Wednesday, particularly Mardi Gras, is that one last fling before Lent’s Forty Days of penitence and reflection. Plus Sundays, don’t forget the Sundays. It makes sense in a very earthly way, if you are going to be penitent you might as well have something to confess.
The apostle Paul wouldn’t have been happy with that sort of logic, but he was never down on Bourbon Street Rome
Still, in the ancient of days, “celebrating the fast” may have been an ironic choice of words. One of the truths of Lent is that by this time of year, a family’s food stores were becoming pretty well depleted. The harvest isn’t due for another four to eight weeks so there’s between one and two months where there isn’t much food around the house; and what’s there was prepared to be eaten last.
This means the soups are getting thinner. The vegetables that are still in the cellar aren’t in the freshest shape. Fresh meat would be a fond memory. The meat that is available has been heavily salted or preserved in some other manner. Contrary to what my wife would say, pickled herring only goes so far. Salted fish was a staple in biblical times, but there is only so much fish jerky a family can take before rebellion storms the kitchen.
Jesus tells us not to look somber when fasting, but with that kind of diet, it could be tough not to look somber.
Honestly I prefer the New Revised Standard Version’s translation, it’s more descriptive. Instead of somber it uses dismal and I think dismal has more power. Dismal seems like the right word when screwing your face up and throwing your sausage into the trashcan. But this is not what we are called to do.
Our call is to live the fast days as we would any other day, washing up and not making a big show of it. We are called to live life as normally as possible so that only our heavenly father knows we fast. Remember, if we receive the reward of friends pitying the loss of a Polish, what is there for our God to give?
Immediate reward is its own gain. Immediate reward is fleeting. But heavenly reward, reward deferred, reward that comes from the Father; that is eternal. In an age of instant gratification, this is more important to us now than ever.
In the fourth century, Jerome, the priest responsible for the most important Latin translation of scripture said, “When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting,” and for most of us, our stomachs are full when we want them to be. Getting food is not the issue; everything we could want is as close as the local supermarket.
It is easy to talk about giving up dairy products when we have soy milk and egg beaters. It is easy to talk about giving up meat for a month or so when we know that at a moment’s notice, the local store has every sort of beef or pork, fish or fowl we could imagine. We don’t have to worry about lacking for food like the ancients did. When we fast, we don’t do it because if we don’t there may not be food next Friday.
So how are we called to fast when we want for nothing? How should we fast with full cabinets?
Isaiah reminds us that we rebel against God, as a nation we sin. He says that because of our human folly when we fast we quarrel with one another, we create strife. We stop seeking justice and peace and share wicked fists instead. So this is how the prophet Isaiah[3] shows us the fasting God chooses for the people:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
Our fast and what we need to refrain from isn’t meat or chocolate or some other food, it is better to refrain from quarrelling and strife. Our fast shouldn’t be steak and pancakes or chicken and waffles. We are to give up gossip and malicious talk. We are to give up greed and oppression. When we cry to God this way, God answers.
Jesus dares us to reconsider what nourishes and sustains us. He dares us to consider greater wealth than can be accrued in banks. He wants us to seek what moths and vermin cannot consume. He wants us to be righteousness without being hypocritical. He wants us to give alms without drawing attention to ourselves.
It was said, “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. If we have not all three, we have nothing.”[4] Tonight we begin our fasts with full cabinets. Let us seek Isaiah’s guidance on fasting. By our fast, let our prayers have soul. And by the mercy of God, let us be marked as his own. Marked by the ash, and by his blood.
[1] Vitz, Evelyn Birge, “A Continual Feast.” HarperCollins, 1985
[2] Socrates the Historian (Fifth Century), “The Lenten Triodion.” Translated by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London
[3] Isaiah 58:6-9a
[4] From “A Word in Season: Monastic Lectionary for the Divine Office.” Reprinted by permission of Augustinian Press, Villanova , Pennsylvania
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