Happy Lent! Time to fast from fasting?
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| Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Fight Between Carnival and Lent(??) |
In Denmark celebrating lent mostly means eating loads of filled pastry. It seems, however, that the practice of fasting has gained increasing popularity amongst post-modern protestants recently: Inspiration is picked up from, e.g., the practices of the late-antique 'desert fathers' and medieval monasticism (which was of course much more severe, than its modern variants), or what have you.
One sign of the increasing popularity of fasting in protestantism is the reporting on 'Christian fasting' in religious media. There is no such thing, of course, since Christians are free to eat whatever we want. On the other hand Christians are, for the same reasons, free to use fasting (a practice present in most religions) as a tool, if it proves useful: Hence Christian political activists fast from things that produce a high carbon-footprint, while others fast for reasons of personal piety, as a means of focusing on God. The concept is often conceived broadly, so that, e.g., not using technology can also be a modern way of fasting (a good one!).
There are a few things we should be careful about, though: For some reason some people feel an urge to tell others about their fasting practices. It seems that fasting has become a way of achieving a particular 'identity' (maybe inspired by muslim immigrants, who often seem more rooted in a religious identity?). Or, in the worst case, it can even become a way of attaining a certain moral status, an expression of pharasaical self-righteousness.
Fasting is a way of curbing the human will. But sometimes it can become the opposite: Fasting can become will-worship, the worship of the human will's ability to do all kinds of pious stuff (or a kind of worship willed by human beings, rather than the worship willed by God, i.e. love, Jam. 1:27). In Col. 2 we hear about a certain group of people who engage in keeping all kinds of religious rules, some of them rules for fasting:
"If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances, Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh." (Col 2:20-23, ASV)Or as Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395) tells us: "That is temperance’s highest aim; it looks not to the afflicting of the body, but to the peaceful action of the soul’s functions." (On Virginity 22)
Sometimes it might be time to fast from fasting, and consider the will of God instead. Loving God is not a matter of pious feelings, of being particularly focussed or whatever. Loving God means one thing: To love others as oneself (1 Jn 4). If fasting helps us do that, do it! But if it doesn't, I repeat: It might be time to fast from fasting. If we fast, we should at least remember Jesus' words about not letting others know that we are fasting:
"[...]when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen of men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face;" (Mat 6:16-17)And finally, we should of course not let fasting become a reason for strife, discord or judgementalism (luckily I have not seen this happening yet). As Paul wrote to the Romans, what you eat or not is a matter between you and God (Rom 14).
