Fasting: From What and For What

[Every once in awhile--maybe twice a year--I get to speak to the "big people" at church. This was the sermon I preached last night, posted for your enjoyment and edification.]

Ash Wednesday 2009

Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

An Irishman moved into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walked into the pub and ordered three beers. The bartender raised his eyebrows a wee bit, but (with reservation) served the man the three beers, which he took to a nearby table and quietly drank them all by himself.The next evening the man came to the pub and again ordered three beers and carried them to table by himself and proceeded to drink the three beers all by himself. For weeks, this man came into the pub regularly and when he did, he ordered 3 beers and took them to a table and drank the 3 beers all by himself.Soon the entire little hamlet of County Kerry was whispering about the "man who orders three beers."Finally, after many weeks, the bartender broached the subject on behalf of the village."I don't mean to be prying but folks around here are wonderin why your always order three beers and drink them alone?""Tis a wee bit odd I would be supposin" the man replied. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America and the other went to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order two extra beers, whenever we would partake, as a way of keeping up the family bond."The bartender and the entire hamlet of County Kerry were pleased with his answer and with the reverence for family and soon the "man who orders three beers" became somewhat of a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet.Then one evening the man came in and ordered only two beers. The bartender served them with a heavy heart. The Irishman took them to the table and drank the 2 beers all by himself. On the next visits to the pub, the "man who orders three beers," would only order two beers. And drink them all by himself. Word spread around the hamlet quickly. Prayers were offered for the soul of one of the brothers. The next day, the bartender said to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer our condolences to you for the death of your brother, you know - only two beers."The man pondered for a moment then replied, " You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up beer for Lent."

We have been conditioned to think of Lent as a time for giving up something—something we want—and living in a society which teaches us we should HAVE everything that we WANT makes this difficult. We are rocking the boat, going against the grain, choosing what is hard over what is easy. We are expected to fail, to fall short, to succumb to temptation. We are expected to be grumpy, to complain, and to take advantage of any loopholes we may devise (like the man who ordered three beers). And if by some superhuman effort we succeed in giving up something we want, we are to be admired, congratulated, and held up as a lofty example for others to worship and adore.

We are conditioned to think that we should never give up something without getting something in return. All of our political and economic dealings are explicitly handled in this fashion, and many of our less formal social interactions have this as a hidden agenda. We should never be short-changed; our objective is to come out ahead, and convince the other party that what we are giving up is of far greater worth than what we are getting in return (all the while secretly knowing that is NOT the case).

And so it is that we are conditioned to bargain with God. IF we decide to give up something for God, then we think—consciously or unconsciously—he will OWE us something. Whether we relegate it to heavenly blessings in the future, or expect to “name it and claim it” here on earth, there is a part of us that thinks that what we do for God—or especially what we REFRAIN from doing for the sake of God—has got to result in some blessing for US. Why else would we do it? Or NOT do it?

This is where Isaiah’s audience was. They assured themselves, they assured others, and they even assured God that they were people who were seeking the Lord daily, delighting to know his ways, praying for justice and drawing near to God. Most importantly, and probably most OBVIOUSLY, they were FASTING, and they wanted everyone to know. By Jesus’ day this was down to an art form, with all of the make-up and costumes of a stage play. People would look gloomy, disfigure their faces, and cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes. They might have even hired someone to blow a trumpet to call everyone’s attention to the fact, “Look at me, I’m FASTING!”

Whatever they were doing, it failed to get God’s attention, and they were TICKED! “Why have we fasted, and you see it not?” the people scream at God. “Why have we HUMBLED ourselves, and you take no notice? I mean, just LOOK at what we’ve given up! Didn’t you SEE the RESTRAINT I exercised there! That was quite a tasty meal I passed up! And the DESSERT! Aunt Suzy made her special cheesecake just for me, and I didn’t have ONE SLICE! And HUMBLE—humble pie, that’s all I had! Did you SEE how hard I worked on that clean-up day? That was certainly BENEATH someone of my birth and breeding, but I DID it! And that’s not even my GIFT! Man, it takes a REALLY HOLY MAN to do that kinda stuff! Yes SIR! I gotta be the holiest person I know! And HUMBLE too! So where’s my blessing, huh? Whatcha gonna do for me, now, after ALL I’ve done for YOU!”

[Shrill sound of a trumpet blast].

“Lift up your voice like a trumpet” God tells Isaiah. Trumpets in those days were not soothing jazz instruments, but something more like an air raid siren. The Pharisees may have have gathered little crowds with their trumpets, but God’s trumpets brought down the walls of Jericho, called the people to repentance in Joel’s day, and the seven trumpets of Revelation will end the world as we know it. God is trying to get our attention.

“Cry aloud, and do not hold back…Declare to my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins.” There is nothing we can do to make ourselves holy, to make ourselves acceptable, or to put God in our debt. The Creator of heaven and earth is not some puny pagan deity that can be made to do what we want by any kind of bargaining, cajoling, or use of sympathetic magic. That is the kind of religion the Israelites were supposed to put an end to when God brought them into the promised land. It is a false worship, a fasting that ends in fistfights, a piety of pride, a praise that tries to cover up oppression. This is not the worship, not the service, not the kind of fasting God wants.

What is it that God wants? Once he has the attention of these supposed worshippers, what does he tell them? Does he slap them down for their pride, remind them of their puniness like Job or give them pointers on how to purify their worship and offer better sacrifices. That might be what we would expect, but no. Instead, he directs their attention to their neighbors, the ones they are getting in fistfights with and oppressing. God tells them, “If you really want to please me, if you really want to know what kind of fasting gets my attention, then try putting your neighbor first. If you are really concerned about justice, don’t just pray about it, DO SOMETHING! Loose some yokes, forgive some debts, feed some hungry people, give what you have to those who need it.” And we say, “That’s not worship, that’s service! That’s not UP, that’s OUT! Let’s keep these things straight!” But they’re really all connected, because, God says in I John 4:20, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

THEN, God says, “you shall call and the Lord will answer, you will cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ THEN shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as noonday. THEN the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places, you shall be like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”

Already, I can hear the wheels turning. “Ok, so if I fast AND do service projects AT THE SAME TIME, THEN I will gain God’s favor for being a holy person, and win all the benefits and blessings that I want!” No. Although your neighbors will certainly appreciate it more, there is still no way we can EARN God’s favor. But fortunately we don’t have to; Jesus Christ has taken care of that. All our righteousness is like filthy rags, as Isaiah tells us elsewhere, but if we are in Jesus, Paul tells us, we have the righteousness of Christ.

So fasting is fine, giving up things for Lent is fine, but let us be careful of HOW and WHY we do whatever we do.

A bulrush bows before the breeze, NOT to prove what a good bulrush it is, or because it hopes to gain something from the breeze; it is simply submitting to a greater force. When John on Patmos heard someone speak to him in a voice like a trumpet, he fell at his feet as though dead. When the Alpha and Omega speaks to us, we have no choice but to listen, and he tells us our attitude should be one of those who say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”

Beginning Again

Fortunately, it is easier to re-launch a blog than it is a rocket. Actually, growing up during the "race to the moon," I don't think there was such a word as "relaunch." If something was launched once back then, there was not much left after separation and orbit to "relaunch". I guess maybe the term came into use with the advent of the space shuttle...

"At any rate, I can tell I'm starting wrong. Let me begin again..."

For various reasons, once launched before Christmas, this blog went on a long hiatus, but I'm back, and hope to be posting at least weekly (and less weakly) in coming months. My apologies to the few readers who managed to find this.

The other new beginning I want to mention is that KidzLife started off again with a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. This was our third Spring to kick-off in this fashion, and everything seemed to really come together well. Thanks to all who provided food and served the meal, and special thanks to my team, especially Pam for leading music and Allie and Debby for doing the Exile story using Godly Play. I'm always impressed (and somewhat baffled) at how well those stories connect with the kids, but obviously God uses them. And I'm hoping we will use them more in our kids' programs and Sunday School.

Personally, I was pleased to see once again how well the Pancake Race went over. It's a simple thing, I know, but games are not my forte, and when I come up with one that the kids like so much, it is very gratifying. (Jesse Marshall, who worked with me in an earlier stint as youth pastor, had a real gift in this area; he could say to the kids, "Ok, for the next ten minutes I want you all to jump up and down on your left foot" and the kids would swear it was the most fun they'd ever had. Most of my games I feel like the kids are merely indulging me.) In Olney, England, they've been running this race with housewives flipping pancakes every year since 1445, so we just re-enact it as a relay race. The past two years the kids have had so much fun that once they all went through the line once, they just kept going until we made them stop.

This week was mostly setting the scene for the semester, which will be dealing with Daniel. Next Tuesday we will start with puppets, though at this point it is not at all clear HOW! Prayers, please, for time, money and creativity...

The Browniest Christmas

Charlie Brown: I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel. I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.

Linus Van Pelt: Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy's right. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest.

The opening scene to A Charlie Brown Christmas keeps running through my head, and not only because my daughter watched it in a constantly-alternating pattern with greatly inferior sequel, It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, for several weeks leading up to the holiday. I had a rather Charlie Brown-y Christmas this year, the Charlie Browniest in quite awhile.

From an early age I have identified with Charlie Brown, and the first TV specials are a touchstone to my childhood (though I admit I started losing interest somewhere between A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown). The first portion of scripture I memorized was Linus' quotation in the Christmas special from Luke 2 (for one of my earliest attempts at being a director and staging a Christmas play), and much of my own artwork, and some of my sense of characters and dialog, were developed from copying Peanuts comics as a child.

But my problems with this Christmas are not Charlie Brown's. I'm not suffering from "pantophobia", and I certainly DON'T need more "involvement"! The commercialism of the season is not particularly vexing (any more than it has been since Charlie Brown first declared, "I won't let this commercial dog spoil MY Christmas"), and I don't need Linus to "tell me what Christmas is all about." I know all of that, at least in my head...

Charlie Brown's disappointment at not receiving Christmas cards gets more to my own feeling. I am missing people, and the human connection that I associate with the holiday season. In particular, I am missing my grandparents, around whom the holiday always revolved prior to their passing in 2003, one month apart, when my daughter was less than a year old. I don't think my family has yet figured out how to celebrate the day without them. John Irving writes in A Prayer for Owen Meany, "Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home," and that rings very true.

Missing Grandma and Grandad as people is understandable, and even I suppose admirable in some ways, but the fact of the matter is I also miss their gifts. I never figured out exactly where they got their money from, but every Christmas (at least while they were able-bodied and capable of shopping) my grandparents would go all-out, and we could count on there being a mountain of presents beneath their tree. Being together as a family was good, but most of my youth and for periods of my adulthood we lived close enough that we did that pretty much on a weekly basis. The Christmas dinner was always good and a major part of the day, but really it was just a repeat of the Thanksgiving meal a month later. No, what made Christmas unique, as far as our family gathering was concerned, was the exchange of presents, the majority of them coming from my grandparents. Without them, and with the rest of us on fixed incomes or being underemployed, no one can afford to be Santa anymore, and when Christmas is mostly about presents, the death of Santa leaves a serious hole in the holiday.

I don't want or believe Christmas to be all about presents. There is much that I do by myself, with my wife and daughter, and with my church in worship and service that are clearly more focused on the spiritual reality of Christ's birth and the day that celebrates it. But getting together with my mother, sister and aunt, it is hard not to lapse into those expectations of Christmas Past when we could see how much we were loved by how much money someone spent on us. And it's hard not to want to do for my daughter what was done for me (wrapped in the haze of happy nostalgia as it is), even though I can now see the folly of it.

So, this is an area where my character needs development...

Of Bradley and Broccoli

Some of the best "character bits" in fiction are inspired by observing real-life exchanges. Sitting in a local restuarant with my family over the weekend, I overheard a conversation--or rather, a monolog--which I would love to draw on if I were writing a play about sibling rivalry or family estrangement. Behind me was a young father with his two children, a 2-year-old girl with light curls in a high chair at the end of the table, and a dark haired boy of about 8 (wearing a dark expression) in the opposite booth.

They caught my attention when I overheard the father suddenly gush, "Did you say 'BROCCOLI'? Did you HEAR that, Bradley? She said 'BROCCOLI'! Wasn't that PRECIOUS? Say it again, dear! ...YES! That is BROCC-O-LI! ...Do you LIKE that BROCCOLI? ...Does it taste GOOD! ...No? Do you want to put that BROCCOLI in Bradley's HAIR? Isn't that CUTE?! Oh, DON'T make a face like that, Bradley--she isn't HURTING you! What am I DOING? I'm calling GRANDMA on my CELL PHONE! Yes I AM! And then you can say 'BROCCOLI' for GRANDMA! Mom! Hi! Guess what your granddaughter just did? ...No, she just said, 'broccoli'! ...No, 'BROCCOLI'. REALLY! Listen! Go ahead, dear! Say it! Say, 'BROCCOLI'! Say it! 'BROCC-O-LI'! Go ahead! You can do it! ..."

[I'm tempted here to lapse into a Bill Cosby routine: "Eight hours later: 'Hang in there, Mom! Drink some coffee, walk around! Come on, Erica, say "Hello"!' Wouldn't do it! Finally hung up the phone, and as soon as I did, she started, 'HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!' THAT'S my girl..."]

In the restaurant, though, all I could think about was Bradley five or ten years from now in therapy discussing why he never felt loved or accepted by his father, and why he has troubles in his relationships with women, his sister in particular.

So much of family strife and an individual's struggle with identity begins early in life with parents who just aren't aware of the messages they are communicating. While on the one level I found this Dad's enthusiasm with his daughter's expanding vocabulary goofy and endearing, I think there was definitely some potential damage being done in the relationship between father and son. And as a parent I need to heed the lesson of keeping my enthusiasm and obsessions in check where they might unwittingly harm my relationship with my child.

If I were to draw on this experience creatively, I might use it in the opening scene to a play dealing with adult siblings trying to wrestle with the brokenness in their relationships with each other and with their parents. They could meet in a restaurant, where this scene was taking place in the background, offering comic relief but also reinforcing and maybe shedding some light on how family relationships break down in the first place. [Shades of the Logician in Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros...]

"I Just Want to Be a Sheep"

Tomorrow is our Christmas pageant, and once again I have been asked to direct (after the upper-level Sunday School class decided on a script and casting). And once again we have integrated the younger classes' performance of a traditional pageant into the larger production. Last year we had an odd detective/time travel piece, which involved the main character actually interviewing Mary and Joseph, but this year the older kids are doing an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's story of the shoemaker who is told Jesus will visit him, only to have the Lord show up in the poor people he helps throughout the day. The pageant only happens in his mind as he reads the Gospel story, so there is no need for any of the biblical characters to speak.

One five-year-old girl in our church we knew had been pining for the role of Mary, and this situation made it possible for us to offer it to her. We were excited about it, her parents were excited about it, and we were certain she would be excited about it, but when her Dad told her she could be the mother of Jesus, she surprised him by saying, "I think I'd rather just be a sheep." She's since changed her mind and will be appearing as Mary tomorrow (if all goes well and stage-fright doesn't strike again), but it got me and my wife thinking, "What if Gabriel had gotten that response?"

"Hail, highly favored one! The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and the holy one to be born of you will be called the Son of God!"

"Nah, thanks anyways, but I think I'd rather just be a sheep!"

Since God knows the end from the beginning, and knows our response before he makes an offer, it seems unlikely he sent Gabriel to other girls, but if he had, how many would have turned him down? How many would have turned down the role of Theotokos just to keep their ordinary lives and forgo the attention, the notoriety, the misunderstanding and the sorrow of being the mother of Jesus.

She must have been a very special girl!

Milestone 7

Last night was the Christmas party and closing program for KidzLife, the elementary-aged children's outreach program I am in charge of at our church. This was the seventh semester we had run the program (and our fourth Christmas party), and things went incredibly smoothly, from the opening meal through the distribution of gift bags as the end. Praise be to God!

I was asked yesterday morning what lesson God had been teaching me in 2008, and without giving the question much thought I said, "Something to do with the fact that I'm not infinite; dealing with limits and allowing others to do what God has called them to do." Last night was a confirmation of that. I actually had little to do last night, other than act as M.C. and introduce various people who offered prayers, led the singing, reviewed the lessons and memory verses, and so forth. The biggest blessing to me, and I think to everyone there, was a presentation of the Christmas story using Godly Play, done by a young girl who is part of our leadership team. While some of the kids were acting up and some of the adults were talking during other parts of the night, she had the room's undivided attention as she introduced cut-out characters and placed them on the road to Bethlehem, and led us to "wonder" what it was like to be there the night that Christ was born.

On the down side, when we lined up the children to receive their gifts at the end, it was abundantly clear that our male attendance has dropped dramatically in this academic year. I know that we are now in competition with a Boy Scout troop that meets the same night, but I'm not sure what to do about that.

We start again on Shrove Tuesday, which is the last Tuesday in February this year. On the one hand, I don't like having that big of a gap between semesters, but on the other hand, we don't seem to be able to keep interest in the program beyond 15 weeks at a stretch, and I think we may need all of that time to prepare for the next session. I am feeling led to explore Daniel and Revelation with the kids (in very broad strokes), and to do the weekly dramas with puppets (which all need to be created from scratch!).