Fasting vs. dieting (Round One)

Friday after Ash Wednesday: Isa 58.1-9 and Matthew 9.14-15
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory and Church of the Incarnation

PODCAST!

[NB. The preacher preaches to himself first…]

More on fasting, uh? Well, it’s only right since it is Lent and all. But you’d think that we would have the whole fasting/contrite heart thing down by now, wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s not a difficult concept. It’s not like trying to grasp double predestination or the state of the soul before the general resurrection or the mystery of the theological Trinity. It’s just fasting. Don’t eat as much as you usually do and do this because it helps you to stay focused on what’s important in your growth in holiness: your total, undiluted, raw dependence on God for absolutely everything. Of course, we also fast to show honor, obedience, the strength of a beggar’s heart, humility in need, gratitude in abundance, sorrow and grief, solidarity with the suffering, a heart turned from sin and rushing to the Lord in tears.

Brothers and sisters, fasting w/o true contrition and true repentance is called Dieting. And the Lord wants us to understand the difference between the prophetic act of fasting and the often-times vain act of dieting. The Lord tells the prophet Isaiah to say to us: “Would that today—Friday, February 23, 2007—would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!” You bow your head like a reed and slob around all day in sackcloth and ashes! “Is this the manner of fasting I wish […] Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” So how do you fast today so as to make your voice heard on high? Isaiah cries out full-throated and unsparingly, like a trumpet blast: release those who have been imprisoned unjustly! Untie their yokes. Set free the oppressed. Share your bread with the hungry. Shelter the homeless. Clothe the naked. Help your own. Fast as the Lord wants you to fast! And your innocent verdict will go before you and God’s glory will come behind you and when you call on His name for help, He will say, “Here I am!”

So, will you fast or will you diet? Jesus says that we cannot fast so long as the Bridegroom is with us. Is he with us? Well, no. He departed for the throne and sent us his Holy Spirit. So, we can fast and mourn his absence. However, he’s with us now. Present because we are more than two and gathered in his name. He’s fully present in the Eucharist. So, we cannot fast or mourn. The Bridegroom has not been taken from us! Isn’t this the Christian life exactly? We are called to be prophetic witnesses, to stand up and shout out the truth of the gospel victory of sin and death. Yes, Christ is gone from us. And no, he is here. The battle is won and it is not yet fought. This is what it means to live in the meantime of God’s plan for us: we free the unjustly imprisoned now b/c they have all been freed by Christ in his victory. Their imprisonment is doubly unjust.

Dieting will not help them. Dieting will break no yokes, cancel no debts, fill no empty stomachs, nor will dieting free anyone from Satan. In fact, Satan counts on us spending this Lenten season dieting. It’s his best time of year for ripe self-righteousness and hypocrisy. John’s disciples and the Pharisees are worried about Jesus’ liberal band of party animals—why aren’t they fasting like we do?! Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t worry. They are my disciples and they will fast when I am gone.” We know what that means; what it means for his friends to drink his cup, to carry his cross, to die preaching and teaching the Good News of God’s mercy. Our Father wants a humble and contrite heart. Not a diet plan. He wants obedience and service. Not mumbled prayers and luke-warm sentiments. He wants laborers for his Lenten and His Easter fields. Not religious dilettantes and mystic wannabes.

Take your diet. Turn your heart and mind to the service of God in humility. And change that diet into a fast worthy of your soul! Thirty-eight days and counting...and the cup is yours is bear...