Fasting: Body and Soul

Fasting: Body and Soul
Scott Lyons
4/22/2013
Any understanding of fasting would be incomplete without a look at Isaiah 58, where God, through his prophet, tells us what true fasting is. Nevertheless, in Isaiah he does not advocate for abstinence from food but addresses the emptiness of exterior action without interior coherence. Your fasting is meaningless without a contrite heart, without love for your neighbor—such is Isaiah’s call. More figuratively, the prophet Joel says, “Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead” (Joel 2:13, NLT). We often misunderstand what God is saying here in a too-literal reading of “don’t tear your clothing.” We take it to mean that God is not interested in these physical expressions of our being. He is. But God is constantly trying to free Israel from simply going through the motions apart from true faith, humility, and contrition. That does not mean that he desires to free them from the rituals they had, in many cases, received as instructions from him. Rather, he desires their full participation within these activities, flowing out of their very being rather than just being performed mindlessly, vainly. He knows we are creatures and not simply spirits. Our bodies are sacred. They are not peripheral to our faith but part of it, and they must take part in it.

We worship God in our working as an overflow of our being, but the working is part of the being. As an illustration, if I feel great love for my children but never show them my love, then all my feelings of love for them are worthless. In the same way, God commands Israel to offer sacrifices even though David says, “You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God” (Psalm 51:16-17, NLT).

Similarly, we are commanded in the Scriptures to do spiritual works of mercy, such as passing on the faith, bearing wrongs patiently, comforting the afflicted, and forgiving offenses willingly. Evangelism is a spiritual work of mercy. We are also commanded in the Scriptures to do physical works of mercy, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and freeing the captive. Evangelism is also a physical work of mercy. Both describe true fasting. We do ourselves and others a terrible disservice when we try to separate these activities—when we give one kind of mercy but withhold the other, or when we give more importance to one over another.

As Christians, we are not to place every belief or work in a kind of cascading study, a hierarchy of what’s what. To the person who says that sharing the gospel is more important than feeding the poor, I would say that feeding the poor is proclaiming Christ: a more coherent proclamation than the man going door to door. But it is also true that if I feed the poor without this action flowing out of my love for Christ, or because I believe that feeding the poor will win the favor of God, then my work isn’t complete, isn’t perfect. Even while helping the poor, it fails to do the proper work in my heart. It can even be an act of wickedness because of my intentions (though the poor person is still helped).

Mission, love of neighbor, can never be either preaching the gospel or clothing the naked. It is both. Even if someone were to say, “But if you were to really say which was more important, which would it be?” we are not to say it. We are commanded to do both in order to be merciful. As James says, “Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, ‘Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well’—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?” (James 2:15-16, NLT). Right teaching without right practice is ignorance. And though right practice is essential, it cannot be divorced from its source. Christ’s teaching on the greatest commandment is also an example of this in the sense that we cannot love God if we do not love others. If we love God, then we will love others.

So we must understand Isaiah’s, Joel’s, David’s, and so many others’ exhortations not as a rejection of the physical expression of faith but as a rejection of expressions of faith that are devoid of faith and love. Our fasting is empty if we fast yet cheat our neighbors, are angry with our children, covet, or refuse to show mercy. Abstinence from sin, fulfilled in almsgiving and a genuine and concrete love of our neighbor, is the true fast that God desires.
Fast, that you might humble yourself before God. Fasting is not an end, but an opening of ourselves to—a readying of ourselves for—the working of the Spirit of God within us. Our interior lives must be the source of our exterior action. Both work in tandem, each informing the other. This is what it means to fast truly.