conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

sermon: what fast will you make?

What Fast Will You Make?

During our Tuesday Bible study, we focused on the 126^th psalm. When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. You may remember it from just a moment ago. Where we found ourselves lingering on Tuesday was in two places. First we focused upon the very evident joy. You cannot miss it in this psalm.

The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.…

May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.

In this psalm, joy is the response to those whose relationship with God has been restored. The promises of God have been fulfilled. The oppressor has been toppled. Israel's estrangement from God has come to an end.

Joy.

The other thing we noticed was in this verse…Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying the sheaves.

If anyone knows anything at all about farming, they know that there is an aspect of chance in the vocation. Even with all the technological advances available to us, it is still possible that a crop will not yield. The rain may not fall. Insects may abound. Fires can rage. There are no promises in farming. You never really know how things are going to turn out. Yet, this is the metaphor chosen by the author of the psalm to speak of joy and God's promises. Joy and risk.

The same dynamic is true with anything we do. Musicians never know how a concert will turn out, no matter how much we practice. A teacher knows this risk as well. Standing in front of a classroom is an interesting place to sow seeds…where little to nothing is promised. A lawyer, too, may discover all kinds of surprises once negotiations truly begin. Those of you who are parents know this risk all too well…

Each one of us encounters surprises in life, these places of uncertainty where we sow seeds and have to wait to see what fruit our labors will produce.

In this empty place, this place of uncertainty…This is the place where God will visit us. This is the place where God will work for our redemption, our wholeness, and our joy. Such a space, such moments in our lives where the unknown and the mysterious reside can demonstrate to us our own dependence upon God's grace.

We can plow and till and water and plan and weed…and well we should…but in the end, it is God's grace that makes things grow.

Fasting is the spiritual discipline that reminds us of this space in our lives, the space where seeds are sown. The discipline of fasting makes room; it provides a physical space within us. We encounter a real emptiness. We may experience discomfort and frustration...simple hunger.

And we may desire to have that space filled and discover that…
with that desire is a certain lack of discernment.
We want the space filled and we don't particularly care what fills it.

Fruit?

Cookies?

Bar-b-que potato chips?

Fasting creates a certain emptiness.

We often experience empty places in our life. Lonliness. Misfortune. Anxiety. Grief. But as the psalm suggests, these empty places can be, may be, the areas of our life that God can transform. These empty places can be the "God-shaped" holes. These may very well be the places where we experience grace. May those who sow with tears reap with shouts of joy.

God may enter these spaces through community or prayer or art or nature...or even through spiritual disciplines like fasting. This is what a spiritual discipline can teach us...God is ready and willing to transform us. We only need to make the room.

If the body goes without food and drink for even a day,...it immediately weeps and lets out a roar, and there is a great rush to bring it help. But the soul fasts for whole weeks from its food, or languishes under wounds received, or even lies dead, and not one takes care of it or shows it pity. Therefore, visit your soul more and more often…

– Cardinal Robert Bellarmine

This past Wednesday evening some of us gathered around a table in the Guthridge Lounge for dinner and conversation. The topic of conversation was our fifth Christian discipline, and the discipline that gets the most attention during Lent: fasting.

Prayer,
waiting, steadfastness,
celebration, and now fasting.

The quotation from Robert Bellarmine reminds us of an important truth that we rediscover through a discipline like fasting. We are reminded again and again that our lives are not simply physical nor are they primarily spiritual. We are beings of flesh and faith. Often, for more reasons than we can count, the physical gets almost all the attention and our souls are ignored. We can fall into the trap of thinking that focusing on our souls is a luxury or perhaps a clever hobby. Putting food on the table, we say, is a matter of survival. It trumps everything. Fasting or prayer or celebration is unnecessary.

Fasting is an amazing discipline because it hits us right where we live. There is no more essential physical need than food…except perhaps physical contact with another person. And yet in fasting we are asked to step away from that need for a moment, perhaps only a single day. What we might discover is tremendous.

We discovered Wednesday evening that fasting is not just about abstaining from food. One may need a context, a community, to support the discipline.

We may begin to understand that consumption is about more than food. Once we stop consuming something so basic as food, we may find that there is very little that we actually need and consumption itself becomes suspect. We may gravitate toward simplicity.

We may experience solidarity with the poor. Our brief hunger calls to mind the real starvation and deprivation that exists in the world.

We may simply wrangle with our own limitations.

There is so much to the discipline...the spiritual fruit that it may produce.

12:1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

John tells this story a little differently than the other writers. There are no alabaster jars in this story. And perhaps John is more interested in Judas' character than the other writers. 12:6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)

John foreshadows Jesus' death more clearly than the others. 12:7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. Is that even foreshadowing? It is so blatant.

This is such a strange gathering. Lazarus is present, the man whom Jesus had just raised from the dead. Martha is bustling about. And Mary is preparing Jesus for death. As a simply moment in literature, this is a very strange picture. But it does highlight the places where God's grace is at work. This anointing at Bethany is a pivot point in John's narrative. John shows us where there is emptiness…

In this way, John allows us to see Judas' emptiness (greed), Mary's emptiness (grief), and even the emptiness of Lazarus (death) one more time. Some of that emptiness has been filled by God...Lazarus' resurrection and Mary's gratitude and gift to Christ reflect this. Restoration...reconciliation.

Judas' unredeemed need is also clear to the Gospel writer. Judas' emptiness has been filled with things that have festered and gone to rot. Judas has put other things in the place where grace is to reside. And there sits Christ, Emmanuel, God with us before his very eyes. We are scandalized by this…and perhaps because we relate to Judas. I relate to Judas. I pity him because he reminds me of me.

And Jesus speaks to his own need in this moment. This need will be answered with resurrection at Easter. But that is Easter. We have to fast from the resurrection for another couple or weeks.

This, at least in my wild extrapolation of the Gospel, is the context and fruit of fasting, of spiritual discipline. God is clearly active in the lives of all the people in these scripture readings. Transformation occurs. Emptiness is met with God's love, rebirth, resurrection. And the incredible pain of God's apparent absence in Judas' life is witnessed as well. Participation in God's work has real and tangible effects.

Who we are is physical and spiritual. We cannot escape this truth. Fasting can show us this. Fasting can underscore for us our need for God's grace. Fasting can make room for grace. It can remind us of those desert places. It can remind us of our own need and the needs of the world.

So, what fast will you make? Where will you make room in your life for God's grace? For surely it pours out upon us all like rain. Can you simply take a day and let something go? Do you have the courage to take the discipline beyond the confines of Lent?

May God's grace fill you.
May God's own peace be upon you.
Sisters and brothers, may the fast that we make honor God and bring us hope.
Amen.

Posted by tripp at March 25, 2007 08:38 AM