Prayer with fasting

Gerry Angel 

I was asked to prepare a talk on this subject and later shared it with the A.R.M.(Wales) Executive.

Fasting is not a particularly religious process.   The final stage of this talk was prepared in a canteen.   My chosen menu was a plate of salad and a fruit salad, recalling fasts recorded in the book of Daniel.   However, two other dishes had also been bought for other members of the family; one was fish and chips, the other chicken korma with rice. One member of the family didn't want any food, the other took a small portion of the plate of fish and chips and an even smaller portion of the chicken korma.   Having childhood memories of food rationing and recent memories of seeing Peruvians in their shacks dependent on one bowl of soup a day from a government soup kitchen, I felt that the remaining surplus food should not go waste.   I ate it.   That was 1 pm.   By 8 pm we were in a Moroccan restaurant, and I fancied a kebab.   I couldn't see kebabs on the menu, but my daughter asked a waiter to supply one.  It was huge, with an accompanying pile of couscous.  On the following morning the result of this binge was a 4lbs gain on the bathroom scales, over my normal weight.   So I went without breakfast and had a light lunch and light supper.  The following morning the scales recorded a loss of 4lbs.  This process is the most common form of fasting in the Western world today, where 20% of the global population consumes 86% of the world's goods.   We in Britain, like the USA and the wealthy people in all nations, fast to slim, while the majority people in the world are underfed.   For fasting is nothing more than abstinence for a set time from food or drink or a sensual pleasure, totally or partially.   Fasting is practised among all sorts of people, for various reasons.   For example, to prove one's virility, or to put pressure on a supposed god, or to prepare for a ceremony.   How is fasting presented in the Word of God, the Christian Scriptures?

Most of our information comes from the Old Testament, but there is some in the New.   All the material can be divided between negative reactions to situations and positive initiatives.   First, the negative reactions.  Fasting, and prayer with fasting, is an emotional response to a disaster or shock, the kind of situation in which we often say, 'I don't feel like eating anything'.   The Israelite army, shocked at being defeated by the Benjaminites, 'went back to Bethel and wept, sitting there before the Lord; they fasted that day until the evening' (Judg.20:29).  The defeat put them completely off their food! The Israelites, and David in particular, mourned with fasting over the death in battle of Saul and Jonathan.  King Ahab, confronted by the prophet Elijah's prediction of the imminent deaths of his wife and family, put sackcloth over his naked body and fasted. The seer Daniel in mourning for three weeks ate no rich food nor meat and drank no wine.   Fasting in all these cases was an emotional response to a disaster (1 Sam. 31:13; 2 Sam.1:12; 1 Kings 21:27; Dan. 10:2-3).  

Another negative reaction is fasting as a desperate cry for help in the wake of a disaster, combined with a penitent cry for deliverance.   This is like saying to God, “I'll even go without something to show that I am serious in my plea.”  A bit of this kind of thinking can creep into our Lenten fasting.  King David heard that the child which Uriah's wife Bathsheba had borne him was desperately ill.  His reaction was to weep, eat no food, and lie on the ground pleading to the Lord for the baby's life for seven days, until the child died and then he stopped.   Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, was heading towards a massive enemy army and in fear 'set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah'.   When Nehemiah heard that people who had escaped captivity were desperate and that the city of Jerusalem was in ruins, he wept and mourned, fasted and prayed for days asking God for a remedy.  When Ezra the Scribe was leading a troop of exiles back to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple and re-establish the cult, he proclaimed a fast, asking God for a safe journey, because he had told the pagan king Darius that 'our God is gracious to all who seek him' and he didn't want to ask the king for an armed escort.   When a destructive plague of locusts was infesting the returned exiles and their property, the prophet Joel calls on all the people to turn to the Lord in penitence, proclaim a great fast, and plead with the Lord to spare them.   When praying for his sick enemies, David the Psalmist had fasted (2 Sam.12:16-20; 2 Chron.20:3; Neh.1:4-11; Ezra 8:21-23; Joel 1:8-2:17; Ps. 35:13-14). 

Another reaction is only partially negative, namely ritual fasting.   This is something done regularly and formally, an act of self-denial to identify with a great event in the life of the nation. The motive for participating in this kind of fasting is duty, not desperation, as if to say, 'I really ought to do this, out of respect.'  The great fast in Israel and in later Jewry occurred on the Day of Atonement, held on a specific date, the 10th day of the 7th month, when all Israelites were to refrain for a day from food, drink and work. It survived in New Testament times. This was the day when the sins of the nation were atoned for. Another ritual fast was held in the years following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.   Fasts were to be held in the 4th, 5th, 7th and 10th months of each year. Another traditional fast was held immediately before the Feast of Purim, a fast held each year on the 13th day of the month Adar to recall the fasting of the Jews when Haman planned to eradicate them and to celebrate the fast called by Esther when she was going to plead the Jewish cause before the king. (Leviticus 16:31-34; 23:26-32; Acts 27:9; Zech.7:1-7; Esther 4:3, 16; 9:31).      

This approach to fasting - a ritual fast - is still practised in the Christian Church.  Wednesdays, Fridays and for a time Saturdays;  2 days and then 40 days before Easter up to the 4th Century; in the Mediaeval Eastern Church in Advent and from Trinity to the Feasts of SS. Peter and Paul;  in the Mediaeval Western Church in vigils before the great feasts and Ember days.   Some Reformers reasoned that ritual fasting was 'contrary to the Gospel', but fast days are given in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer 1662 including every Friday, unless it happens to be Christmas Day. Today all able-bodied Roman Catholics are meant to fast on Fridays, and also on Wednesdays in Lent.   The Greek Orthodox churches observe up to 150 fast days a year.(See the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, the Book of Common Prayer 'Tables and Rules for the Feasts and Fasts through the whole year').   Asian Charismatic Christians in particular today fast as they pray, but this seems more like the 'cry from the heart' fasting of the Old Testament than the ritual fasts.   

But how impressed is the Lord with all this?  In the Old Testament, ritual fasts are enjoined by the Lord, but through his prophets he shows a distaste for fasts which are not matched by obedience.  Let Jeremiah put the case, 'Thus says the Lord, concerning this people: truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet; therefore the Lord does not accept them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. The Lord said to me:  Do not pray for the welfare of this people.  Although they fast, I do not hear their cry, and although they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I do not accept them; but by the sword, by famine and by pestilence I consume them' (14:10-12 NRSV).   So how does the Lord view fasting positively?

Using the Bible calls for common sense as well as for unfailing obedience to what the Lord tells his people in it.   Now not everything that the Lord's people do in the biblical records is binding on all Christians.   Much of the behaviour of the Israelites was not in line with the teachings of Jesus later, in particular on deceit and war.   So what I have to present from this point onwards is drawn from the teaching of Jesus or from OT prophecy which gives a clear call of the Lord on his people with regard to fasting.  

So what positive value in fasting arises from this teaching?   First, it can give a concentrated focus on the Lord.    Once Jesus had been revealed publicly to be the son of God at his baptism, he was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit of God to be tested on the nature of his sonship.    He fasted 40 days and nights as he concentrated exclusively on how his Father meant him to behave as God's son.   Similarly, Moses fasted for 40 days and nights in the presence of the Lord at the renewing of the Covenant and the re-writing of the Ten Commandments.   When the people had wandered after the Golden Calf, Moses needed to concentrate on the Lord exclusively.   When the returned exiles were keeping the fasts begun after the destruction of Jerusalem, the prophet Zechariah declares that the Lord sees them as self-centred; what he really wants are fasts which are seasons of joy and gladness, cheerful festivals.    Therefore love truth and peace’.    Here are echoes of Jesus' teaching.   Replying to complaints that the disciples of Jesus were not fasting like the disciples of the Pharisees or of John the Baptist, Jesus replies that they need to rejoice while he is with them, but they can fast in the Pharisees' sense when he is removed from them.  I write 'in the Pharisees sense' because Jesus did expect his disciples to fast, but in a way in which it was not obvious to any human being.   The disciples were to appear in celebratory mode, while God alone could see that they were fasting.   Jesus' distaste for making one's fast obvious to others appears in his cartoon of the self-absorbed Pharisee who was fasting far more often than the Law required and who made sure that his God knew that.   Fasting for the disciples of Jesus was self-effacing and totally focussed on the Lord.   Had Jesus in his re-interpretation of fasting intended that his disciples should never fast, it is doubtful whether St. Paul would have admitted, under unwelcome pressure to affirm his devotion as an apostle, to being 'often without food' (NRSV, literally 'in fastings often'). One positive motive of fasting is to help focus on the Lord in a concentrated way.(Matt.4:1-11; Exod.34:28; Zech.7:1-7; 8:19; Mark 2:18-20; Matt.6:16-18; Lk.18:12; 2 Cor.11:27).  

Second, fasting can enhance obedience to the Lord.  This point is clear in the OT prophets.   Aside from Jeremiah's repudiation of fasting which does not accompany obedience, Joel's famous Ash Wednesday text calls on the people of God to 'rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord.' Isaiah has a text which spells out the Lord's idea of a positive fast, which is highly appropriate for Christians in the affluent Western world.    Though long, it is worth quoting in full.

'Shout out, do not hold back!   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!  Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practised righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of the Lord their God; they ask of me righteous judgements, they delight to draw near to God. "Why do we fast and you do not see? Why humble ourselves and you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.   Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.   Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.   Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?  Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?  Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?   Is not this the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?   Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?   Then your light shall shine forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindication shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.   Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.'  

This says it all.  We can afford to go without many of the things we want but do not need in order improve our lining up with the Lord's bias for the oppressed and needy.(Jer.14:10-12; Joel 2:13; Isa. 58:1-9) 

Third, fasting can help a deeper trust in the Lord in prayer.   Christian practice of prayer accompanied by fasting appeals to the text of Mark 9:29 in the Authorised Version and other translations which follow the Majority Text in the ancient Greek manuscripts. Readers of the NIV and NRSV find the words 'and fasting' in the footnotes as an alternative manuscript reading.    I am not going to debate which reading is best, but I do want to point to the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke.   Many writers of commentaries today still write as if Matthew and Luke had access to a version of Mark's Gospel when they wrote theirs.   Scholars who seek for the particular emphases in any of these three Gospels still assume, in order to detect special emphases in one or other Gospel, that one Gospel writer was familiar with what one or both of the others wrote.   Usually scholars engaged in his sort of comparison act as if a version of Mark was available to the other two, Matthew and Luke.   So let us assume that both Matthew and Luke knew a version of Mark's 9:29.   When Matthew 17:19-20 recounts the same incident, Jesus rebukes the disciples for lack of faith.  He makes no mention of prayer nor fasting.   When Luke 9:37-43 recounts the same incident, Jesus rounds on the disciples with 'you faithless and perverse generation'.   No mention is made of prayer nor fasting.  What is clear is that both Matthew and Luke believed that Jesus' main focus in his reaction to the disciples' failure to exorcise the boy is trust in God, faith.   Once the Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, asked a Sudanese bishop why the church is growing in Africa but not in Europe.   The bishop replied, 'You have things and God. We only have God.'   Fasting - temporarily-  removes the 'things' and leaves us with God alone, as we bring him our needs.   The first Christian church practised this.   When the Holy Spirit blessed the persecution of Christians at Jerusalem with dispersion and successful evangelism, groups of followers of the Way grew up in places like Antioch in Syria.  Barnabus brought Saul out of retreat in Tarsus into the infant church in Antioch to fellowship with the church and to teach people.    This church was blessed with prophets and teachers.  They had come from many places: Tarsus, Cyprus, Cyrene in N Africa.   One was called 'the Black', another was a member of the court of the (Jewish) King Herod.  They worshipped and fasted, and while they were doing this, the Lord spoke to them in a way which initiated mission by design, as distinct from mission by default through persecution and dispersion.   Again they fasted and prayed before they obeyed what the Lord had told them to do.   Their obedience was a measure of their trust in the Lord, and their prayer with fasting accompanied their trust and obedience.   All of us need to concentrate our focus on the Lord when business can easily distract us; to be more clean cut in lining up with his will, in obedience; to trust him more completely when we make our decisions and requests. Fasting will help us in all this, as long as we don't advertise it to others.

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