[AI translation] There is some uncertainty among people belonging to the Christian churches about the fact that the few weeks before Easter are known as Lent. There is even greater uncertainty about what is actually the pious practice we call Lent? A mother asked me the other day if her children had been invited to a party, but if it was Lent, were they allowed to go, and if they went, were they allowed to dance? The person was embarrassed, he said: please, I've already eaten today, can I take communion for this? Another said: 'I fast all day on Good Friday. Well, how do we evangelical Christians relate to the question of fasting? Our Roman Catholic Fathers have rules, precise prescriptions, instructing their faithful when and how to fast. The Jews of Jesus' day also had detailed rules about what should and should not be eaten during fasting, and when these rules should be observed. We have neither the theory nor the practice of fasting. What is the correct behaviour here? Is there fasting at all or not?It is clear from the words of Jesus that there is. That is why the Lord speaks of it. Yes, there is! There are two kinds of fasting: voluntary and compulsory. There is fasting when one voluntarily gives up something, perhaps the enjoyment of a food or drink, or smoking, or socialising. He or she voluntarily undertakes certain restrictions, austerity, austerity, fasting in his or her usual way of life. He says: I'm not doing that now. Why, we will talk about that in a moment. And there are fasts that one undertakes because one has to. He does not do it voluntarily, but because he has to, because he is in a situation. This is what Jesus expresses: 'the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast' (Mt 9,15). For example, a woman's husband is taken away from her by death, and then a long, bitter period of fasting begins for the widow who is left behind. Or, as is happening in one family now, the mother's health is taken away by a serious, painful illness, and the whole family bears the painful burden of forced fasting. Or when the happiness of married life is taken away by a family conflict, and the suffering spouse is forced to do without the tenderness and support of the other. This is also a period of forced fasting. Or, when one's livelihood is financially shattered, and one is forced to tighten the belt around one's whole life by giving up many things. This is also a forced fast.
Fasting is definitely a certain renunciation, whether one undertakes it voluntarily or out of necessity. What Jesus says in our passage applies equally to both kinds of fasting: 'But when you fast, do not have a gloomy countenance, like that of hypocrites who disfigure their faces, so that men may see that they are fasting. Verily I say unto you, they have taken their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face; that men may not see you fasting, but your Father who is in secret; and your Father who looks on you in secret will reward you openly." (Mt 9,16-18)
Especially during the time of forced fasting, when "the bridegroom is taken away", do not have a gloomy look, like the hypocrites who disfigure their faces so that people may see. The pain and suffering over a loss is no concern of man. It's not a stunt to put in the window of our lives to be seen, admired, noticed. No one really considers a person who puts a martyr's wreath on his head by constantly voicing his own pain, his own forced fasting, to be a martyr. No one really feels sorry for a man who complains about his troubles with a gloomy face on every road and thus feels sorry for himself, but at most he is pitied. He who constantly wounds people with his own spiritual wounds, no one tries to bandage his wounds. The man who is always bothering people with his own problems is the man whose problems no one wants to deal with. People who impose their own painful moods on their family, friends and colleagues, playing the role of the great sufferer, are shunned by family members, friends and colleagues.
When you are fasting, don't look gloomy, don't distort your face so that people can see how much you are fasting. Let us not misunderstand: it is not that the fasting, the suffering person should never pour out his heart's pain in front of someone. In fact, it is very necessary. "Carry one another's burdens" (Gal 6:2), says the Scripture. It is very good to have a spiritual brother or sister, a pastor or pastoral care worker, with whom one can discuss all the bitterness and problems of forced fasting. There should be. This pouring out of the burden of the soul before someone usually brings great relief in itself. But that is quite another. Yes, a person can see only the gloomy face and the contorted countenance, but people should not see it. Don't show people how much you're fasting. It is not their business, it is God's business. Therefore Jesus says, "But when thou fastest, anoint thine own head, and wash thy face: that men see not thy fasting, but thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which looketh in secret shall reward thee openly."
"Wash thy head" is the expression of the solemn mood; "wash thy face": wash away thy tears, and so come before men, as one who looks upon them serenely, though inwardly he fasts in secret, and bears his sorrows and sufferings in silence before the Father, Who looks in secret, hidden, Who sees all things. That is enough. The suffering hidden from men is all the more revealed before God. If there is a smile on the face and a serene look in the eyes, while there is a struggle in the heart, it is based on the certainty that all things work together for good - even the most painful forced fasting! - for those who love God. It is possible, therefore, to fast with a radiant face instead of a contorted countenance, and with exultant praise instead of a lamenting jeremiad on the lips, if I know and believe that God is my Father. So let him fast who must fast.
For one of the greatest dangers of fasting is hypocrisy. 'Do not fast like hypocrites,' says Jesus. And this danger is especially threatening to anyone who fasts voluntarily, who voluntarily gives up food, drink, entertainment or anything else. This hypocrisy consists in appearing to people - or even to oneself - to be more religious, more faithful, more pious, by observing certain formalities, certain rules, than one really is. In other words: one becomes an observer of one's own piety and feels that one will please God more in this way. What would please God if a person did not eat meat on Friday? Or not smoking a single cigarette on Good Friday? What is pleasing to God about that? I don't think that the God who taught us to pray through Jesus, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Mt 9:11) and who fed five thousand hungry people in the wilderness through Jesus, would be particularly pleased with a man who hungers. How much better a Christian becomes, say, a man who has cut many wounds with his sharp tongue, if he gives up all meat for Lent? Such a person should fast not with his stomach, but with his tongue!
Do you know what is wrong with all this fasting? It's that we always want to sew a new patch on the old cloth. Where our old self is already very torn, we put a little Christian matzo on it, cover it with a patch of some piety formality. And God says: it is not your sacrifice, not your renunciation that I need, but your heart. By confining your life to certain formalities, rules, bonds, the content of your life does not change. Holding on to forms of piety, forcing them on us, does not make us not only better Christians, but not Christians at all! In fact, it is precisely when Jesus speaks of fasting that he wants to liberate us from all religious formality. Don't fast like hypocrites, the point of fasting is not to deprive yourself of certain things on certain days: you don't eat pork but you eat fish, what good is that? You do not dance because it is Lent, but you remain as envious and selfish as ever. What's good in that? You don't eat breakfast before communion, but you can't pay attention to the sermon on an empty stomach, and you're dizzy. What's good about that? Nothing. There is no point in keeping such rules.
Listen to what God says already in the Old Testament through the prophet Isaiah: "Is this the fast that I love, and the day in which the soul of man is tormented? Or if he bow down his head like a caiaphas, and put sackcloth and ashes under him, is this called fasting, and a day acceptable in the sight of the Lord? Is not this not the fast that I love, to loose the chains of wickedness, to loose the cords of the yoke, to loose the oppressed, and to tear in pieces every yoke? Is it not to break thy bread to the hungry, and to bring the poor into thy house, and to clothe the naked when thou seest them naked, and not to hide thyself from thy flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the dawn, and thy healing shall blossom quickly, and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall follow thee. Then shalt thou cry out, and the Lord shall hear thee; thou shalt wail, and he shall say, Behold, I am here. (Isa 58:5-9)
So there is no point in voluntary fasting? Is it not good to renounce something, to abstain? Yes, it is good, except that no one can be told by rule what to give up. The point of fasting is not renunciation itself, but liberation from some constraint. It is to renounce that which threatens to keep one in bondage. Yes, fasting is a very useful spiritual practice, it trains one to be the master of one's bodily desires, desires, fantasies, and not a slave to them. When some fleshly desire, lust, fantasy wants to dominate the soul, then fasting does have its place. Voluntary fasting. And especially in our time, this is very important, because people are becoming more and more the playthings of their own desires, their own wishes. True faith is also shown in the ability to control one's desires, not to give oneself to them as a free prey. Yes, one may have to abstain from some food or drink or smoking if one's body and soul are becoming addicted to them. But there may be other pleasures against which fasting must be fought. Perhaps it is the radio and television, which no longer allow you a moment of peace and quiet, or the sports frenzy, which has taken over your emotional life, or the dreamy fantasies that have taken over your soul. Against all kinds of physical and spiritual desires that threaten to overwhelm us, to overwhelm us, to overwhelm us.
So everyone must test himself in terms of the bondage he has to free himself from in order to live as a complete human being. There is no universal pattern of fasting, but each one must relate to what limits his or her total spiritual freedom. Fasting is not about keeping religious formalities, but about freedom: freedom from the shackles that bind us, that oppress our body and soul, that have taken hold or are beginning to take hold. That is why fasting is not bound to a specific time, day or form. This also applies to forced fasting. Therefore, even someone who is "bereft of a bridegroom" - that is, someone who is grieving, ill, suffering, or even unhappy - should not have a gloomy look on his face, so that he may exercise himself in spiritual independence. For the spiritual equilibrium, serenity, peace of a believer is independent even of a loved one, and of his health, and of the happiness of his life. Fasting should not be a sad and depressed state of mind, but a joyful and happy sacrifice. This is why Jesus says: "But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face" (Mt 9,17). Feast. In fasting, the soul feasts and feasts, and the body fasts precisely because it wants to get out of the way. It shuts itself off at the very points where it would otherwise be most tempted.
Finally, it follows that fasting, fasting of any kind, only makes sense if it is done with a purpose. And that purpose is always: to deepen more deeply in communion with God. The purpose of fasting is always to turn the soul more towards God. Whatever distracts you from this deepening, this turning, whatever hinders you in this: that should be the object of your fasting. If dancing is a hindrance to you because it makes your blood boil, or wine because it lulls you into pleasant illusions, or whipped cream because it has become a passion, or a new dress because the cost of it means that you no longer have money to give to God, then you must be able to renounce it, you must fast in connection with it. But it is never about renunciation, about self-pain, but about renewal in communion with God through Jesus. It is a deeper experience of His forgiving grace, His sanctifying love of body and soul.
This is what the last words of our passage refer to: '...let not men see your fasting, but your Father who is in secret; and your Father who looks on you in secret will reward you openly' (Mt 9,18). Thus Jesus says: God will repay. In other words, he shares his own riches. And then the bound, weary man is renewed, strengthened, freed again for joyful service, for the manifold exercise of love, for a fuller life.
Our old man, if he suffers,
It's good for us, I know;
Who yields to blood and flesh,
Is not in the right way.
Don't regret the visible,
Just shake off what binds you:
Let thy self be broken,
Going through death.
(Canto 455, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 8 March 1964.
Lesson
Mk 2,18-22