“He fasted for forty days and for forty nights,
and afterwards He was hungry.”
--Matthew 4: 1-11
As another Lent begins, it is good to revisit the idea of fasting, sacrifice and penance. Now, before we anyone starts objecting that Lent is not just about fasting, let me just say: You're right. It is also about prayer and alms giving (charity). But the issue that most of us have more trouble with is this idea of fasting –of giving up something: food, drink, abstaining from some pleasure. Whatever it is we might be considering giving up, in the back of our head is often the nagging question: What’s the point? Can’t I just enjoy my chocolate and be more charitable? Give money to a homeless person and eat a Snickers? Visit my sick neighbor and then sip on a root-beer float? Would that make me any good? Any less holy?
My thought is that yes, you can enjoy root beer and popcorn and chocolate and favorite TV shows and still be a good person, even a holy one. That isn’t the point of Lent—I don’t think. I think the real point of our Lenten abstinence is not about the giving up, but about the wanting. The appetite. I have come to think that the real lesson of Lent and fasting has less to do with the value of abstaining and more to do with the importance of redirecting or refocusing my appetite, so to speak.
I don’t think we are asked to give things up because they are necessarily bad for us; for instance, someone who enjoys chocolate and pork chops is not less holy than someone who lives on locust and honey—at least not based on diet alone. As one of our local priests likes to say: Lent is not about losing weight and fasting is not a diet plan.
I have begun to think that our appetites, our hungers, our desires are much more important than we might think. As the prophet Amos reminds the wayward Israelites: “Prepare to meet your God.” (cf Amos 4:12) But who is our God? In the book of Amos, Israel’s god is her pocketbook, her belly, her comfort. The people even pray for the end of their Sabbath so they can go back to cheating one another, and buy and sell the poor for a few shekels or a pair of sandals! When the prophet tells them to prepare to meet your God, to my ear it sounds more like a threat than an invitation. And now I can’t help but ponder: who is my God? Who am I preparing to meet?
And isn’t that what our whole life is about? Preparing to meet our God. But who are we preparing to meet? If I am all filled up with Cheetos and pickles and mayonnaise sandwiches, I’m not going to be hungry for the kale and spinach salad my wife made for dinner. And if all I ever eat is junk food and peanut butter crackers, how will I ever learn that I might actually like kale and spinach and cauliflower and even –dare I say… Brussel sprouts!
Well—the same goes for our soul. If we fill it with momentary pleasures and self-interest and self-satisfaction, never allowing ourselves to become hungry for something more, something beyond our own whims and wants—something eternal—then who are we preparing ourselves to meet? Who is our god?
Fasting asks us to spend some time with that want, with the feeling of hungering for something that we cannot have, desiring something more. It makes an opening in our soul, and gives us a chance to discover that no matter how many potato chips we eat or episodes of Midsomer Murders we binge, we will never be truly satisfied. We will always want something more. And that wanting of that something more—I think that is the real lesson of the Lenten fast. To –as Jesus did—separate ourselves from the ordinary and from the false security of a full belly and a distracted brain, and to spend some time wanting something more. When we die and a voice whispers to us, Prepare to meet your God… who will you want to meet?
One more note: In the Gospel for today with its story of the temptations in the desert, there is a very important lesson for all who fast. Anyone who has ever tried to fast from a habit or some pleasure (or some favorite food) knows that it doesn’t take 40 days and 40 nights for the temptations to begin. The temptation to stop fasting, to just go ahead and do or eat that thing we are fasting from—just this one time. The temptation to rationalize—just this once! And, the promise that if you give in this time, everything will be fixed. You’ll never be hungry again. But how does Jesus react to all these temptations? By turning to God. Reminding us: Human beings live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He redirects His appetite, focuses His desire on the eternal and lasting good of God, the Father. His Father.
Lent isn’t a time to deny the goodness of bread, but instead a time to remind ourselves: there is something so much better waiting for us. All we have to do is learn to want it.
