Day of Prayer and Solemn Fasting

Like many people, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Michael Jensen's motion at the Assembly to call the church to a day of 'public solemn fasting', yet I think we all had a sense that it was necessary. We are very greatful for the involvment of Matthew Guy, Liberal MLC for Northern Metropolitan Region and Rob Ward, Victorian Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, and we appreciate the attendance of other state and local political leaders to support us in a call for Biblical standards of integrity and morality throughout our society.

Here is the general gist of the brief reflection I shared with the congregation of about 300 people who gathered from all around the city, including many from churches other than Presbyterian and also several sitting politicians from different parties.

Matthew 6:1-18 (Exodus 20:1-20 & Romans 13:1-8 were also read)

There are three things in this passage that Jesus tells us ought to be done in private: alms giving, prayer and fasting.

He is not saying that these can never be done in a corporate setting. The book of Acts gives us a couple of examples of corporate acts of alms giving, in chapter 2 when each member of the fledgling church sold all that he had and they created a common fund, and in chapter 6 when deacons were ordained to ensure that none of the widows would be neglected. And the prayer that Jesus gives us in the passage itself is couched in plural terms, 'Our Father', 'give us this day', 'forgive us' and so on.

But even in a corporate setting, these three things are supposed to arise out of an inclination of the heart to love. This is the theme that runs throughout the Sermon on the Mount. Love of God or neighbour is not merely about what you do, it is primarliy about the inclination of your heart that motivates your actions. External observance to a set of laws, unless it is motivated by that love which springs from the deepest recesses of your heart's desire, is nothing but legalism - as the rich young ruler discovered when Jesus tested the motivation that lay behind his external observance of God's basic laws. True faith converts the heart first and then gets to work on transforming the life.

So the question is, what motivates you? Do you do these things - alms, prayer, fasting - for earthly glory? So that others might see you and praise you? If so, you might do a very good and worthwhile job and I might say to you, 'well done,' but that is all the thanks you're going to get. You have already received your reward!

But these things, each in their own way, even when we perform them in public, ought to be about the nature and quality of our relationship with God, and that is an intensely private matter that nobody else is qualified to judge.

Notice that if you take this to heart about your own spiritual disciplines, you must also understand that it excludes you from passing judgement on others. We have a tendency to do that, don't we? To suppose that we can make some estimation of a person's faith based on what we see them do? But we can't and we shouldn't and we musn't - just as Solomon acknowledged in the reading I used for a call to worship, 1 Kings 8:39-40. 'Then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways - for you and you alone know the hearts of all the children of men.'

Now to a consideration specifically of fasting...

There are certain routines in life that God has built in for our refreshment both physically and spiritually, and not just ours, but also for the proper care and regular renewal of nature and of community.

There is the weekly routine of the Sabbath, which bears some similarity to the practice of fasting in that it requires us to set aside our normal dailly pattern and do something more specific and more focussed on God. There is the 7 year routine of leaving a field fallow to allow it to recuperate and replenish itself, and there is the 50 year routine of the Jubilee, to release debts and to release slaves, giving both debtors and slaves a kind of rebirth to new life.

But there is also the dailly routine of fasting that we sometimes forget, but that is why the first meal of the day is call break-fast. The routine of sleep is necessary to rest our bodies and minds from their labours, to switch everything off (well, almost everything!) and to let the glorious gifts of God through our physical nature, go about their task of renewing and rejuvinating that which is tired. If we don't get enough sleep, we all know that it makes us irritable, grumpy and often dysfunctional, unable to make rational decisions or relate well to people.

This day that we have set aside is not quite like the dailly routine of sleeping or fasting. It is not routine. As David pointed out, we've probably not done something like this for at least 100 years.

What this is like is the church catching up on a century of lost sleep. A church that has been systematically failing to rest in God, to rest in Christ, to rest in the Spirit - in other words, systemattically neglecting God's Sabbath gift to us, failing to drink up and absorb the healing, refreshing, renewing Word of our Heavenly Father; a church that has become irritable and grumpy and is characterised as much by in-fighting as it is by outreach; a church that has become dysfunctional, unable to make clear and rational decisions in even the most simple of social or community issues.

Fasting is switching off from so many of the things that clamour for our attention and tempt us to greed or sloth. But it's not just about what we switch off from, it's also about what we switch on to, the Word of God, prayer, spiritual contemplation, that He might restore our soul.