The Kind of Fasting God Rejects

Hey everyone, God bless you. Thanks so

much for tuning in. Best wishes to all

of you as we move towards Great Lent,

the most sacred portion of the whole

liturggical year. I'm deeply grateful

for all of you who pray for me and for

Petristic Nectar. Very thankful uh for

your intercessions and would ask you to

please keep doing that that we might be

able to benefit many more people through

our labors. I also want to say a special

thank you to Glenn who sent me some

fantastic Snake River Roasting Company

coffee. Uh, one of the special perks,

literal perks [laughter]

of uh, doing these reflections is that I

receive a lot of coffee. Of course,

God's mercy is what sustains us, but

part of his mercy is giving us good

coffee. [laughter]

Thank you, Glenn, and uh the many others

who from all corners of the globe have

sent me coffee. Uh I really appreciate

it. The reflection that I prepared today

for your upbuilding is a reflection on

God's way of fasting or fasting God's

way. The reason I want to speak about

this is because this last Sunday in the

Orthodox Church liturggical calendar was

the Sunday of the publican and the

Pharisee. It's uh the first official

Sunday of the triodon which is our

official book of Lent. The book that we

chant from uh in Lent. It's a sacred

book full of wonders and incredible

theology. This is where we see the

theology of the church most clearly is

in our liturggical expression, our

prayers and hymns. The first Sunday of

the pre-Lent period is the Sunday of the

publican and Pharisee. And that's

followed by the Sunday of the prodigal

son, the Sunday of the great judgment

and the Sunday of forgiveness. And then

we launch into uh the six weeks of great

lent. And then of course we have holy

week and then the feast of feasts, holy

pusca and the celebration of Jesus's

resurrection from the dead. Fasting is

front and center in the gospel account

from St. Luke about the publican and the

Pharisee. Jesus tells this incredible

story, this incredible parable about a

man who was very uh upright. He thought

and fasted constantly and tithed

faithfully. Uh but the spiritual

disciplines of fasting and tithing had

not benefited him at all. uh and he was

very proud and he was sitting in the

temple there standing in the temple

thinking that he was really really great

and boasting about his greatness uh

before God and his prayer meant nothing

absolutely nothing. There was also a

publican and the publican refused to

lift up his head and beat his breast and

said God be merciful to me a sinner and

Jesus says that man went down to his

house justified before God. So there is

a type of fasting uh that is horrible

and that in fact is sinful doesn't even

not help you. It positively uh is awful.

And so it's important to learn to fast

God's way. Jesus of course teaches

fasting. This is basic uh in his

pedigogy. To be a disciple of the master

means to learn how to fast God's way. So

please give me your ear now for just a

minute as I speak to you about how to

fast as we're contemplating launching

into the great fast. How can we do it in

a way that pleases God and transforms

our own life? This week, the week that

follows the Sunday of the publican and

the Pharisee, there is no fasting. So,

we don't have our normal Wednesday and

Friday discipline because the church

wants us to think deeply about how we

fast. So, this is my first uh word is

take fasting seriously. That's the

purpose of this week. We don't fast

because we don't want to fast improperly

in a way that uh only leads to our

condemnation and doesn't bring grace and

doesn't please God or work a single

miracle. Instead, with true fasting, we

can make great progress, please the

Lord, and see incredible miracles. And

I'll mention some of those in a second.

So, of course, if you don't care about

fasting at all, none of this will make

any sense. And this portion of the

lurggical calendar will not ring uh

significant to you. But wake up, dear

ones, if you're not taking fasting

seriously. Every believer should be

serious about fasting. What's the

message from this last Sunday? Fasting

without humility is worthless. Fasting

without repentance is worthless. It's

not God's kind of fasting. For true

fasting, we have beautiful words uh from

our savior, which I'll mention in a

minute. And we have beautiful words from

the prophet Isaiah. And I'd like to read

you a few of his words about how not to

fast and about how to fast.

This comes from the 58th chapter of the

prophecy of Isaiah. Listen to this. Cry

and do not hold back. Raise your voice

like a trumpet and declare to my people

their transgressions and to the house of

Jacob their sins. This is God telling

Isaiah, "Preach and convict my people.

Tell them their sins. They yet they seek

me day by day and delight to know my

ways. You might be wondering why is God

mad at his people and telling the

prophet to rebuke them for their sins if

they're seeking God every day. Well,

they were seeking him like the Pharisee

was seeking God when he went into the

temple. It looked like he was praying,

but he wasn't praying. He was talking to

himself. It looked like he was going

there to do business with God and to

repent of his sins, which is one of the

reasons that we go to church, but he

wasn't. was there to celebrate his own

righteousness which was vacuous and a

figment of his own imagination. Yet they

seek me day by day and they delight to

know my ways. So they think as a nation

that has some done righteousness and has

not forsaken the ordinance of their God.

They ask me for just decisions. They

delight in the nearness of God. What a

self-concept. They had all of these

ideas about how close they were to God

and how much they delighted in his ways

and that they were drawing near to him.

And God said not so. It's all a figment

of their own imagination. Why have we

fasted and you don't see? This is now

the people speaking to God. They think

God's done something wrong, right? They

don't have any clue. They're so clueless

about their own condition before God

that they're now blaming God for a lack

of answered prayer. Why have we fasted

and you do not see? Why have we humbled

ourselves and you do not notice? God,

are you asleep? Think of how insulting

this is. Behold, on the day of your

fast, you find your desire and you drive

hard all your workers. So here the Lord

says, you're fasting for yourself.

You're not fasting for me. And even

while you're fasting, you're punishing

people. You you're still so focused on

worldly things. You're driving your

workers. You're you're like businessmen

who are who want to take their

vacations, but not their workers.

Behold, you fast for contention and

strife, and to strike with with a wicked

fist. This is one clear way you can know

if your fasting is godly or willful and

worthless and that is do you become more

angry when you fast? Do you even become

violent and contradict people and cut

people off? This is a huge temptation

especially when you start to fast and

your stomach gets a little perturbed

because you're not spoiling it like you

normally do and then your body and your

flesh starts to whine and you can easily

get impatient with your loved ones and

with others

if we do it's a clear sign that we're

being willful and that we aren't

accepting well the cutting off of the

desires of the flesh. Why have we fasted

and you don't see? He says, "Behold, you

fast for contention, strife, and for a

wicked fist. You do not fast like you do

today to make your voice heard on high."

Here's the true motivation. We fast so

that our prayer can become more potent,

so that our conversation with God can

become more significant. That's the

intention of fasting. Is it a fast like

this, which I choose, a day for man to

humble himself? Is it for bowing one's

head like a reed? For spreading out

sackcloth and ashes on a bed? Will you

call this a fast, even an acceptable day

to the Lord? God says, "Is that really

what I'm looking for? Is that the

definition of a fast?" No. No. That's

not it at all. That's not God's wish for

our fasting. He has many wishes for us.

He wants wonders to be worked by our

fasting, but it's not those things that

the people were describing. Now, listen.

I want to talk to you about God's

opinion of fasting. what God considers

to be a true fast. How do you know if

your fasting pleases him? How do you

know if you're doing it the right way?

Well, listen to the prophet very, very

clearly here. Is this not the fast which

I choose? To loose the bonds of

wickedness. The goal of our fasting is

to undo our own sins. Not to focus on

other people's sins, not to focus on

those who's cutting off, who's being

mean to us. It's no, no, no. It's about

ourselves. This is of course the model

of the publican in the temple. He beat

his breast and he put his head down and

he said, "God, be merciful to me a

sinner." He was there coming to church

to do business about his own heart, to

reconcile with God, to be concerned

about his own sins, to judge his own

transgressions, not that of his

neighbor. This is the fast I choose to

loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo

the bands of the yoke, to let the

oppressed go free. Not to punish your

workers, not to make people work hard.

know to be concerned during the fast

about other people's freedom to help

those who are downtrodded. Is it not to

divide your bread with the hungry to

stop thinking about how much you want to

eat and start thinking about other

people who don't have what is sufficient

so that you can share. Right? This is a

true fast to cut down your supermarket

budget. Cut it in half if you can by

eating less and give that other half to

people who are very lacking in

resources. If you can't cut it in half

by eating half, then cut it in a

quarter. You'll save a ton just by

giving up specialties. Eat simple and

basic for sustenance, but to save money

so that you'll have money to give to

others. This is what makes God happy

about fasting. to divide your bread with

the hungry, to bring the homeless poor

into your house, and when you see the

naked, to cover him, and not to hide

yourself from your own flesh. Doesn't

this sound very much like Jesus's great

judgment discourse in Matthew 25? I was

hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and

you gave me drink. I was sick and you

came to me. I was in prison and you

visited me. Exactly the same. Then if

you do this, your light will break out

like dawn and your recovery will

speedily speedily spring forth. Your

righteousness will go before you. You'll

make progress. The glory of the Lord

will be your rear guard. God will come

to you. Then you will call and the Lord

will answer. Your prayers will get will

be heard. This is how fasting can make

your prayers powerful. Then you will

call and the Lord will answer. You will

cry and and he will say, "Here I am. I'm

here right now." If you remove the yoke

from your midst, the pointing of the

finger and the speaking wickedness, no

judgment, right? We fast from judgment.

We judge ourselves. If you give yourself

to the hungry and satisfy the desire of

the afflicted, then your light will rise

in darkness and your gloom will become

like midday. And the Lord will

continually guide you and satisfy your

desire in scorched places and give

strength to your bones. And you will be

like a watered garden and like a spring

of water whose waters do not fall. Those

from among you will rebuild the ancient

ruins. That's certainly what we want to

do in the West.

Rebuild the ancient ruins as our culture

has been decimated by secularism and is

in the ruins. You will raise up the

age-old foundations. You will be called

the repairer of the breach, the restorer

of the streets in which to dwell. This

is how fasting will help recover our own

lands. This is the promise of God. I

made a graphic for my parish. Here it

is. You can see it. Six promises of true

fasting from this passage. These are the

promises God made summarized. Number

one, if you fast authentically, your own

inner darkness will flee and light will

fill your insights. Two, you will sense

God's protection in your life before you

and behind you. Three, God will answer

your prayers. Four, your sense of gloom

and discouragement will vanish. Five,

your body will have new strength. And

six, you will help establish God's

kingdom here and now. Those are the

promises, dear one, from Isaiah 58.

Yes, fasting is basic. One of the three

fundamental disciplines that Jesus

taught his disciples in the sermon on

the mount. Fasting, prayer, almsgiving.

We fast with happiness because we're

drawing near to God. And nothing makes

us more happy than that. True fasting

begins with a broken heart. Fasting

powerfully reveals our own brokenness.

Start with what you know about your

weakness and fasting will teach you the

rest like a good teacher, like a

powerful pedagogue. You'll learn a lot

about yourself and about your own

weakness and then you can having

discerned your sicknesses, you can treat

them with God's help. If you're young

and you you'll have less experience of

your own brokenness, but fasting will

help you. Failure uh is a great teacher.

The longer we live, the more we learn

about our own sins and we can grow in

humility day after day and then we can

become like St. Paul who though he was

the greatest God lover on the earth and

was so close to God that God took him to

paradise three times.

He said at the end of his life this is a

trustworthy statement worthy to be

accepted by all that Jesus Christ came

into the world to save sinners of whom I

am protos I am first. I am chief. That's

what he honestly believed on the very

edge of his martyrdom after a life of

service. Such amazing, beautiful

humility. This

is called God's way. This is fasting

God's way. And may God grant you all a

profitable Lenton fast.

A blessed Lord's [music] day to all of

you brothers and sisters

for November 17th [music]

on which we commemorate St. Gregory of

Tours. as we begin [music] this new

course in the St. John Crystal

Catechetical School.

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