Why Fast

What about fasting?

I am on a quest. And have been for years. Some of you have been on a similar quest. For some it is a major quest, and for others it’s a minor quest, but a quest never the less.

And that quest is weight loss. And it seems like it’s been never ending, I remember in high school wanting to drop a few pounds and I wasn’t very big in high school.

But literally there has not been a year since I graduated from high school in 1978 that I haven’t been trying to lose weight. And some people think: well just cut down. It seems like everybody knows something that will help me on my weight loss journey.

A friend of mine is enormous, I like hanging around with him because it helps me feel that I have less of a weight issue. I know, that’s wrong in so many ways.

And he’s got a new doctor, she’s relatively young, or as my Dad used to say, fresh out of the box. And the other day at an appointment, trying to be helpful, she told my friend, “Some people find reducing calories can help you lose weight.”

Really? My friend said that he wanted to tell her, “Doc, I’ve been fat longer than you’ve been alive.”

But there is some good advice out there for people on the quest, Orson Wells wrote, “My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.”

Suze Orman said, “People have got to learn: if they don't have cookies in the cookie jar, they can't eat cookies.” That actually applies to a lot of issues.

And Dave Attell offer this advice, “What's the two things they tell you are healthiest to eat? Chicken and fish. You know what you should do? Combine them, eat a penguin.”

Or maybe we just need to heed the words of Alexander Pope when he wrote 300 years ago, “What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.”

Our summer preaching series is called: Asking for a Friend. And we invited the Cornerstone family to ask the staff questions that you would like answered, and we’ve taken a crack at five of them so far. And to be truthful we aren’t going to get to all of them this summer. But this week’s question is “What is the significance of fasting and is it relevant for believers today?”

And that is a good question, and it made me go hmmmmm? Because I’ve never preached on fasting, and if the truth be known haven’t really thought that much about fasting and while I’ve practiced fasting occasionally as a spiritual discipline it really hasn’t been an integral part of my Christian life.

Today when you hear people talking about fasting, they are more often than not speaking of fasting as a means of losing weight not as a spiritual exercise.

And there are all kinds of theories on that, there are those who will tell you that for optimum weight loss you should fast a couple of days a week, others who would say that you need to fast for 16 hours each day.

Both views kind of make sense, kind of goes back to what the young doctor told my friend, “Some people find reducing calories can help you lose weight.”

But, that type of fasting isn’t what we are talking about this morning.

What we are talking this morning, is defined in the Collins English dictionary this way

Fast: Verb

1. to abstain from eating all or certain foods or meals, especially as a religious observance.

Notice that it said a religious observance and not a Christian observance. Communion is a distinctly Christian event, baptism is primarily a Christian celebration. Not so with fasting. Two years ago, when I visited Egypt the Muslim community was celebrating Ramadan. During Ramadan devout Muslims fast from Sunrise to Sundown. And it is believed that the spiritual rewards of fasting are multiplied during Ramadan. And, traditionally they break the fast each evening by first eating dates.

Funny Story. If you were part of Cornerstone, then you might recall my beard was a little fluffier back then, it was my Santa phase. Here is a picture of me in Egypt. And as we were driving through the streets of Cairo heading the church where I was preaching, we got bogged down in traffic.

A street vendor came over to the car and spoke with our driver and then handing him something. As we drove away Nagi handing me three dates and told me the vendor thought I was a holy man and wanted me to break my fast that day with his dates. I’ve never had anyone at Cornerstone give me dates because I look like a Holy Man, but Lisa Slauenwhite makes me date squares sometimes.