Fast
We're in the middle of Ramadan. Muslims fast for 30 days from sunrise to sunset during this month. During the fast, Muslims may not eat, drink, or smoke anything and they must refrain from sexual intercourse during daylight hours.Lots of my neighbors are fasting. Since the fast ends around the same time that many people are getting out of work, rush hour is especially crazy this month as thousands of people who have been fasting all day rush to make it home for dinner. There are always lots of accidents this month; we saw a bad one last night.
Muslims also wake up around 4:00 AM every night of Ramadan in order to eat something before sunrise. In fact, to ensure that people don't miss their chance to eat before the fast begins, men wander the neighborhood with loud drums to wake people up during this time. We've managed to sleep through the drumming most nights, but I have caught it a few times... it's loud. At the end of the month the drummer for our neighborhood will come to each door to collect money for the service he provides.
On Sunday I preached about fasting in Christianity. Since many of their neighbors are fasting now, the congregation was especially interested in the topic. Unfortunately, lots of Turkish Christians seem to associate fasting with Islam and have a hard time relating to it as an important part of Christian worship.
I took the theme of my message from Matthew 4:4, "Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." I described this as the purpose of fasting in Christianity. We fast to worship God, and through the fast God teaches us that we are ultimately dependent only on Him for true life. That's a lesson that's difficult to learn between fistfuls of food.
Inevitably, my Turkish friends want to know "When are Christians supposed to fast." It's hard for some of them to imagine that fasting is entirely voluntary and at the same time that Jesus expects us to fast. In Matthew 6:16 Jesus says, "When you fast..." He doesn't say "If you fast..."
We read Isaiah 58 together in church and talked about what God thinks about fasting:
3 'Why have we fasted,' they say,
'and you have not seen it?
...
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
...
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
This is very different from the fasting that they see around them; the kind of fasting that ends with angry drivers and fistfights on the street.
I ended by giving some very practical steps for beginning a God-honoring fast:
1. As in Islam, fasting begins with expressing our intention to God.
2. Then we choose a duration for our fast.
3. During the period of the fast we make an effort not to advertise our fast and to keep ourselves focused on God.
4. Throughout our fast we should remain in prayer and set a special time aside to pray.
5. Finally, as we prepare to break our fast we should thank God for the privilege of fasting and remember that fasting does not make God somehow indebted to us.
The congregation really came alive for this topic. Lots of people interrupted me to ask questions, which I was happy to answer. "How do we decide how long to fast? When should we fast? Are we allowed to drink during a fast? What does Jesus mean in Matthew 6 that the Pharisees have 'already received their reward?'"
Ultimately, we are learning together that "Man does not live by bread alone..."
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