Ash Wednesday: Why do we fast

Scripture: Matthew 9:14-17

¹⁴ At that time John’s disciples came and asked Jesus, “Why do we and the Pharisees frequently fast, but your disciples never fast?”

¹⁵ Jesus responded, “The wedding guests can’t mourn while the groom is still with them, can they? But the days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they’ll fast.

¹⁶ “No one sews a piece of new, unshrunk cloth on old clothes because the patch tears away the cloth and makes a worse tear. ¹⁷ No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If they did, the wineskins would burst, the wine would spill, and the wineskins would be ruined. Instead, people pour new wine into new wineskins so that both are kept safe.”

Reflection

How do Jesus’ parables in verses 16-17 relate to the question of fasting? This is a valid question, John’s disciples have been practicing a rigorous or at least routine discipline of fasting and they want to know why Jesus would omit this from his teachings. Does Jesus not think fasting is important, is he simply lax or worldly, why is it he does not require his disciples to take on a routine of fasting twice a week as they have done. Rather than providing John’s disciples with a straightforward answer, Jesus provides them a parable of sorts about a wedding party and two cryptic analogies about destroying preexisting items. The first of these responses, that the disciples are members of the wedding party and Jesus is the groom, is easily intelligible. Jesus is saying being in his presence is akin to celebrating at a wedding, there is no room to think about the sorrow, suffering, and scarcity present in the world. It is a reminder that where Jesus is the world is remade and all of the reasons for fasting have ceased. It would be inappropriate for the disciples to fast around him because the world he is creating has no need for fasting.

But Jesus follows that up by saying that the time will come when fasting becomes proper and even important again, because he is no longer with the disciples. This is the age we find ourselves in, the time Jesus said we would fast. With this in mind, we need to evaluate the second half of Jesus’ statement and ask how it fits into this comment about fasting. First, we need to remember that Jesus is responding to a question about regular fasting, fasting that is routine and part of the cycle of one’s spiritual life. This makes Jesus’ response the perfect jumping off point for Lent because this is a regular season in our spiritual journey set aside for fasting. We approach these forty days desiring to use this ancient practice of sacrifice to help draw us closer to Jesus and his will.

Jesus says his disciples will fast but then discusses patching clothes and wine skins and the relationship between these illustrations and fasting is not overtly clear. The two illustrating parables unite to paint picture of what Jesus expects will happen if his interpretation of God’s reign is simply scabbed on the existing religious structure.  Jesus is proclaiming a radically new teaching, as we have repeatedly seen, and this new teaching must be formed into a new container.  Thus, rather than trying to teach within the Pharisee’s (or John’s) system of discipline, Jesus is in the process of creating his own.  Jesus’ new power cannot be contained in the old customs, just like fermenting wine, will rupture old, dry skins, or a patch will tear old clothe when it shrinks.  We often think of old customs cracking, but the key is not age but condition.  The wine skins are dry, the cloth is shrunk, if our customs are properly understood and used, they can be like conditioned leather, eternally supple.  Fasting simply out of habit is like feasting from habit, old and tired; fasting and feasting out of the power of God is fresh and new.  Using a 2,000-year-old liturgy of the Church can be fresh and new if understood rightly, and a praise song written yesterday can be tired if do in dead routine.  Jesus is commenting that a fast done because it is tradition and no other reason will not stand up to his power; but a fast done to capture the power of God, even if it is traditional and customary, will lead one to God. 

Lent, like any other routine or spiritual discipline, is useless in and of itself, without thought it easily becomes dry and cracked. This reality leads many to go through the motions of Lent, or to simply give up the practice entirely. But what Jesus wants for us is for us to rediscover the disciplines of Lent: fasting, prayer, Bible study, generosity, service, guidance, worship, etc. as the proper vessels for containing the fresh movement of the Holy Spirit. We do not practice these out of a sense of obligation, or desiring to complete a goal, but as a way of engaging with God’s presence. So as we begin this Lenten season we each must consider how our added devotions during this time will allow God to touch our hearts in new ways so we can discover the new wine the Holy Spirit has for us.