Rector's Blog: Fasting is Remembering
I’m not good at fasting, and most of my life I haven’t bothered to understand the point of it. I have mostly used Lent as either an opportunity to lose weight, prove to annoying friends that I can give up Diet Coke for 40 days, or a chance to take on a practice that will essentially make me a better person.
I have tried to make it clear to you in my preaching and writing that I don’t believe God is interested in making you or me better people – so what exactly am I supposed to do with Lent – with a season of prayer, fasting, and repentance – if I’m not going to use it to try to be a better (or a thinner, or more organic, or less caffeinated) person?
What's fasting got to do with me?
And then our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry sent out his Lenten message. I won’t try to quote from it. I’m going to link to it below because I want you to hear it in full. But first let me say this: Bishop Curry’s leadership is changing my understanding of my own Episcopal identity. He’s helping to shape my relationship with Jesus. And he’s consistently challenging me to recognize the all-encompassing nature of the loving call Jesus has placed on my life, and yours.
In his Lenten message he talks about fasting, and how he will be fasting this Lent. And for the first time in my life I think I have a way to understand fasting. It’s not about self-improvement, or even about accomplishing something. It’s about giving my body to God because my body belongs to God. It’s a reminder of what’s necessary.
Fasting is remembering: Remembering how hungry you are for boundless love, remembering the ways you deprive yourself daily of experiencing God’s abundance. In fasting, your yearning is a physical prayer. Your body is telling your mind that something is missing – and it’s right. In this moment you are embodying the pang of knowing how far you feel from God’s kingdom come, God’s will being done on earth as it is in Heaven.
We’re a couple days into Lent, and I still can’t fully tell you what my Lenten fast will look like. But I will spend this Lent trying to live into fasting. I will spend this season seeking to allow my body to pray, really pray, for my soul and the soul of this country. With God’s help, I hope to recognize my body as a locus of Christ’s ever present Grace.
Presiding Bishop's Lenten Message
