Reflection | 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 uh portion of the whole liturgical year. I'm deeply grateful for all of you who pray for me and for Patristic 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 Glen who sent me some fantastic Snake River Roasting Company. Coffee. One of the special perks, literal perks, 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. 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. church liturgical calendar was the Sunday of the publican and the Pharisee. It's uh the first official Sunday of the Triodian, 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 liturgical expression, our prayers and hymns. The first Sunday of the pre Lenten 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 Posca and the celebration of Jesus' 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 upright, he thought, and uh fasted constantly and tithed faithfully. 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 breath.

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 that is horrible and that

in fact is sinful. It 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 pedagogy. 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 liturgical calendar will not ring 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 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 Pharisees.

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. He 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. 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 d 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're still so focused on worldly things, you're driving your workers.

You're you're like businessmen who are who uh wanna take their the vacations but not their workers. Behold you fast for contention and strife and to strike wick 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.

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 did 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 Gods opinion of fafting. What God considers to be a true faft.

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 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 sin. Not to focus on other people's sins, not to focus on those who's cutting us 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 can 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, no, to be concerned during the fast about other people's freedom, to help those who are downtrodden. 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' great judgment discourse in Matthew twenty five? 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 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 were 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 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 inside. 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 fifty eight.

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 to 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 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 Lenten fast. Saint Gregory. John Chrysostom Category.