Episode Details

With all of your strength…On this past Sunday, I said – to cut a long story short – that loving God with all of our strength requires an effort of the will, a conscious decision to do things that, much of the time, we might not feel like doing. And I also said that Lent gives us a wonderful opportunity to do that.But I also said in that sermon that we have to understand why we should do these things. There has to be a purpose to them otherwise we simply will not be very motivated. This is an observation made by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9: ‘Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable’.This leads then to a discussion of the purposes of spiritual disciplines and specifically those of the Lenten season.Approaching the Spiritual DisciplinesThe lectionary this evening helpfully gives us Christ’s teaching from the Sermon on the Mount on the so-called three pillars of Lent: Almsgiving, Prayer, and Fasting. He says, roughly speaking, the same things about each one.Take what he says about prayer as an example. Firstly, do not be like the hypocrites who make their prayer in public in order to be seen by others. Their reward is not spiritual but is whatever reaction they might produce in the people who observe their piety.So, whatever you do in Lent, try to keep it a secret. This goes double for more strenuous spiritual disciplines like fasting from physical food. About that, Christ tells us to anoint our heads and wash our faces, so that our fasting may not be seen by others. Sometimes it is not always possible to hide what we are doing, but we ought to try to keep us from the temptation to spiritual pride.Secondly, do what you do in secret. ‘Go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in heaven.’ This instruction goes with the first, but, in addition, shut out all temptations or distractions. This is particularly challenging in the modern age when we are rarely more than a foot away from a device that is connected to the internet, which is why we need to be even more intentional about switching our phones to silent and closing our laptops when we come to prayer. If you find this particularly difficult then Lent may be an excellent time to try fasting completely from social media.Thirdly, ‘your Father who sees in secret will reward you’. We do what we do in order that our heavenly Father may see and may reward us. Consider God’s compassion which is like a wonderful father for the children he loves. This is the way that God loves us and this is the confidence that we have as we approach him.The Benefits of the Three Pillars: FastingSo what is the reward of which Christ speaks?I will start with fasting. What is the point of it? To describe it first: Fasting is primarily about going without food or drink for a certain amount of time. It can involve other things such as giving up addictive certain types of food or drink, or giving up habits like scrolling through one’s social media feeds or watching TV. The practice varies significantly.More generally Lent is a period of abstinence during which we are more abstemious: some people refrain from alcohol and sweet foods, some from meat, some reduce the amount of food they eat and have smaller portions at mealtimes. Some people fast on particular days of the week, the traditional days being Wednesdays and Fridays. This might involve missing a meal or two or even fasting for the whole day.As I mentioned on Sunday, there are two obligatory fast days in the calendar of the Church of England: those are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. And, in general, Lent is a season in which we are encouraged to consider a more sustained type of fasting of some sort.So what is the point of it? Many things have been written on fasting throughout the years, so I will mention only a few.Fasting is a reminder that we are to hunger primarily for the bread that comes from heaven and not for that which comes from earth.