Fast Forward

Isaiah 58:1-9a

Epiphany 5, February 8, 2026

Holy Trinity Cathedral

“Fast Forward”

In our modern world, fasting is known as something you have to do before a medical procedure.  After careful, and sometimes uncomfortable, preparation, there is a period of time when you are not to take any food or drink.  Often this goes from midnight of the day before until the required scoping or operation.  Although we don’t like it much, there are practical reasons for this abstinence.  The ancient purpose of fasting goes much deeper than the physical, however.

Many world faiths have set times in the calendar when believers are encouraged to practice fasting.  For Jews, the period before the Day of Atonement is marked by showing penitence through abstaining from food.  Moslems participate in the month of Ramadan.  The emphasis is on fasting and communal prayer, reflection, and study.  Every day from sunrise to sunset, the majority of healthy adults refrain from all food and drink, only breaking their fast with an communal meal after dark when the first star is seen in the sky.  And although it is not enforced with the strictness that it was in earlier times, our Christian faith has held up the season of Lent as a time to practice the physical and spiritual discipline of fasting.

Some of us grew up with remnants of this in our households.  Whether it was abstaining from meat on Fridays, not having anything to eat before Sunday communion services, observing Good Friday with a solemn fast, or simply giving up something for Lent.  Chocolate, cigarettes, alcohol, meat, or other favourite indulgences: a pause for the forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter was sold to us by parents and clergy as “building character”, as well as making us appreciate the feast of Easter so much more.  Every year my brother vowed to give up turnips for Lent.  Somehow, that sacrifice didn’t rate too high on my parents’ scale of devotional behaviour.  But the fasting associated with the Lenten season was never supposed to be holiness-inducing exercise.  Rather, the discipline and self-control are to be practised alongside charity, sacrifice, empathy, prayer, and the study of scripture. 

So why bother with the physical fast?  Our bodies, minds, and spirits work together to shape us as people on the Way.  Doing something tangible as choosing what to eat or not reinforces what we believe about God and our neighbour.  I am not talking about weight loss tactics or the struggle we often have with body image and healthy living.  But an informed and thoughtful period can do the following:

1. In fasting we show both sorrow and solidarity. We lament and identify with a broken humanity that has not found better ways to ensure that everyone has what they need.  If you witness hungry people coming to the Saturday community meal while your own stomach growls, you achieve more understanding of the connections among all of God’s creatures.
2. It is appropriate sometimes to grieve for and with loved ones. When we are going through a period of mourning after a death, it is difficult to sustain a hearty appetite. Sometimes tear soup is all we have to sustain us.  Still, there comes a time when life calls us to go on, and the taste of a remembered food brings consolation.
3. We are called to fast in penitence both as individuals and as a community for wrongs. The purple colour of Lent is a symbol of our need of confession and mercy.  We feel in our hungry bodies a longing for God’s fullness.
4. Sometimes we commit to fast and pray at times of crisis and great need. In giving up human comforts, we demonstrate that it is God alone who can give what our world needs to be reconciled and healed.
5. And there is the action of fasting in protest. Although Jesus counsels us not to flaunt our private prayer life before others, hunger strikes, when prayerfully supported, can be a powerful way to bring attention to inequities and injustice.

This is all to say that fasting is not merely an external observance to signal our holiness to others.  In fact, this is exactly what the prophet Isaiah denounces.  God is not impressed by people who are trying hard to look righteous by going through the motion of devotion.  It doesn’t matter how many meals you give up, how many goods you donate, how much time you spend petitioning the Lord.  Without the practice of charity and justice, they don’t add up to righteousness.  True fasting tunes us into listening to what God wants, so that we have the courage to go do it.  When we go without some of the “extras” in our own life, we realize what is really essential is not what I think I need for myself, but what God wills for all.  

Isaiah proclaims the word of the Lord: “Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Isaiah 58:6-7).  The emphasis here is on sharing, not divesting.  Righteousness is not a private enterprise.  It is not between God and you with no regard for anyone else.  No room in the kingdom for personal piety or a holier-than-thou attitude!  Fasting here goes far beyond food to a practice that helps bring in the harvest of the kingdom.  And in our souls and bodies, the light dawns.

Jesus describes the coming of God’s reign as a time of joy.  His disciples didn't fast while they were with him on earth: they rejoiced in His presence.  As we enter forward into the way of righteousness, we are stripped down to our essential identity.   What we truly are as children of God are bearers of salt and light for the world.  Salt can’t be unsalty unless it changes chemically and is not longer a molecule with sodium and chlorine.  Light cannot be eliminated: as a wave or a particle it’s going to find a way through everything.  And we, once we are baptized and signed with the sign of the cross, are marked as Christ’s own forever.  Nothing can unmake us. 

That, however, doesn’t mean that we don’t need to be periodically reminded of who we are at the core.  When we take on a spiritual discipline like fasting, it can help strip away some of the things that we thought were important, and refocus us to pay attention to those around us who are part of this human struggle along with us. 

To move fast forward, may we:

Fast from judging others ● Feast on seeing Christ within them.
Fast from emphasis on differences. ● Feast on the unity of life.
Fast from thoughts of illness ● Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute ● Feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent ● Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger ● Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism ● Feast on optimism.
Fast from complaining ● Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives ● Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures ● Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility ● Feast on non-resistance.
Fast from bitterness ● Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern ● Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety ● Feast on eternal truth.
Fast from discouragement ● Feast on hope.
Fast from lethargy ● Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion ● Feast on truth.
Fast from thoughts that weaken ● Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow ● Feast on the sunlight of sincerity.
Fast from idle gossip ● Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm ● Feast on prayer that undergirds.
Fast from instant gratification ● Feast on self-denial.
Fast from worry ● Feast on divine providence and trust in God.
Fast from sin ● Feast on the abundance of God’s mercy.

• From a litany by William Arthur Ward, 1921-1994