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As we enter Lent, we are invited to fast, give alms, and deepen prayer – but those are simply practices designed to help us reach the true goal: a true relationship with God and each other. I think there is a lot of confusion about fasting and almsgiving – because I know I got it wrong for a long time.

In Isaiah’s time, despite the people wishing and trying to please God with fasting, they were not. They complained God didn’t seem to answer their prayers. Isaiah was instructed to tell them their mistake. They were performing the acts of penance, but their hearts were still full of injustice and lacked conversion: driving their workers, leaving people naked and hungry, and striking one another. Jesus Himself tells us that there will be some who prophesy in His name and even drive out demons and performed miracles – but will still be rejected as having never known God. Why? Jesus gives us this parable:

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

⁹ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

¹⁴ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

At first, the Pharisee appears to be doing everything right – fasting, tithing on his earnings as prescribed, and trying to live an upright life. There is not wrong with all that in itself. But Jesus tells us that alone doesn’t justify us in God’s eyes. We see the Pharisee focused on how he is better than others around him – full of pride and silently judging them.

The modern version of this is if we walk around saying, “I’m basically a good person – I don’t kill people or rob banks or anything.” If this is our response, we better take heed that Jesus is speaking to us too.

So is fasting, tithing, almsgiving is worthless? No. Jesus is telling us that fasting and tithing without humility or while judging others is worthless. Fasting without repentance or conversion is worthless. Most of all, fasting and tithing without the purpose of connecting and reconciling your relationship with God is worthless.

Instead, we should fast and give alms for the conversion of our hearts and as an offering for others. We should fast and give alms with humility and the purpose of connecting ourselves with God spiritually. We should fast in ways to untie sin in our lives. We should stop behaviors that encourage others to sin. We should clothe the naked and feed the hungry at our door. We should help lose bonds of poverty, ignorance, fear, hunger, and illness to live justly with our fellow man.

Then our prayers will be heard and answered. But most of all, at the end of our lives we’ll find ourselves able to stand before the God we have loved and talked with daily and find ourselves justified – despite our sins – and hear the words,

²³ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Since you have been faithful in small matters, I will give you much greater responsibilities. Come and share your master’s joy.’

Matthew 25:23

Today is Ash Wednesday – the first day of the 40 days of Lent. This day is not officially a holy day of obligation, but it is still one of the most well attended masses of the year. The faithful gather together to start Lent with ashes on their forehead. Covering yourself in ashes and wearing sack cloth was a traditional symbol of repentance and humility long into ancient times. As the faithful are marked with the ashes, they are told to “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return”.

As someone that has had a major medical event in my life in my 40’s, and have no less than 2 other friends facing terminal illnesses before 50, I have become all too aware that our lives are sometimes much shorter than we expect. We better do something with the time we have – because what we do in this short window will echo for eternity.

So how does fasting (not eating) and abstinence (not eating meat) fit into that picture? Fasting itself was dramatically different in times past – to the point of eating only 1 meal a day and no meat for the entirety of the 40 days of Lent. In just the last 50-100 years, fasting has dramatically been reduced to only twice a year.

So which should we do? It’s important to know that the goal of fasting is not the fasting itself. Yes, fasting in itself is an offering we make to God. Jesus tells us some evils can only be combated through fasting and prayer. Jesus himself fasted for 40 days in the desert before his ministry began. God accepts those offerings, but the people in Isaiah’s time complained God wasn’t listening and they still suffered. He responds and makes it clear what the real purpose of fasting is:

3 Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
    and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
    will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

6 Is not this the fast that 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?
7 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?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator[a] shall go before you,
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

Isaiah 58 : 3-9

Fasting from food and abstinence are good practices and yield good fruits of self-control and connection to God (if we turn to God). But if we’re largely only doing them to lose a little weight, or end up pumping ourselves up with pride that we endured suffering by our own powers, then perhaps our motives aren’t as much an offering or opening ourselves to God. It turns to just serving our own interests and relying on ourselves.

Jesus also warns we are not to make a big production out of it when we are giving alms but to give in private to the point you should not let your left hand know what your right is doing. We are not to pray by heaping up words publicly for show so others think we’re holy, but in private with sincere, honest prayers. We’re not to look gloomy or try to gain sympathy when fasting. (Matthew 6)

So IN ADDITION to fasting from foods – perhaps we should consider some of the kinds of fasting God communicates through Isaiah:

• Go to confession and repair your relationship with God and invite Him into every dark corner of your life. Be the man in Luke 18:9-14 that recognizes his brokenness and simply asks for mercy.
• Cease any deception, ill treatment, or gossiping with or about coworkers, friends, or family.
• Repair a relationship. Reach out to a sibling, parent, relative, coworker, or acquaintance and try to re-connect if you’ve drifted apart, offer forgiveness if it is needed, ask for forgiveness if you hurt them.
• Repair wrongs of your past. Return borrowed/stolen things. Repay debts you owe.
• Fast from saying anything negative about another person for 40 days but pray for them when you feel the urge.
• Stop responding or engaging in internet arguments or political vitriol
• Give up some regular treat/expense (morning coffee, video game purchase) and give the money to charity/feed the poor
• Volunteer at a homeless shelter or food bank.
• Cut down your grocery bill 25% by eating more simply – and give the rest to the poor.
• Stop eating out and donate the money.
• Fast from the internet or social media for one day a week – or all of Lent – and use that time for more constructive pursuits.
• Giving up video games for some period of time and use the time for prayer or helping others
• Give up screens of any type one day a week (screenless Fridays) and use the time to connect with family and friends or pray.
• Stop hating people that believe differently from you politically. Instead pray for them and prayerfully ask what God would like you to say to them. Return love instead of hate.
• Drive more safely/stop speeding. Return a prayer/forgiveness to a driver instead of a curse when you get cut off.
• Reclaim Sundays from sports/activities to spend time together in prayer, meals together with family, friends, or to help the needy