Fasting: A Christian Perspective
Rev. Patricia Moore
There are probably as many understandings of fasting as there are Christian denominations. Some traditions have long-established practices, some do not. The biblical narratives are commonly held but not always interpreted in the same way. I offer here one perspective in hopes that it will be helpful.
Fasting—the practice of refraining from eating food and drinking water for specified times—is a trusted spiritual practice in Judaism and Christianity and is deeply rooted in history. Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness (Mt 4.2) echoed Moses’ fast (Exodus 34.28) and Elijah’s fast (1 Kings 19:7-8). The Jewish community joined Esther in her fast before she went to the king on their behalf (Esther 4:16), and in the Book of Jonah, the entire community of Ninevah fasted when admonished by his preaching of God’s judgment (Jonah 3:5-10). In the Book of Acts Paul fasted after being knocked off the horse (Acts 9:9), and the church communities in Antioch and Galatia held fasts (Acts 13:1-3, 14:23), and, there are also Jesus’ admonitions about fasting in the Sermon on the Mount (MT 6:16-18).
In Scripture women, men, old and young, rich and poor, powerful and oppressed, people of all kinds--even animals--fast. This variety of fast-ers is matched by a similar variety of occasions for fasting: There are fasts of grief and repentance, fasts of preparation, fasts of remembrance, of humility, fasts when faced with calamity, war, or other threat, and fasts of solidarity. Most often fasts are deeply entwined with prayer. None of these fasts however match the aims of fasting in American culture in our day—where it is all about physical health and weight loss. These aims are completely foreign to the biblical narrative.
While there is in some of these cases an understanding of fasting as an effort to provoke God to action, fasting in most cases seems to be an embodied response to what we might call life’s sacred moments—times when humans encounter the divine or their longing for God. Perhaps this lies behind the regular fasting routines of some traditions. In the early church Jewish Christians, following Jewish practices, fasted twice a week, and eventually the custom grew to include fasting during the season of Lent (mimicking the 40 day fasts of Scripture). Remnants of these traditions continue today in liturgical Christian communities—although fasting from food now seems so often to be replaced by “giving up” certain foods, drink, habits, or technologies for the season.
In the myriad varieties of Christian practice and traditions there are examples of fasting being viewed as a “weapon of spiritual warfare” used as a special deterrent against evil. Other strains of practice understand fasting as a physical discipline preparing the body for an arduous life following Christ. Fasting during certain periods of Christian history was taken to extremes of penitential self-persecution. The practice of fasting has endured across this lengthy history despite its sometimes harmful manifestations.
The spiritual benefits of fasting remain widely acknowledged and appreciated— even if not so often practiced in our contemporary setting. To fast is to remind yourself that you are a person with a body. We are embodied beings. We hunger and thirst—not only for food and water, but for God. When we think of fasting as a response to those moments of holy encounter or insight or conviction—we can see how it is a statement both of the limits and the longings of human life. When we choose to refrain from eating or drinking for a period of time we experience hunger pains and are put in touch with our emptiness—and with our need for more than food and water. We might enter that emptiness that Thomas Merton describes as the place of encounter with the divine. If we couple fasting with prayer, our hunger pains can serve as a call to prayer.
How might a fast help me to pray for my unhoused neighbors?
. . . for justice and mercy for those seeking asylum?
. . . for my friend who is undergoing cancer treatment?
Fasting in grief is often a natural response to overwhelming loss. Some have found that in certain times of grief we simply have no hunger. We are numb. A fast then might be an expression of our grief or of our commitment to stand with a grieving friend or community. We might be standing with God in divine grief over the tragic losses of our lives. Such a fast might well be connected to a fast for repentance, for our complicity in the web of oppression of others or of degradation of the earth: our sadness is embodied in our fasting. Our bodies express what our souls long for— restoration, turning to God. And perhaps we are acting out what God also longs for. Fasting to stand with God in longing for new life.
Fasts can be individual or corporate—and there is an important kind of prophetic witness in corporate fasting. The choice to go without—to accompany, to stand alongside those who are hungry and thirsty, who are hurting—can be a powerful statement of solidarity. It can also be an occasion for strengthening community bonds both within and across boundaries. For those who rarely experience hunger it is a reminder of their own limits and needs—their own longings and capacity for emptiness. Prophetic fasting seems especially fruitful when accompanied by acts of justice and mercy flowing from the prayer and fasting.
Jesus fasts and he speaks about fasting. He assumes that his disciples would fast. When asked he says that while he is with them, they will not fast, but once he has died they will. (MT 6:16-18; MK 2:18-22). While he is with them, they feast: a foretaste of the banquet. In his absence they will fast, longing for his presence. He also speaks about the dangers of fasting for show. Fasting is not about making others think you are pious. It’s about your interior life, your relationship with God, and your solidarity with others. This echoes words of Isaiah and Zechariah against fasting for external show (Isaiah 58:1-8, Zechariah 7:1-14).
Fasting from food and water is not for everyone—and there is discussion of that fact elsewhere on this webpage. Health reasons may well preclude your fasting according to the biblical model. But abstention from other things, habits or ways of living can have powerful effects, too. These kinds of abstentions--perhaps from my phone, from driving everywhere, from gossip, distraction, or judgment—can move me to see with greater clarity and free me from dependencies that clutter my interior and relational life. They can interrupt “business-as-usual” and create more room for me to encounter God, opening me to new life.
In our ordinary lives we are so often numbed to the truth of what is going on around us, to who we are and to who God is. In our culture many of us are over-stuffed, while others go hungry; many are over-housed while others live in tents. We live in ways that continue to damage the earth and her creatures, forgetting that we are a part of creation. The spiritual practice of fasting has a long tradition, and offers us ways to embody our faith, the truth of who we are and how we live, and our trust in the One who is always coming toward us offering new life. Fasting offers us concrete ways to come together in truth, humility, and longing for that life.
A few resources on fasting from a Christian perspective:
McKnight, Scot. Fasting, (2009), Thomas Nelson.
Ryan, Thomas. The Sacred Art of Fasting: Preparing to Practice (2005) Skylight Paths Publishing.
Ronnevik, Gretchen. Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted, (2021), New Reformation Publications
Foster, Richard J., Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, Rev Edition (2018), Harper Collins.
Willard, Dallas. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, (1988), Harper Collins.
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