In my last post, I wrote of the way the Orthodox Tradition prepares for Lent (which is of course a preparation itself for Easter!) For five Sundays before Lent begins, there is a story from Scripture and a desire or virtue that fills out a full picture of repentance. As I reflected on those desires I wondered if there would be a spiritual practice that might help live out that particular desire. I want to help us follow the path from desired virtue to repentance by engaging in ways that make our Lenten practices “practical” and real. In the past I have found myself making great plans for Lent with all the things I will either abstain from or engage in! And to be honest, I peter out sometime the second or third week. Did you know why January 17th is a significant date? It is the day that most people give up their New Year’s resolutions and fall back into bad habits.
I might also say that I’m not trying to be comprehensive in my suggestions of practices that might help us on our journey. But hopefully it might spur us on!
I’ve written about this before, but I want to re-emphasize the reason I believe spiritual practice is a better term than disciplines as we seek maturity in Christ. In fact, I would say I prefer the idea of formation in Christ, or maturity instead of becoming Christlike. We don’t start with ways to build bigger muscles of Christlikeness (which can primarily be measured by changed behavior sometimes without a corresponding change in heart). Instead, we start with Paul in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ, and is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” The language that better fits our becoming in this sense is incarnational reality. We are in Christ, and we engage in spiritual practices in order to be more fully formed in Him. Of course, I understand that those on the spiritual disciplines wagon want the same thing we all do! We want to grow in Christ! So please, disagree with me if that’s your conviction!
Back to desires and repentance! As you read from the post earlier this week the first desire is the longing for God and for His righteousness. The story used here is that of Zacchaeus, which is found in Luke 19: 2-8. Please go there and read it. You might agree that this longing is a hunger than can only be filled as we center ourselves in Christ and let Him fill us. So, the more natural practice for this desire is fasting. And this is where we begin: in the desert with Christ. Satan’s first temptation to Jesus was to tell him he could turn stones into bread. And Jesus says to him:
It is written, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Matthew 4:4
Rocks and bread – how often are we tempted to settle for rocks when the bread of life is there for us? He was given for us that we would no longer hunger or thirst (Joh. 6:35). But I hate to be hungry. I have to say that hunger is my kryptonite.
There is great wisdom from Schmemann here:
“What then is fasting for us Christians? It is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself by which He liberates us from the total dependence on food, matter, and the world. By no means is our liberation a full one. Living still in the fallen world, in the world of the Old Adam, being part of it, we still depend on food. But just as our death–through which we still must pass–has become by virtue of Christ’s Death a passage into life, the food we eat and the life it sustains can be life in God and for God”
Schmemann on fasting
There are many things to fast from, but I think we would do well to begin with fasting from food, as we are able and led. Schmemann continues: “Ultimately to fast means only one thing: to be hungry–to go to the limit of that human condition which depends entirely on food and being hungry, to discover that this dependency is not the whole truth about man, that hunger itself is first of all a spiritual state and that it is in its last reality hunger for God” (ibid).
It is critical to understand that fasting or any other practice of abstaining we commit to is not a physical challenge alone. It must have its roots in a spiritual commitment – a commitment to surrender to God the things we most desperately hold on to.
In our times, there are many things to fast from, and probably many of us have already committed to reducing time on social media, gaming, screen time. The apostle John had no idea what we struggle with in our modern world. But in writing to churches dealing with heresy (the main heresy being the denial of the Incarnation of Christ), John writes this:
For everything in the world- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.
1 John 2:16
The Latin concept/word for lust here is concupiscence, which refers to an ardent powerful longing that is usually sensual in nature. John in this verse is warning the church of this concupiscence of the flesh but also the concupiscence of the eyes. When Gnosticism, which essentially is a denial of the body’s goodness, infects a people it usually results in all manner of sensual excess and transgression. We can quickly see the danger of this in the use of pornography but in this day, in our culture there is much that the eye is drawn to which falls in this category. Josef Pieper refers to this as visual noise. What the eyes are drawn to when given over to virtue and godly desire is the good and the beautiful. Gaze for a moment on the beauty in a child’s face, or the glory seen in a flower or mountain, and you see an eternal reality. But visual noise is an endless search for entertainment and utter meaninglessness. So much is out there that draws our attention away from the truth that there is barely any place to simply rest our eyes. I am so guilty of the mindless scrolling through Instagram or other social media. I am particularly fond of the “dear Abby” advice columns (did I just admit to that?!). Visual noise distracts, dulls, and kills the capacity for restraint and temperance.
Fasting has the power to restrain our fleshly urges. The picture for me here is how Josef Pieper describes temperance: “[it is] …the shore, the banks, from whose solidarity the stream receives the gift of straight unhindered course, of force, descent, and velocity” (The Four Cardinal Virtues).
Temperance is the shore, the banks, from whose solidarity the stream receives the gift of straight unhindered course, of force, descent and velocity.
“The Four Cardinal Virtues”
Temperance is the way to keep our hungers, our desires within the right boundaries! Fasting, whether food or other things, is one way of pressing into this beautiful virtue of temperance.
There is so much more I could say about fasting, but I’ll leave it here, and simply encourage you to read the great teachers out there who write about it from personal experiences.
To return to our desire – our hunger for God and His righteousness, fasting is a good spiritual practice to help us not only lean into that desire or that virtue but to be further trained in repentance.
The next post will cover the other desires and spiritual practices.
A word here though on fasting; as a practice we are probably going to struggle with this one in ways that differ from other practices. We need to prepare for failure. I have to end this post with this incredible wisdom from Schmemann –
…After all this said, one must still remember that however limited our fasting, if it is true fasting, it will lead to temptation, weakness, doubt and irritation. In other terms, it will be a real fight, and probably we shall fail many times. But the very discovery of Christian life as fight, and effort is the essential aspect of fasting. A faith which has not overcome doubts and temptation is seldom a real faith. No progress in Christian life is possible, alas, without the bitter experience of failures
Great Lent: 103-104
We must also remember that our only hope in overcoming our failures or challenges is in remembering who we are. We are in Christ! ONLY through His life in us can we hope to mature, to be formed in Him, to be made whole.
Friends, we need companions on the way – on this beautiful journey toward Easter. Let’s walk alongside each other as we press into repentance and spiritual practices. Ask a friend, share your decisions about the practices you choose. Commit to praying for another person, and when you fall off the path, be resolute and quick to return to the journey!