Matthew 6:5-6, don’t be like the hypocrites, they pray like this, they make sure that they are seen and visible in public, when they do their prayers. There’s a cultural gap and context thing going on here, so Judaism, Hebrew scriptures developed a tradition of fixed hour prayer, so if you live in Jerusalem, if you’re out on the street and all of a sudden it’s three in the afternoon, which is afternoon prayer, it’s normal that people just stop where they’re at and say their prayers or step to the side. The point is, in Jesus’ mind, he uses provocative extreme contrasts, where he says go to the opposite of a public place, like the back room of your house, that has no windows and even then shut the door. The point is, there’s ethical and spiritual wisdom here, we all need to be careful and prayer is addressed to God. Prayer is about sustaining a personal connection to God and so the fact that slowly I could distort that and start to use my conversations with God, as a way to gain honor before other people. Repetition, the Greeks and Romans, that they use in their prayers, when you’re praying, don’t use meaningless repetition, they think they’ll be heard because of their many words.
Fasting is a practice at a base level, is when a person chooses to go without food or drink for a period of time, because something serious and sacred is going down. Fasting was a normal way that Jews in Jesus’ day expressed their devotion to God, it’s choosing not to eat and drink for lots of reasons, with lots of symbolism attached to it, but your doing it before God. The whole point is that God’s the audience, like prayer and like generous giving, fasting is a whole body means of prayer, it’s engaging your whole body in an act of prayer, it’s embodied prayer. Fasting, it’s a whole body response to a serious and sacred moment in a person’ life or community. When someone realizes that God is revealing his purpose through a set of circumstances, the normal response in the Bible is for people to stop eating for a period of time.
The Day of Atonement you don’t eat, because it’s the day where Israel’s sins are being brought before God. Instrumental view of fasting, I stop eating in an attempt to show God that I’m serious and I hope my fasting will compel him to listen to my request and do something about it. In the Bible, fasting is a response to something that God’s people discern God is doing in our midst and it’s so serious and it’s so sacred, fasting is a choice not to eat for a designated period of time, because the moment so sacred, so serious, that satisfying one’s most basic physical appetite would detract from its seriousness and profane its holy character. It’s a way of focusing attention on a serious moment or event, in avoiding the indulgence of food makes us remember our fragility and dependence upon God. Eating is the most basic thing we do to satisfy our appetites, to keep ourselves alive and also then to indulge and enjoy.
Fasting and feasting, feasting is about celebrating the blessing of God’s abundance, fasting is about intentionally holding myself back from abundance to mark the grave or serious nature of this moment, which sometimes is genuine sadness, other times it’s just serious. These images, anointing your head with oil, essentially do your hair and wash your face, don’t look like your fasting, but we need to imagine a culture where this kind of thing really needs to be said, actually any culture of any time has their own versions of this. We can so the right thing for the wrong reason and ruin everything, it’s the fly in the ointment, anything that you do that is truly good and worthy, that’s trying to help other people point towards life and towards Jesus, can itself be full of promise and have pitfalls attached, but be very careful that your motives don’t unconsciously over time and maybe consciously begin to shift that you do or say certain things because of people will regard you and think about you in a certain way, that’s wisdom.
For Jesus the true reward is about being in those unvisible private moments, where right relationships with other people and right relationship God, but even more than that, the secret hidden place with God, there’s a picture of intimacy, but be careful, don’t lose that, that is the ultimate goal, because all of it will fade. Religious practices, the whole point is to form you into the kind of person who can receive the love and intimate presence of God in as pure a form as a human can experience, that’s what these practices are aimed at. Generosity opens us up to see God’s, in the image of God and being generous to or prayer and fasting and if I subtly redirect those to actually be aimed at the audience of other people, it’s just the biggest adventure in missing the point, but the thing that you miss out on, is the thing that we’re made for. When religious leaders fail, especially very publicly, it seems extra tragic, because the thing that probably they desired at the beginning and maybe even throughout to do was to point other people to true life and you can end up losing the thing that you were aiming at, but important and Jesus clearly wants us to keep that as part of our focus, even as we are generous and pray and fast and point people to find God in the scriptures.
Fasting is a practice at a base level, is when a person chooses to go without food or drink for a period of time, because something serious and sacred is going down. Fasting was a normal way that Jews in Jesus’ day expressed their devotion to God, it’s choosing not to eat and drink for lots of reasons, with lots of symbolism attached to it, but your doing it before God. The whole point is that God’s the audience, like prayer and like generous giving, fasting is a whole body means of prayer, it’s engaging your whole body in an act of prayer, it’s embodied prayer. Fasting, it’s a whole body response to a serious and sacred moment in a person’ life or community. When someone realizes that God is revealing his purpose through a set of circumstances, the normal response in the Bible is for people to stop eating for a period of time.
The Day of Atonement you don’t eat, because it’s the day where Israel’s sins are being brought before God. Instrumental view of fasting, I stop eating in an attempt to show God that I’m serious and I hope my fasting will compel him to listen to my request and do something about it. In the Bible, fasting is a response to something that God’s people discern God is doing in our midst and it’s so serious and it’s so sacred, fasting is a choice not to eat for a designated period of time, because the moment so sacred, so serious, that satisfying one’s most basic physical appetite would detract from its seriousness and profane its holy character. It’s a way of focusing attention on a serious moment or event, in avoiding the indulgence of food makes us remember our fragility and dependence upon God. Eating is the most basic thing we do to satisfy our appetites, to keep ourselves alive and also then to indulge and enjoy.
Fasting and feasting, feasting is about celebrating the blessing of God’s abundance, fasting is about intentionally holding myself back from abundance to mark the grave or serious nature of this moment, which sometimes is genuine sadness, other times it’s just serious. These images, anointing your head with oil, essentially do your hair and wash your face, don’t look like your fasting, but we need to imagine a culture where this kind of thing really needs to be said, actually any culture of any time has their own versions of this. We can so the right thing for the wrong reason and ruin everything, it’s the fly in the ointment, anything that you do that is truly good and worthy, that’s trying to help other people point towards life and towards Jesus, can itself be full of promise and have pitfalls attached, but be very careful that your motives don’t unconsciously over time and maybe consciously begin to shift that you do or say certain things because of people will regard you and think about you in a certain way, that’s wisdom.
For Jesus the true reward is about being in those unvisible private moments, where right relationships with other people and right relationship God, but even more than that, the secret hidden place with God, there’s a picture of intimacy, but be careful, don’t lose that, that is the ultimate goal, because all of it will fade. Religious practices, the whole point is to form you into the kind of person who can receive the love and intimate presence of God in as pure a form as a human can experience, that’s what these practices are aimed at. Generosity opens us up to see God’s, in the image of God and being generous to or prayer and fasting and if I subtly redirect those to actually be aimed at the audience of other people, it’s just the biggest adventure in missing the point, but the thing that you miss out on, is the thing that we’re made for. When religious leaders fail, especially very publicly, it seems extra tragic, because the thing that probably they desired at the beginning and maybe even throughout to do was to point other people to true life and you can end up losing the thing that you were aiming at, but important and Jesus clearly wants us to keep that as part of our focus, even as we are generous and pray and fast and point people to find God in the scriptures.
