Fasting Time

“If we want to add things like spiritual discipline to our lives or make the world a better place, we begin by giving things up.”

Ken Chitwood

Today, I’m outside, waiting on a train platform, teeth chattering and pinky toe slowly fading into feel-nothingness. I’m reading posters to pass the time because the Wi-Fi is down and I’ve got nothing better to do to try and stay warm.  

As I peruse the placards on the walls, I come across one that aims at the convergence between Christian tradition and climate change, spiritual discipline and environmental concern.  

In partnership with the German train network, the Protestant church in central Thuringia—the eastern German state where I live—introduced an Autofasten (car fasting) campaign for Lent. Basically discounted “fasting tickets” and promotions are intended to make it easier to try out local public transport and car sharing or switch to cycling. 

The advert got me thinking about how using public transit puts us into everyday, intimate contact with our neighbors in a unique (and sometimes awkward) way, creating a kind of community out of the random assortment of people that make up our city. But I also began to wonder whether something like fasting might help us heal the world.  

Adding on, giving up 

Throughout this past year, I’ve found spiritual disciplines to be less about “adding on” good practices and more about “giving up.”  

This not only applies to the disciplines in general—insofar as they serve as an invitation to humbly discover our limitations and expand our love and generous compassion toward others—but also the practice of fasting in particular.  

Beyond being a cold time of year as I considered fasting (see freezing my tail off on a train platform above), I have also been exploring the limits and promises of fasting in relation to Lent. Lent is, as Germans like to call it, the Fastenzeit—a 40-day season of preparation through fasting, prayer, and generosity culminating in the celebration of Easter weekend. 

For a long time, I encouraged people practicing Lent to add on good practices—things like charity and prayer, activism and advocacy—instead of simply giving up things like food, social media, or alcohol.  

What I did not know, and have only gradually learned, is that adding on good practices is immeasurably enriched when “giving up” is given its proper place.  

Askesis, or the practice of pickleball spirituality 

Known in Greek as askesis (ἄσκησις), the practice of giving things up is likened to training and exercise, often for the sake of growth in athletic ability. In the early years of Christianity, writers extended the concept to include martyrdom for the sake of the faith or strict self-discipline (like with monks who moved out into a cave in the desert to pursue spiritual enlightenment—askesis indeed!).  

I am actually pretty good at giving up when it comes to sports. Not that I often quit, but that I am stubbornly willing to forego comfort and pleasure in pursuing a long-term goal. Maybe you are too. Whether that’s running marathons or playing in your local pickleball league, many of us have learned the lesson that giving up certain things—time, foods that don’t fuel us, temporary comfort, scrolling socials on Saturday mornings— can lead to more ability to give and grow in the future.  

Though I’m pretty good at giving things up to make room for running, hiking, or biking in the mountains (my preferred activities), I’ve not traditionally been as good at giving things up for Lent. I’ve fasted here and there, sporadically swore off certain foods, indulgences or, ironically, swearing itself.  

Instead, I’ve often opted for adding things on during Lent. For the most part, that’s gone pretty well. But it’s also been pretty limited, sidestepping the opportunity offered in a limited season of disciplined asceticism.  

Passing on the pain 

That’s because if adding things on is the eventual goal, we first need to give things up. 

The central idea of fasting is to voluntarily deny an otherwise everyday action to gain a greater appreciation of our reliance on God and our capacity to give to others.   

Giving up food or drink, sex or social media, saying no to new clothes, or avoiding criticism of others is fine and good. But the biggest breakthrough comes when we give our agony and suffering over to God and, in response, “voluntarily take into ourselves the griefs and sorrows of others” to help set them free.  

Now, you might be thinking that giving up our pain to God is easy. That’s not asking for much. How hard can that be?  

Believe it or not, we often hold on to our pain and suffering because it’s familiar. Or, we do so to stay protected and safe with the sadness we know. Past trauma, a loss of trust, and the false security of holding things back from others can mean we carry the burdens of our brokenness rather than telling others about them—let alone handing them over.  

But fasting’s central invitation and challenge is recognizing our reliance on God.  

Being weakened by the sacrifice of a normal indulgence, whether edible or not, reinforces how much we rely on certain vices to get us through the day.  

With reflection and integration, we come to realize how much we need and, by extension, how much we rely on God for food, drink, clothing, house, home, money, good weather, family, friends, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, and so many other things. 

We also realize the need to pass our pain to a higher power, so that we do not pass that pain on to others in our everyday life.  

All one cake 

In one of my favorite sermons ever (can one have a “Top Ten Sermons” list?), the rebel monk and church reformer Martin Luther encourages us to give up the various difficulties, trials, and troubles we face.  

Called “All One Cake,”  Luther speaks directly to the benefits of Holy Communion, highlighting how we are invited to hand over our misfortunes and shortfalls, our weaknesses and wrongdoings. In return, we receive His benefits of grace and love, mercy and strength. In giving up, we “become one cake with the Lord Christ…What is mine becomes His. What is His, I also have.” 

Not only are we made one cake, becoming family and fellow heirs with God, but we “also become common and one with all other people upon earth and also all become one cake” with one another (1 Corinthians 10). What were once separate ingredients are transformed into a greater whole, available to others to enjoy.  

The central concept is that in giving up what we have—our muck and mess, our failures and feeble attempts at loving others—we receive immeasurably more from God. Strengthened in our weakness, we are then able to give ourselves more readily for the common good, to serve others, and to make use of what we do have and of which others are in need.  

Thus, we become each other’s food, Luther wrote, meant to be used by those in need of help and service like bread for the hungry.  

Giving up, adding on 

That brings us back to where this blog began. If we want to add things like spiritual discipline to our lives or make the world a better place, we begin by giving things up. 

If I’ve learned one thing in this year of discipline it is this: giving up the pursuit of internal piety or flexing my spiritual willpower makes room for better receiving compassion, grace, and love and then passing these on to others.  

Whatever it is we fast from—cars, complaining, or cookies—let us remember that healing the world cannot begin until we recognize the need to heal ourselves.  

That’s fasting’s message of grace, an open hand on even the coldest of days.