Sunday, March 8, 2020

Lent Two: rethink hunger and fasting

Our rector, Richard Morgan, spoke on fasting last Sunday. He talked about Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, about the ways we imagine we’re starving when dinner is a few minutes late, about a very different hunger that sets in after a lengthy fast.

My childhood faith tradition was dismissive of Lent and its practices. But in my years in a more liturgical church, I’ve come to welcome Lent and the encouragement to step back, to review, to let go of things that have taken too strong a hold on me.

Many years I give up sugar as completely as I can. I grew up in a family that saw sugar as nurture, love, comfort, and in a church community in which food seemed the one approved fellowship and entertainment. During spring, summer, fall I tend to eat carefully: fruits and vegetables, with lots of outdoor time weeding, pruning, birdwatching, kayaking. Around Thanksgiving, I become more sedentary, make lots of pies, slip back into old patterns. By the time Christmas ends I’m a sugar addict again. In Lent I go clean and start the year new.

What are the superficial hungers I, we, our churches, communities, nation fall prey to?
What are the deeper hungers we ignore at our peril?

Superficial hungers are easy: noise, excitement, digital devices, alcohol, sugar, whatever’s new or different, the need to be right. We all have our own list of things that quiet our inner fears and dull our anxieties at the end of the day.

Deeper hungers?

We have no word that comes even close. 

And the vision, in both Old and New Testaments, goes far beyond the personal. We are to hunger and work toward a restored creation where personal priorities, social patterns and political institutions are all brought into harmony with love for God and neighbor in a way that allows every single person to thrive and contribute. 

And then, the bigger, harder task: embrace the hunger that will never be fully satisfied, but that opens our eyes and hearts to the world's great need and daily draws us closer to the one who made and loves us all. 


I’m giving up sugar again this year, but rethinking that pattern: the goal isn’t to give something up then slip back. It’s to loosen its grip so we escape it completely. My prayer this year is that the patterns that feed that addiction will be shaken so fully I stay healthier all year long. Is that possible? We’ll see.

But I’m also rethinking the whole idea of hunger. As Richard suggested in his sermon, some hunger is a lie: it tricks us into thinking we need what we don’t need. It traps us into dependence on temporary fixes and superficial remedies.

The deeper hungers, like the hunger at the end of a forty day fast, alert us to what’s really needed. If there’s no food after a sustained fast, the body starts to shut down organs. Lasting harm begins. Death isn’t far behind.

There’s a clue in this passage from the beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6.

I’ve written several times about that idea of hungering for righteousness. That word is too easily confused with “rightness.” Many who think of themselves as righteous are in fact addicted to rightness - a very different thing. 

I grew up in a tradition that believe there was a “right” opinion on everything, from length of skirt to acceptable entertainment to forms of baptism to roles of women to the work of the Holy Spirit to the chronology of the end times to political platform.

"Rightness" (what I believed was righteousness, but in many ways was far from it) was a competitive activity, with a strong punitive edge.

Who would hunger and thirst after that? And what would it mean to be satisfied?

Righteousness, I now believe, is something far different. The Greek word used in Matthew, “dikaios,” is the same as the Hebrew word “tzedakah,” a word used throughout the Old Testament to describe the character of God and God’s restorative actions: justice, truth, compassion, kindness, making right, renewing, restoring, ensuring good things for those without, restraining the powerful, lifting up the weak, repairing ruined vineyards and fields, ensuring wise governance and an equitable economy.

But the challenge in this word goes further: righteousness describes the complex goodness of God but also invites us to become representatives of that goodness ourselves in a way that unites faith and practice, reaching from our own personal experience into a broken world around us.

The Concept of Tzedakah, Outer Banks Common Good
In the Jewish tradition, tzedakah is the standard of charitable giving, an expected part of every Jewish faith and practice. Giving that goes far beyond a simple gift: giving that renews, repairs, allows the other to thrive and learn to give as well. It carries a sense of both unity and integrity: action aligned with spoken word. 

In the gospels and New Testament epistles, we’re instructed to take that even further, to love our neighbors as ourselves in ways that are sacrificial, inexplicable, possible only through the power of God’s spirit. 

I am learning to hunger for that in myself, in those around me, in the larger community of Christ followers we call the Christian church. The more I hunger, the more I see how far from that we are.  

Here is a mystery worth pursuing: how do we grow past a superficial hunger to a craving for righteousness so deep it reshapes our spending, reframes our conversation, redirects our every ounce of energy?

In thinking about this, I realize the greater question is this: how do we allow the prayer for God's kingdom to become an essential part of who we are, all day, every day, in ways we never expected, in places we never chose.  

The Porters' Gate CDs my son gave me for Christmas have become my soundtrack this Lenten season. Today, this is the one I return to as I pray: Father, let your kingdom come. 



This is the second in a Lenten season. 

This content of this post is in part a rethinking of past posts on the topics of righteousness and fasting: 


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