Seeds for 06/13/2023 - Matthew 6:16-18
Scripture: 16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Observation: After a detour into how to pray and the importance of forgiveness, Jesus returns to illustrating and applying His “audience and reward” principle.
As with giving and prayer, Jesus assumes fasting will be a part of His disciples’ practices of devotion. Fasting may be practiced weekly, monthly, and/or during particular times during the year, such as the Christian season of Lent. This is instructive. Many modern Christians, especially in the West, overlook fasting as a spiritual discipline. Suffice it to say, Jesus did not.
Jesus refers to giving and prayer as activities that would be practiced in public. While they might be done publicly today too, we are quite able to practice these quietly—mailing in our offering or giving online, praying in our homes or otherwise privately. Fasting is a discipline that would almost certainly include a public dimension. We don’t need to clear our schedule simply because we are fasting on a particular day. So, if we are particularly attuned to our hunger while fasting, we are in public for that experience, whether at work, at a community organization’s lunch meeting, or some other setting. We’ve got opportunities to say something about it or even to complain. We can draw attention to ourselves somehow.
This dynamic—going on with our day’s activities while fasting—means that practicing this discipline provides us an opportunity to practice Jesus’ “audience and reward” teaching in ways that giving and praying do not today. The ordinary spiritual reasons for fasting apply, of course: solidarity with and compassion for the underfed and under-nourished of the world, learning spiritual hunger from physical hunger, setting aside meal times for focused prayer, and the like. Add to those the cultivation of humility. We can fast for all of the reasons above, but do so with a countenance that is haggard or happy. It’s our choice.
Fasting is the final practice Jesus highlights for cultivating humility with the discipline of practicing our devotion for an audience of One, His heavenly Father. As it happens, two thousand years later it might be the practice most conducive to our growth in this virtue today.
Application:
Do you have a meal you could skip in the next several days where you could set aside that time for prayer or scripture reading in order to practice fasting?
How can you prepare mentally to practice hiddenness in fasting?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, teach me how to fast, and teach me the humility of hiddenness through fasting. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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