Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Lent, 2021

“The Wilderness and the Cross: An Invitation to Fasting”

The First Sunday of Lent, 2021

Rev. Dcn. Kyle Hughes

Whenever I teach my high schoolers about the early church and the church fathers, there is always one figure who manages to stick in my students’ minds: St. Simeon the Stylite. If you’re not familiar with Simeon the Stylite, he was one of the most famous of the early desert fathers in the early fifth century, for he ended up living for 37 years on top of a small platform on a pillar in the Syrian desert. For Simeon, this was in fact just one of his many notable--or perhaps we might say extreme--feats of asceticism. One Lent, for instance, he went the entire season without eating or drinking anything at all. Later in his life, his extreme fasting was combined with standing on his pillar, without support, for the entirety of his fast. Supposedly, when he did need to eat, pulleys brought food up to him in buckets--which, I imagine, must also have been used to bring waste back down. Simeon, not surprisingly, died as he had lived--on top of his pillar--though the phenomenon of stylites would continue for generations after his death.

When we talk about asceticism--that is, the practices of giving up material comforts and pleasures in order to stretch, train, and discipline our souls--my mind immediately goes to saints like Simeon the Stylite and I think that surely things like fasting cannot be for me. Our collect for this first Sunday in Lent, though, reminds us that asceticism is something that is for all Christians, even--and perhaps especially--for those of us who will not spend our lives standing on top of pillars in the desert. The collect focuses on perhaps the most well-known ascetical practice, that of fasting. Crucially, the collect tells us that fasting isn’t something that we practice for its own sake; rather, fasting is a means by which our flesh might be subdued to the Spirit and that we might grow in obedience, righteousness, and holiness. This morning, we will look at how this morning’s propers, first the Gospel and then the epistle, help us better understand the spiritual significance of fasting as we, as a church, commit to engaging with this practice during this season of Lent.

Starting with the Gospel account of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, we see that, when it comes to fasting, Jesus is both our example and our empowerer. Our example, and our empowerer. As in so many other things, our Lord leads us by example. Before beginning his public ministry, Jesus withdrew into the wilderness where he fasted and prayed for 40 days. It was only after this intense period of testing and preparation that he then inaugurated his preaching career. This would, in fact, be a characteristic pattern of Jesus’ life and ministry; time and again in the Gospels we find him leaving his disciples to go up onto a mountaintop to pray to his Father. If this active-contemplative balance was necessary to fuel and sustain Jesus’ own life, I strongly suspect it is not an optional element of our own spiritual lives. Jesus’ own habits of fasting and prayer, then, serve as a model for us. 

Note, however, that the collect seems to imply something beyond Jesus merely being an example for us when it says that Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights “for our sake.” What might this mean? Here we have to look more closely at the Gospel account of Jesus’ wilderness wandering: in this crucial moment in his life’s journey, as he intentionally sought after his Father with prayer and fasting on the cusp of his public ministry, Jesus experienced temptation from the devil. But whereas we will all stumble and fall in the face of temptations at various points in our lives, Jesus models perfect obedience to his Father and succeeds where we fail. And, in so doing, Jesus’ faithfulness accrues to our benefit. As we learn in Hebrews 2:17-18, Jesus “had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.” If we struggled against the devil alone, we would surely lose, but because of what Christ has done, because we have been given grace as God’s adopted sons, we too can triumph over the devil. Thanks be to God: Jesus does not merely give us an example of how to fight against temptation, but he gives us the power that we need to win the victory over the flesh, the world, and the devil. Indeed, as we fast this season of Lent, praying that we would be increasingly conformed into Christ’s likeness, we can count on there being opposition from the devil, who does not want us to grow and strengthen our spiritual muscles. With Christ’s own example and power, though, we can increasingly turn from vice and towards virtue, both in this Lenten season and beyond.

Why, though, is the specific practice of fasting commended, by both Scripture and the Prayer Book, as such an important spiritual practice? What could possibly be the connection between abstaining from certain things, be it food, drink, or technology, for a given period of time, and our growth in obedience, righteousness, and holiness? This morning’s epistle reading, from Second Corinthians chapter 6, gives us one such connection. In this passage, St. Paul reminds the Corinthians about the nature of his ministry as an apostle. Paul has not been a celebrity pastor, jetting into Corinth on his Gulfstream and showing off his new preacher sneakers and expensive hipster jeans. Rather, Paul argues that his ministry has been approved precisely by those things that the world would count as strikes against him: “afflictions, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, tumults,” and so on. And yet, Paul tells the Corinthians, he is able to live “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing nothing.” In other words, as Paul writes in Philippians 4:11-13, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

What Paul is saying, in both Second Corinthians 6 and Philippians 4, is that he has learned to find his approval and contentment not in the things of this world and in his physical circumstances but rather in God alone. But how did Paul learn this “secret”? Undoubtedly, he learned this in part through the “fastings” he references in our epistle reading, among the other ascetical practices he speaks of when in First Corinthians 9:27 he refers to how he disciplines his body and keeps it under control. You see, Paul, like the church fathers of the subsequent centuries, had a keen understanding of how intentionally chosen suffering, through practices such as fasting, can prepare us for those hardships that will inevitably be thrown at us that we do not choose. Rod Dreher, in his book The Benedict Option, sets out this connection in more detail: “A Christian who practices asceticism trains himself to say no to his desires and yes to God. That mentality has all but disappeared from the West in modern times. We have become a people oriented around comfort. We expect our religion to be comfortable. Suffering doesn’t make sense to us. And without fasting and other ascetic disciplines we lost the ability to tell ourselves no to things our hearts desire.” As Dreher goes on to explain, the Christians who will be able to withstand potential coming persecution--when faith in Christ may mean the loss of a friendship, social standing, employment, or more--are those who have taken the time to practice, by their own volition, suffering for the sake of Christ.

It was in this way, I suspect, that by having trained himself in practices of self-denial Paul was able to persevere and find joy even amidst the grave trials and tribulations of his apostolic ministry. The same dynamic, I believe, was at work in the life of Christ himself. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus endured the cross and its shame “for the joy that was set before him.” In this Lenten season, we journey with Jesus from the wilderness to the cross. These two bookends to Jesus’ story as we trace it through the season of Lent, the wilderness and the cross, are in fact closely connected. Matthew explicitly links Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness with Jesus’ final temptation in the garden of Gethsemane; the same Greek word, peirasmos, for “trial” or “temptation,” appears in both scenes. What if it was precisely Jesus’ wilderness wandering, where he learned to deny the cravings of his human flesh and to submit in perfect obedience to the will of the Father, that prepared him for his ultimate act of self-denial and suffering by which he accepted the Father’s will and went to the cross? What if, in the same way, our own wilderness wandering during this season of Lent strengthens us to take up our own crosses and grow in obedience, righteousness, and holiness? 

This, then, is the invitation for each of us this Lenten season: to follow Jesus’ example and to be strengthened by his grace as we go into the wilderness, to practice denying ourselves some of our earthly comforts and to strengthen our spiritual muscles so that we would be the kinds of people who can follow him, not just into the wilderness but on the way of the cross. It is in this sense, then, that we can understand the famous words of Saint John Chrysostom: “Fasting is wonderful, because it tramples our sins like a dirty weed, while it cultivates and raises truth like a flower.” How, then, are you planning to go about engaging with the discipline of fasting this Lent? Father Tony has invited us to choose some food to abstain from throughout Lent, noting that “meats and sweets” is one traditional fast. Likewise, given the particular challenges of our modern times, Father Tony has encouraged us to engage in a technology fast by disconnecting from technology on Sundays. 

Two final things to note as we bring this homily to a close. First, even though Lent has started, if you haven’t already decided on a plan for engaging in the discipline of fasting this Lent, it’s not too late! Don’t hesitate to reach out to one of the members of the clergy team if you have any questions or concerns, and if you haven’t already done so, be sure to watch Father Tony’s excellent catechesis video on the Lenten spiritual disciplines, which was posted last week on the CTK website and YouTube page. Second, remember the words of St. Benedict, whose Rule has been so instrumental in the development of our Anglican approach to spirituality: our approach to spiritual disciplines should be one that includes “nothing harsh, nothing burdensome.” That is to say, we need not literally move to the desert and, like Simeon the Stylite, spend the remainder of our days on top of a pillar, eating and drinking nothing at all for the entirety of Lent, in order to gain some of the spiritual benefits of fasting and asceticism. One approach that I’ve found useful is the following: however you observed Lent last year, try and push yourself a little bit further this year. Over time, you will find these ascetical practices to come a bit more naturally as you strengthen these spiritual muscles more and more. May God indeed “give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey his godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to his honor and glory.” Amen.