THE REAL FAST

Sermon delivered at the service of Holy Communion on Ash Wednesday the 6th February 2008 by Fr Nicholas J G Sykes at St. Alban's Church, 461 Shedden Road, George Town, Cayman Islands

Scriptures: Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17     2 Corinthians 5:20b - 6:10     Matt 6:1-6, 16-21

Joel 2: 12f "Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil."

The prophet Joel uses the characteristically Hebraic way of making comparisons when he says in the context of heartfelt repentance, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." He was not really directing his repentant listeners NOT to tear their clothes. Indeed, that was the recognised way for thousands of years of expressing grief. What he was saying, in effect, was "Be real about it." If you are putting on a show by tearing your garments and there is no prayer or repentance of the heart, don’t do it! The Lord is not going to see it. There might be men and women who will measure the extent of your goodness by the cost of the clothing you have ruined, but the Lord is not like that. He knows what is in man’s heart. The "heart" in the Bible is the seat of man’s thinking powers, rather than merely his emotions. So if a man tears his heart, he is introducing a discontinuity to his thinking. He stops thinking in one way and starts thinking in another.

In Joel, the context of the prophet’s cry to his people is the prospect of some terrible catastrophe. Many commentators consider it must be a swarm of locusts, but it is recognised that Joel’s language goes far beyond that at a number of places, even admitting that a plague of locusts is indeed a catastrophic occurrence. When the Church puts forward its Lenten expectation of almsgiving, fasting and prayer the Church also is primarily interested in the state of our hearts, in other words, what our innermost intentions are. It is recognised that in St. Paul’s words, "If I give away all that I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Yet we do consider that a man can do something, out of love, in the way of prayer, self-denial or charitable work to propel his heart along a Spirit-directed course. We also have a catastrophe in mind, the catastrophe of an adverse judgment by God upon our lives, particularly when the books are opened at life’s end. Of course, we might have some less ultimate catastrophe in mind as well. We actually did consider such a thing on Ash Wednesday 2004, the year of Hurricane Ivan. We wondered then if our materialistic Cayman Islands society would face a catastrophe as result of years of alienation by some parents of some of their children, or by governments alienating some of the people they purport to rule. It would be a judgment upon any of us who could have done something about it, but did not. And let us ask now if there is not some aspect of the common life of the community to which we are called to stretch out a Christian hand of assistance or guidance. So we are to look into our hearts, our wills and our intentions, with a view to reforming them, or in an old expression, sanctifying them, in view of whatever catastrophe, ultimate (certainly) or even proximate, we face now. The Lord Jesus does not say in the Gospel, Don’t give alms, don’t pray, or don’t fast. He says, when you do these things, don’t do them for the reward of man’s approval. Do them for the spiritual purpose of strengthening your discipleship of the Christ, the Son of God, and the Christ for others. We need to recognise that the strengthening of discipleship does not come automatically, without our intention. We have to intend to walk the way of Christ. We have to intend to put down those inordinate loves of earth’s goods, and shove our hearts’ assessment of "treasure" back into heaven where it belongs. The Lenten practices are available for us to put teeth, as it were, into such intentions.

In the second lesson today St Paul shows us a portrait of his life, a life which we can interpret as integrating all the Lenten disciplines before any of the Christian seasons like Lent were distinguished in the Church’s life. We see "afflictions, hardships, calamities", general difficulties of a physical or spiritual sort. We see "beatings, imprisonments, tumults", deprivations caused by other people, and we see "labours, sleepless watchings, and starvation", his undertakings in order to further the gospel among men. He fasted, he prayed, he made himself poor to make others rich. I see in St. Paul’s life the great sign of Christ’s cross. For Christ Jesus Himself, more than His Apostle, whose words these were, was treated as an imposter, yet was true: as a nobody, yet was well known: as dying, and behold, He lived; as condemned, yet unconquered by death; as the Man of sorrows, yet eternally rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. It was the One who was made sin who knew no sin, who could make exodus into the Resurrection life that was first poured down upon the apostles. The apostles then also bore their cross after Christ Jesus in order to communicate that Resurrection life to their charges. If we are to play our part in the communication of the Resurrection life to our charges, we too must bear our cross after Christ Jesus. Let our Lenten disciplines, then, be worked out of love into the bearing of the cross, so that we play our part in communicating the Resurrection life to any who look to us for guidance or example. Let us like St. Paul say with cross-bearing authority, we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. We have Good News to proclaim and to live and die for. Repentance is still a possibility. The Lord in His mercy may still avert the catastrophe that looms.