Hedonism and Moralism (Fasting III)

Spiritual life is about learning to think in both-ands.[1] It’s about holding tension. For example: “There is pain in the world,” and  “God is good.” When you can think in both-ands, you can find surer footing on the path with God. But walking in tension is not easy. It can feel like walking on a knife’s edge.[2] We are, for example, called to enjoy the pleasures of life and to avoid over-indulgence. We are called to be a people of delight without becoming slaves to pleasure. If you fall too far on either side, you’ll become a dour-faced prude or a wild hedonist. Moralism (the belief you can make life work by being good enough/getting everything right/earning God’s approval) on one hand or hedonism (the misuse and abuse of pleasure) on the other is always the pattern, as one of Jesus’ greatest parables makes clear. We call it “The Parable of the Prodigal,” but it’s really “The Parable of Two Sons.” Each son in Jesus’ story represents how challenging it is to walk in the anxiety of our humanity without resorting to moralism or hedonism in an attempt to control it.[3]

 The younger son turns hedonist, demanding his inheritance early (a galactic insult to his father) and promptly wasting it on wild partying, with “friends” and prostitutes. While his younger brother focuses on illicit pleasure, the older son remains at home and remains a staunch moralist, focused on playing by the rules.[4]  Each extreme, moralism or hedonism, provides the sense of control which our ego desperately craves—control through either the power of certainty/being right (the allure of moralism) or through being able to drown out, even temporarily, our sorrows (the allure of hedonism). Being right or numbing out each has is its own sort of “high,” its own type of transcendence. Each allows us, in a way, to feel invulnerable to and powerful over our inner doubts and insecurities. 

But as followers of Jesus, rather than bouncing back and forth from moralism to hedonism, we are called to turn from both and learn to live in a new place altogether, balancing delight with restraint and discipline with joy. This turns out to take quite a bit of work and a tremendous development of character! What’s the difference between enjoying another glass of wine and abusing alcohol? What’s the line between “one more cookie,” as an act of enjoyment, and gluttony? Or between giving to someone versus becoming codependent with them? It all comes down to conscience; it requires sensitivity to what defiles your conscience and what aligns your conscience with God. No one can write a rulebook for the nuances of spiritual life. It demands, rather, being led by God’s Spirit. It means being led by love, for only when we are in alignment with our own conscience and God’s Spirit are we fully empowered to love others as Jesus does.[5] This will mean a balance of the practice of delight with the cultivation of restraint and self-discipline, and listening always to what is needed in any given moment.

Ultimately, we can only walk this path—the path of life in the Spirit—when we have a healthy God-image. This is perhaps the most stunning message of Jesus’ parable: both sons are on the estate and in the house with the Father, yet neither son understands their Father’s heart! One sees his father as some prudish fuddy-duddy under whose nose he has to sneak fun, the other as a curmudgeonly judge demanding that he get everything right. Each image is a fantasy within their own mind. Neither reflects the heart of their good father. Yet their view determines the course of their story.

In other words, within our practice of delight and discipline, our view of God is revealed. If we are too rigid in our conduct, we do not see the God of all love and delight. If we are too loose in our behavior, we do not see the Holy God who loves us and will never let our soul settle for less than freedom. We must see, at once, both the God who is Generous Father, desiring our joy and our delight, and also the Holy Lover who will not allow us to hide ourselves or numb out through the abuse of pleasure. We must learn to walk the middle path of delight and restraint. If we aren’t trained to live there with God, we may—like these sons—be discontent with how seldom we experience the fullness of God, even though He is quite near to us.

This is why fasting is so crucial. It helps us live in the middle ground. We've pushed back against moralism through The Jesus Paradigm, by making it clear that God’s completed work of adoption cannot be earned, it can only be received. All we can do is learn to say “yes” back to the “yes” God has spoken to us in Jesus. We push back against religious rigidity or legalism by becoming, for example, a people of delight, as we discussed as a part of Sabbath, and by feasting, an expression of hospitality.[6] But we also need a way to push back against hedonism. 

Fasting, then, is a course corrector. It’s a way of checking in on our souls and noticing the attachments and affections our soul is developing. If our soul becomes over-attached to any good thing, or “loves the world” too much, it can be detrimental to our spiritual transformation.[7] Jesus said, “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be.”[8] James K.A. Smith piggybacks on the idea, saying “You are what you love.”[9] We need to be aware of what our heart is growing to love, knowing that lesser love can ultimately crowd out our greater love, even the love of God Himself. We need a way to keep our hearts from losing their posture of surrender before Jesus as Lord. 

Having a lord, after all, means losing your rights and your entitlement. It means we don’t get to say “yes” to everything just because we want it. Indeed, it means learning to say “no.” Abram said “no” to comfort and “yes” to surrender and trust by leaving Ur—and every familiarity and comfort he had known—and going to a land he did not know.[10] When Mary was faced with the great discomfort of bearing a baby and appearing to all the world like a loose, ungodly woman, for the sake of bearing God’s life in the world, she said, “I am the servant of the Lord’s, let it be to me according to your word.”[11] Paul called himself a “bondservant”—a slave—of Christ Jesus.[12] What kind of posture is that, in all three of them? It’s a posture of someone who has surrendered entitlement and made themself a servant. This is the posture of a disciple! In the Western world, we are constantly bombarded with the message, “You are the center of the universe” and “You deserve it.” A disciple of Jesus does not accept this message. They submit their life, instead, to the lordship of Jesus himself, embracing delight and restraint at the same time, as an act of worship before God.[13]

We are always walking this line: between delight without abusing pleasure, and discipline without becoming rigid.[14] Delight keeps us from being Puritanical, fasting keeps us from being hedonistic. The only way we can walk this line is by the Spirit. Sometimes having that extra cupcake misses the mark (the literal definition of sin), sometimes it doesn’t. Caring for the poor and those in need is a constant scriptural command, but knowing how much to give and when and how takes wisdom.[15] This is not nit picking. It’s in these intimate places and decisions of human heart that matter. If we can learn to be faithful even in what seem like little decisions, the habit of faithfulness will bloom in all of our lives. As Jesus said, “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.”[16]

In fasting, we find a way to enter into this training of becoming faithful that, ultimately, we would become fruitful.[17]

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]Remember, for example: God is three and one, All-powerful and All-vulnerable, human and divine, and on and on.

[2]It is far easier to live “painting by numbers,” living by rigid laws, than following our conscience, led by the Holy Spirit. But in some situations, follow our conscience is exactly what we must do, as Scripture attests. In Romans 13-14 and I Corinthians 8, for example, Paul says that certain sins are a matter of conscience, not a matter of clear right and wrong. We tend to be much more comfortable with clear binaries (a or b, in/out, right/wrong), but such simplistic thinking can actually prevent us from walking in God’s Spirit. We actually need God and not just a rule! 

[3]Our anxiety stems, as discussed in the first chapter, about whether we are really “in.” Do we really have a place or a future in which we can be ourselves without fear? Are we truly seen, known, and loved? Our anxiety stems from the fear that we will not have such a place nor know such a reality. 

[4]See Luke 15:11-32.

[5]Cf. Romans 8, Romans 13:10.

[6]See “Heart of Sabbath” in ‘Chapter 9: The Slow Life: Sabbath.’

[7]I John 2:15.

[8]Matthew 6:21.

[9]Smith, James K.A. Smith. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Brazos Press. Ada, MI. 2016.

[10]Hebrews 11:8.

[11]Luke 1:38, ESV.

[12]Romans 1:1.

[13]See John 14:15, Romans 12:2.

[14]Cf., in philosophy, Aristotle’s Golden Mean.

[15]See, for example, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poorby Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. Moody Publishers. Chicago, IL. 2014.

[16]Luke 16:10.

[17]Again, the message of John 15:1-11 is that only in submission and obedience do we become fruitful. Not exactly the mantra of the Western world with its focus on me-first and unrestrained independence. 

The Path to Empty (Fasting II)

Jesus entered into and experienced a deep emptying. In Philippians 2, Paul says that Jesus, though he was God, emptied himself.

  Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God        
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
   and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
   he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.[1]

This path of emptying is called kenosis.[2] Emptying preceded Jesus’ resurrection, and the resurrection could not take place without it. We often think of spirituality as a filling up, of more information, more good deeds, more effort—and those are all good things. But authentic spirituality is catalyzed by falling into God and being held by Him. It is an emptying which allows us to be filled. Good deeds, for example, must be borne out of our falling into God and not an attempt to earn anything from God. Only then can the deeds be filled with true spiritual power. This is why spirituality is always an unlearning. Only when we are falling can we trust God to catch us. Abram became Abraham journeying far from everything he’d ever known and all the comforts of his old life.[3] As David Brooks says, “If you ask anybody, ‘What’s the activity that you had that made you who you are?’ no one says, ‘You know I had a really great vacation in Hawaii.’ No one says that. They say, ‘I had a period of struggle. I lost a loved one. I was in the Army. And that period of struggle or that period of toughness made me who I am.’”[4]

Such emptying is the path of resurrection because God has redeemed even death. He has, in Jesus, made it a path to life. We can, therefore be emptied without fear, even if it is painful. Indeed, we must be emptied, to be held by God. As Jesus said, to bear life, a seed must fall to the ground and die.[5] It is a strange truth, but when we are held by God in the place of suffering, it is worth if, even if feel like we’re dying.[6] I remember, in times of depression, being so aware of beauty that, when the depression left, there was some part of it that I missed. I missed how deeply I was in touch with the raw power of God’s divine energy and how sensitive I was to beauty all around me. The perfection of a bare tree limb against a white moon was forever imprinted on my heart and mind. When I experienced something beautiful, like that, I felt God was holding me and, in some way, I learned to be held by God. I’m not glorifying depression, but rather pointing out the reality that when we are emptied, we often come into contact with fundamental realities which, when we are filled again, we can appreciate in entirely new ways. 

In fasting, we enter into the pattern of kenosis, so that we can taste resurrection. By fasting, we create space for the Holy Spirit to come closer to us. Jesus, after all, called the Holy Spirit the paraclete, which means a defender or an advocate, as in court, and literally “one who comes alongside.”[7] Paul says, for example, that the Spirit comes alongside us to convince us of our adoption in God.[8] Image that! God’s Spirit is always working, at every moment, to bring you into the reality of who God is and who you are in God. This is exactly what the world needs! If we are liberated, we can liberate. As Paul goes on to say, “All creation is groaning” and “All creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.”[9] If we are emptied, we create space for the Spirit to teach us that we are God’s children. Then we become empowered to love and see the world around us redeemed in new ways, as we love in Jesus’ name. When we fast, we create space for the Spirit to fill us. 

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]Philippians 2:6-8.

[2]From the Greek kenóō. The word can also be translated “to be perceived as without value, worthless.” Try to wrap your head around this: God, the One of ultimate

value, became as one perceived as worthless. This is what God willingly did, in Jesus, for our sake.

[3]Genesis 12:1-2, Genesis 17:5.

[4]David Brooks, qtd. in “What’s The Key To A Meaningful Life? You Might Not Like The Answer.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/david-brooks-life-meaning_us_56e6f962e4b0b25c9182b0c3 [December 30, 2017].

[5]John 12:24.

[6]2 Corinthians 4:16, Romans 8:18.

[7]John 14:26.

[8]Romans 8:16.

[9]Romans 8:19.

Fasting: Emptied to be Filled (Fasting I)

Stuffed Full of Stuff 

By the time I was in high school, my dad’s medical practice had become prosperous. Growing up, he had often left home on the weekends to pick up shifts, to make ends meet. But things changed as he became more successful, and it changed our home life. It meant, for example, that we had big Christmases. When I was seventeen, we had a very big Christmas, with lots of presents under the tree. 

It was the worst Christmas I’ve ever had. 

On Christmas Eve, my siblings were watching that great Christmas classic The Godfather(okay, not exactly up there with Clarence getting his wings), when my parents had a big fight. We could hear it upstairs, and my brother and I looked at each other and took a collective deep breath. Suddenly, my father rushed downstairs, grabbed his jacket, and, without saying a word, slammed the door behind him. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. There were boxes everywhere on Christmas morning, and all full of stuff. But what good is stuff when you aren’t connected? When what really matters is absent, how can you feel any true wealth? I remember thinking that I’d rather us have no Christmas presents but simply be happy being together.

It wasn’t just Christmas, either; throughout the year, boxes would arrive at our house. Our home was inundated with stuff: CDs and clothes and books and gadgets. My sorrow and hopelessness at having things but no real joy grew. 

The strange thing is, I have the heart of a collector. I love beautiful books and wooden boxes. I love looking through antique stores. But as an adult, I find that rather than over-eating or over-drinking or over-sexing (though I have done each), my most consistent temptation is to numb out by acquiring more things. Which is strange, because I don’t consider myself materialistic or greedy. I hate wasting money, and I don’t think I spend it wantonly. But then again, in our prosperous society, greed easily flies beneath the radar. I’ve never had someone stand in my office and say, “Wow, you have a lot of books. Do you have a problem with greed?” Yet I have a penchant for “taking the edge off” by buying some new book or some new thing. I can get lost in it. It relieves the angst of life for a moment, but often at the cost of a closed and frustrated heart, as having more starts to feel like a prison. Things that satisfy us only temporarily are not satisfying at all.

Which is why each year I engage in a consumption fast. It’s an extended time of many months where I don’t buy anything new except what is essential. You know, deodorant and the like (you’re welcome, world). I train myself to see how much I have and how little I really need. I train my soul to be content. I practice giving away my things and my money to those in need. I fast because I know that otherwise, my mind and heart can get filled up with having and possessing.[1] The American ideal of having more starts to rewire my thinking. And I don’t want to get lost in that. Our lives can so easily get filled, crowding out the space where the Holy Spirit would stand, if we would let Him. We need ways to do that—to let Him stand with and within us. For this reason, fasting is a core practice of The Grounded Life, by which we make space for God to live and move and breathe within us, just as He desires to do. 

A Core Practice

Fasting was one of the core practices of the early Church. When leaders in the early Church had to make big decisions, they did so with “prayer and fasting.”[2] Jesus himself fasted for forty days in the wilderness, and he told his disciples that after he was gone from them, they would fast.[3] Fasting is a crucial practice for spiritual life, critical to the development of vibrant hearts.

And what is fasting? It’s a voluntary, temporary reduction in comfort, so that we can redirect our spiritual energy to God. It is detaching from over-dependence on any good thing—even the very gifts of God which we are meant to enjoy (food, drink, entertainment, and so on)—so that we can, for a season, refocus the energy spent delighting toward hungering at a deeper level, even for the very presence of God Himself. 

Fasting is a spiritual practice deeply connected to gratitude. When we fast, we learn to say, “I am perfectly okay without that book, that food, that drink, that television, that social media,” so that our soul gains confidence in its joy being with and before God. Fasting leads us to gratitude because in fasting we discover our freedom.

The spiritual principle undergirding fasting is simple: we can’t be filled unless we are emptied. As Khalil Gibran said, “Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potters oven?”[4] Sometimes this emptying comes from suffering, yes. But in fasting, we preemptively empty ourselves. We don’t wait around for suffering to come to empty us. We empty ourselves so that when suffering comes (as it will, eventually), we already know and, more importantly, trust the resurrection pattern of being filled by God in the midst of emptiness. In this way, we learn to be emptied in any situation with the confidence that God will fill us. Jesus demonstrated the highest order of this trust when he went to his death, trusting that God would yet fill him with life.  

Jesus often speaks of the necessity of being emptied. “You must lose your life” is, of course, a directive to let go.[5] In John 15, Jesus dilates on the matter, revealing that part of his work in the disciples over the previous three years was to prune them. “You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.”[6] The word cleaned means pruned, and the pruning he describes is an emptying of ourselves, the stripping of all the ways we try to make life work and be fruitful on our own terms. The only way to live a truly fruitful life, Jesus says, is to be cut back, to be made empty, so that we can be filled with the very life of God. 

We all resist this. We hate suffering and emptying and vulnerability, and we will always resist it. I don’t know anyone who, when pain comes, says, “Yippee!” But God’s Spirit loves us enough to lead us through the place where we are laid bare, even when it stings us, so that we can be filled with life. This, after all, is the resurrection pattern which we must come to trust if we are to enter fully into the Reign of God. When we are emptied in this way, we become fruitful, and the wine of our lives becomes comfort for others.[7]

For this reason, James tells us to give thanks for trials.[8] By giving thanks, we see with spiritual eyes that what is happening in us—the development of our eternal souls—is far weightier than “the sufferings of this present age.”[9] In a similar way, in fasting, we can participate in our pruning, so that we become ripe with resurrection life.

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1]Which reminds me of Jesus’ words: “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

[2]E.g Acts 13:13, 14:23.

[3]Matthew 4:1-11; Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:20, Luke 5:35. In addition to Jesus in the wilderness, there are many other fasting examples in Scripture, such as Daniel’s fast in Daniel 1:12. Most Scriptural fasts deal with food, but for our purposes here we will focus not only on food, but also on other areas of consumption.

[4]Gibran, Khalil. The Prophet. Alfred A. Knopf. New York, NY. 1923. Page 29.

[5]A paraphrase of Matthew 10:39: “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”

[6]John 15:3.

[7]2 Corinthians 1:4.

[8]James 2:1ff. Trials bring the testing of our faith, which causes our endurance to grow, which brings us to wholeness and completion in God.

[9]Romans 8.