Nehemiah 9:1-3
Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with dust on their heads.
* 2Then those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors.
3They stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the
Lord their God for a fourth part of the day, and for another fourth they made confession and worshipped the
Lord their God.
Acts 13:1-3
Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler,
* and Saul.
2While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’
3Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Hungering for God – Dr. Bill Levering
I know a man I met when I was pastor at another church. He is a big man with a big heart. A man who loves food, loves to eat.
This man I know is constantly trying to lose weight. And it's a real battle. When he was growing up, there wasn't always enough food, so he learned to eat fast. When he was growing up, food was how affection was expressed and shared. When he was in high school, he played football and bigger was better. All throughout his life he saw thousands and thousands of commercials begging him to eat salty, fatty, sweet foods. For just pennies more, he could get a bigger burger, more fries, and a bigger Coke. It didn't make sense not to.
He thinks about food: his last meal, his next meal. He wants cookies and salty crunchy things all the time.
He has a rubber band around a part of his stomach so he can't eat as much. He feels physically full almost right away when he eats. But he is still hungry, surrounded by food. While he lost some weight at first, it's not going away any more. He is the reaching Tantalus, unable to be satisfied. He is Sisyphus, rolling the rock of daily dieting. He is Prometheus bound to his own body, his organs regenerating while he is tortured.
He feels guilty and deprived all at once. He has self-pity and determination, all at once. He wants control and satisfaction, all at once. He wants to resist his cake and eat it too. And so his spirit is split. He serves two masters, obeys two voices.
He is all of us.
This is a problem of the modern age, but not unique to the modern age. Imagine how folks thought about food when they had to hunt and gather every morsel. Imagine generations wondering. How much was in the pot? How much would they get?
What is new for us is the messages of self indulgence we hear constantly. Jaron Lanier in a recent Harpers article called The Serfdom of Crowds, suggests that the driving force of most new ventures in America will be advertising. The internet already is completely shaped by advertising. Advertising shapes our future information. Even now it brings us television, it comes in the mail, we read it in the newspapers. It is the false God telling us we can have whatever we want: "Take, eat!"
We have never needed the idea of fasting more than we do today. However, it will be harder now than it ever has been.
The chorus of self-indulgence is loud and shrill. "You deserve a break today!" "Have it your way!" "Tastes great - less filling." Richard Foster, author of the famous Celebration of Discipline, writes in the very first paragraph of the book, "The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem."
The idea of waiting a few hours to eat is outrageous when our culture sells immediate action: ("Do it now!") and immediate gratification. Food can't be fast enough now, being measured in seconds rather than minutes at most fast food restaurants. Cooking is now heating, and eating is now a crude shoveling without grace or community.
It is curious that fasting hasn't become more popular when there is good research that says fasting will lower blood pressure, relieve diabetes and sleep apnea, and make you live significantly longer. It is simply out of sight. Which celebrities fast? What legislation encourages it? What public service announcement touts it? It is a cultural heresy to deny an urge.
Here is the bottom line: some of the things we want, we shouldn't get. So fasting is a practice and practice. It is a practice that itself can make us healthier and it is practice for the other desires that can destroy our spirits: the need for approval, the desperate reaching for power or control, the thirsting for booze, the lust for fame, the fearful grabbing of security. Saying 'no' to ourselves about anything is increasingly difficult, whether is it turning off the TV, pushing back, or making time for God.
I'll bet some of you who give up things for lent get mixed reactions from people. "Why are you doing that??" It's downright un-American not to consume as much as you can. Our continuous rise in consuming was only halted for a moment because of the monumental greed of folks in the investment community.
To remind us of the realities of limited resources and to steel us for the fact that the world does not revolve around our whims, we limit our intake, we budget, we pace ourselves, we hold back, we fast, hungering for God. Foster writes, "Fasting can bring breakthroughs in the spiritual realm that will never happen in any other way. It is a means of God's grace and blessing that should not be neglected any longer."
In scripture, fasting is used when important moments are faced, and when big problems are encountered, and in the regular observances of the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. In the Old Testament passage, the people are reestablishing their homeland and temple. In the New Testament, Jesus runs into a tough healing case and tells the disciples that it requires extraordinary measures: fasting as well as prayer.
In practice, fasting is going without food, usually during daylight hours. Using common sense and God's desire for our wholeness, this is obviously not for people with frail health or eating disorders. It is however, a spiritual tool most of us should consider. Jesus gave guidelines on not getting dramatic about our fasts, presuming that we were doing it.
Fasting is good for our humility and our self-discipline. It increases the focus of intercessory prayer, helps in decision making, and concentration. It gives us a sense of solidarity with the poor, and can be a revelation of our bad habits.
I’m not really here to urge you to fast, that is a personal decision. I am here to call our attention to how difficult and idea this is. We have become self-indulgent as a people. We have developed a way of life that measures all things by comfort and security. Sacrifice is reserved for war or for our personal futures.
We speak about the bounty and expansive wonder of God’s wishes for us and use symbols of feasts and banquets and streets of gold. These are symbols of a deep joy not to be confused with the idea that God wants to satisfy our every whim of pleasure. We don’t jam big hunks of muffins into our mouths at the Lord ’s Table. We take laughably small bits of bread and juice. We meter not God, but own desires. In denying ourselves, we make room for God.
Amen.
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Ok. here's a start from WebMD:
Fasting Diets
Most religions use periods of fasting as a means of demonstrating faith or penitence, and an opportunity for spiritual reflection. Fasting has also historically been a means to express political views and a form of protest.
Though it may not be the most practical -- or safest -- diet, some people use fasting as a way to lose weight or to cleanse the body of toxins, although experts say our bodies are perfectly equipped with organs that already do the job. How fasting is used for weight loss varies by diet. Some fasting diets involve drinking nothing but water or eating only raw foods for a period of one or more days, while others restrict food on alternate days. Certain fasting diets only allow liquids like water, juice, or tea, while others dramatically cut calories but do not eliminate food altogether.
Does Fasting Help You Lose Weight?
When you fast, your body is forced to dip into energy stores to get the fuel it needs to keep going, so you will lose weight. The big question is how long you will keep that weight off. Because food was often scarce for our ancestors, our bodies have been genetically programmed to combat the effects of fasting. When you eat less food, your metabolism slows down to conserve energy. Then, when you go back to your usual diet, your lowered metabolism may cause you to store more energy, meaning that you will probably gain back the weight you lost and possibly even put on more weight when eating the same calories you did before the fast.
As you fast, your body will adjust by reducing your appetite, so you will initially feel less hungry. But once you have stopped fasting, your appetite hormones will kick back into gear and you may actually feel hungrier and be more likely to binge.
Research has shown that fasting on alternate days can help people lose weight, but not for long. In one study, people who followed an alternate-day fasting diet shed weight, even when they ate all they wanted on the non-fasting days. However, they could not maintain the weight loss over time.
Can Fasting Detoxify the Body?
Some fasting diets claim that they can cleanse the body of impurities. However, there is no evidence that fasting detoxifies your body, or that your body even needs to be detoxified. It is naturally designed to remove toxins through the skin (by sweating), liver, colon, and kidneys.
Could Fasting Help You Live Longer?
Studies of fasting in both rodents and humans appear to indicate a connection between calorie restriction and longevity. In one study of overweight men and women, a calorie-restricted diet improved markers of aging, such as insulin level and body temperature.
Fasting might also improve longevity by delaying the onset of age-related diseases including Alzheimer's, heart disease, and diabetes. One study showed that skipping meals once a month, as members of the Mormon religious group do, reduces the risk of clogged arteries (the build-up of plaque that can lead to heart attacks and strokes). However, it is not clear from this research whether fasting alone or the Mormons' generally healthier lifestyle (they also abstain from coffee, alcohol, and smoking) is responsible for the improved heart health.
Researchers do not yet know whether the effects of fasting translate into an actual increase in lifespan, because they have not followed people for long enough periods of time.
A fabulous outline on fasting in the Old Testament by Mark Copeland.
1. What is the longest you have gone without eating? Why did you do it?
2. What happens when you are hungry?
3. Is it good to control your appetites? Why?
4. Wouldn't you like a brownie sundae right now?
(c) William H. Levering 2010
