On Balance and Christianity

Many late night conversations with the roommate turn out to be blog-worthy chats. The problem is that these exchanges occur in the wee hours of the morning once I have arrived home from work. This post is one such conversation from my point of view. It draws heavily on what I have come to understand is an Eastern concept of balance and the writings of Richard Foster and Marjorie Thompson on spiritual disciplines.

Like many of our conversations this started with drinking. A friend of Ted's is heading up a singles ministry that involves twenty-somethings from a few area churches. One gathering announcement on facebook or somewhere talked about an upcoming event and had a strangely awkward sentence at the end talking about drinking. "Remember, we are being watched and must put forth the best witness we can. Therefore, we will not be drinking at our event."

Many of my readers can likely tell where I might be going with this. I am part of the Wesleyan Church, a Wesleyan-Arminian Church in the Holiness movement. We are a "dry" Church, meaning that we, as a people of like faith, have seen that alcohol in many respects has been an agent for evil and victimized children, wives and families. At the same time I have many family members, friends who were Wesleyans or friends who went to Houghton with me (a Wesleyan school) who do drink from time to time. Certainly I cannot say that each of these are responsible adults, but I respect these people and the integrity of their faith. I have come to believe that people of faith and good conscience can fall on both sides of this fence.

That brought my thoughts to a chapter of Marjorie Thompson's book Soul Feast discussing the importance of fasting. She sees two main reasons for fasting in the Bible. Primarily, fasting is seen as a personal or corporate means of repentance "and humble supplication before God in the face of imminent destruction or calamity (See Joel 2, Jonah 3 and Esther 4). The second purpose of a fast was to prepare oneself inwardly for receiving the necessary strength and grace to complete a mission of faithful service in God's name." (Thompson, 76)

Thompson goes on to explore fasting from the perspective of the Church's Lenten season. Founded on the idea of Israel's 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and Jesus' own 40 days of wilderness temptations, the Christian Church has long observed a period of fasting for 40 days prior to the Easter feast. She describes the entire Church calendar as "rhythms of feasting and fasting." (Thompson, 78)

Further back we can find foundations of this practice in the garden. "In Eden, God gave Adam and Eve every fruit of the garden but one. That one fruit, out of a world of variety, indicated a limit to human freedom. Accepting that limit was the single abstinence required by God. It was a way of recognizing that human beings are dependent on God for life. But Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be seduced by the serpent (a figure of God's enemy, Satan). The serpent's question inverts the reality of the situation, 'Did God say, "You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?" (Gen. 3.1, emphasis added). Instead of a prohibition against one fruit, God's warning is presented as a prohibition against all fruit. The temptation, it seems, is to see a single boundary as so restrictive that it negates the good of all other freedoms. Adam and Eve took the bait. Metapohorically, they "broke the fast," transgressing the one limit required of them. In refusing to accept the natural bounds of their creaturehood, they reached for the very place of God. They wanted it all." (Thompson, 79) We are, then, returning to the garden in our 40 days of Lent to remember that God is God and we are not. God is the source and sustenance of creation, including humanity.

This is a beautiful picture of fasting on a personal level - even the whole of the spiritual disciplines. We seek to place God back at the center of life, and in the case of fasting and other disciplines of restriction, we do this by voluntarily limiting our own freedoms. Could not the same be said of communities? Mennonites and Holiness communities and denominations (among others) are by their example seeking to create "fasts" to offset the "feasts" the rest of the world seems to be bingeing on.

The question is this, I suppose. Has God asked you to exercise freedom in Christ - and in that freedom display restraint - or has God asked you to participate in the self-giving of fasting for the sake of humanity?