Joining the Justice Fast
If you have been attending East End Fellowship since before the pandemic you probably remember the year we began the spiritual discipline of practicing a justice fast. The original intent of the justice fast was to begin an ongoing process of spiritual discipline designed to increase our individual and collective passion for God’s desire for comprehensive justice. This justice was modeled and preached by Jesus. Jesus preached the gospel or the good news of God’s kingdom. Although there are several legitimate reasons one might fast, collectively we are committing to fasting for justice.
Our justice fast is composed of several vital components that combine the three acts of righteousness mentioned in Matthew 6 (almsgiving or acts of mercy, prayer, and fasting) together with the well-known prophetic condemnation of Israel’s fasting in Isaiah 58.
I am not attempting to exhaust all the implications of our justice fast but here are three components.
Prayers of lament: Prayers of lament are of course most associated with the Psalms. However, the willingness of biblical characters who plead, debate, and even demand for God to act consistent with his revealed character, are scattered throughout the biblical text. The prayer element of our justice fast recognizes that lament is an essential component of praying for justice. Our lament is twofold. God has revealed himself to be vitally concerned for justice and righteousness for the oppressed and marginalized, a dominant theme in the law, the prophets, the Psalms, the wisdom tradition, Jesus’ life and teaching, as well as the early church. The first aspect of lament is our expression of frustration, pain, anger, or bewilderment that the God who is on the side of the oppressed can permit the oppression and injustice that we see. In our lament we plead for God to act according to his character. We plead, “God where are you? Do you not see? Are you asleep? Wake up and do something about this violation of your will for your creation!” These prayers of lament are not an expression of lack of faith but are in fact prayers of an incredibly strong and tenacious faith. Jesus himself authorizes such prayer in Matthew 6:10, “your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Revelation 22:20 concludes with a similar plea: Maranatha—Come Lord Jesus. All lament in some sense is a prayer for God’s kingdom to come.
However, there is another perspective from which to view lament. The well-known story of Jacob wrestling with the angel can be seen as a metaphor for Israel’s relationship to Yahweh. Israel struggled with God in prayer and in their covenant relationship. As I already mentioned one aspect of lament is the prayer struggle that wrestles with God, pleading, even demanding that he act according to his revealed character and to act as he has in the past. Jacob struggled with the angel and demanded blessing, the fulfillment of the covenant promises made to his grandfather Abraham, his father Isaac, and to himself. However, there were two contestants in this wrestling match. If you are familiar with the earlier biblical narratives involving Jacob you are aware that we can also see the angel wrestling Jacob because Jacob needed to be defeated. He was in dire need of personal transformation. This epic struggle concluded with the angel touching Jacob’s hip socket and as a result he walked with a limp for the remainder, or might I say, the reminder of his life. One author calls this wrestling match the magnificent defeat! Is it too much a stretch of the imagination to say that if we enter into the struggle of lament with God we may also be touched, and our walk, individual and collective, will be changed? An encounter with God changes our walk!
This second aspect of lament is the other side of the coin of the first. Prayers of lament are also prayers of repentance for our individual and collective indifference, our lack of pursuing the work of justice and righteousness. Another perspective on lament could say that part of God’s response to our pleas for God to act can in fact understand God’s response to ask the same questions of us: “People of God where are you? Do you not see? Are you asleep? Wake up and do something about this violation of my will for my creation!” So, the first component of a justice fast is prayer, but more specifically prayers of lament.
The second component of our justice fast is the spiritual discipline of fasting.
Prayers of lament are naturally connected to fasting since deep grief often results in no desire to eat (Hannah when she was barren, David when his son was sick). This kind of fasting is an individual and collective response to an immediate and urgent need or overwhelming grief. However the justice fast is a response that recognizes a deeper or ongoing issue of oppression and injustice that compels an ongoing response. We choose to concentrate our justice fast during the period of Lent, a 40 day period between Ash Wednesday through Easter. Fasting during Lent has a long tradition in the Church and is modeled after Jesus’ 40 day fast in the wilderness.
There is an aspect of fasting which recognizes going without physical food is not the same as saying we are going without any food whatsoever. It is a recognition and a reminder that we have food to eat that transcends physical food (John 4:31-34). Also, if we believe we are in a struggle against principalities and powers that are at the heart of injustice, fasting is a reminder to us and and to those powers that we do not live by bread alone. Although there may be specific times when lament and fasting about injustice is occasioned by certain events, fasting and prayer can also be an intentional ongoing practice of spiritual discipline. This is an aspect of what Paul challenged Timothy to do, train himself in godliness.
Fasting is a means of entering into solidarity and empathy, albeit in a much lesser form, with the struggle of those who often go without necessary food. Fasting is an aspect of what it means to have all things in common; fasting can be a way to express community solidarity. This is a more roundabout way of expressing the truth that fasting is a family response to the truth that when one suffers, we all suffer. This brings us to the third component of the justice fast.
Our justice fast understands that prayers of lament and denying oneself food are intended to form the foundation of an embodied righteous response to injustice and poverty. This is the third component of our justice fast. Matthew 6:1, and more emphatically Isaiah 58:6-7 demand that one of the most fundamental demonstrations that we know and love God is embodied in extremely concrete responses:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
To engage in the work of justice and righteousness without prayer is a failure to recognize the true nature of the war we are engaged in. However, at the same time to pray for justice and righteousness without engaging in that work is to ignore one of the most repeated calls to action in Scripture: DO the work of justice and righteousness! Pray, Fast, and Work for justice (a threefold cord is not quickly broken). Feed the hungry, clothe the naked. The specific way our justice fast approaches the demand that we do the work of justice is to take money you would have spent for food and drink during your fast and donate those funds to the work of justice, specifically the work of justice in our own neighborhood.
The third component of fasting that must not be neglected is the reminder that comes at the conclusion of Isaiah 58, a reminder that our delight is in the Lord, not our possessions. We give joyously!
The work of justice is intended to be a joy, a delight, because we are participating in the work that is at the center of God’s heart, the very center of God’s character. God is a God who delights to give and give generously. Through the justice fast we reflect God’s character in our communal generosity.
Therefore during the season of Lent we are asking that you choose some form of an intentional fast and pray daily, or regularly for God’s kingdom justice in our community. We are also asking that you take the money you would have spent on food, drink, or entertainment during your fast and contribute to our East End Fellowship justice fast fund. The simplest way is through our giving app and choose justice fast in the drop down menu, or you could mail a check but make sure to put justice fast on the memo line.
