Friday Night Theology

The True Fast

11 September 2008

Right now, your Muslim friends are half way through Ramadan, their annual fast from sunrise to sunset, every day, for a month. Every year when it comes to this time, I'm always very grateful I'm not a Muslim. I really admire their discipline in fasting, but I think I would seriously struggle to do the same myself for a whole month.

There clearly are spiritual benefits to fasting, and perhaps we should take it a bit more seriously than we usually do. At the same time, though, we need to remember what the Scriptures call the 'true fast': "The kind of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you. Treat them fairly and give them what they earn. I want you to share your food with the hungry and to welcome poor wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help." Isaiah 58: 6-7. Isaiah wrote those words thousands of years ago and their relevance today has not diminished. The gap between rich and poor only continues to widen: one in five of the world's population live on less than a dollar a day. It seems impossible then, in the light of this, that the call to confront injustice could have gone away.

Micah Challenge is one movement that is trying to address this. It speaks out against the injustice of global poverty, and is holding the international community to account for their promise to deliver the Millennium Development Goals and so halve global poverty by 2015. At present, it's looking like that goal won't be achieved, but at least governments are recognising this: a UN emergency meeting is being held on the 25th September in an effort to put the goals back on track. This meeting is crucial: quite literally the lives of millions could depend upon it. The Bishop of London is highlighting its importance and in conjunction with Micah Challenge has proposed Think: Fast, an initiative that encourages people to take action praying and fasting in the 10 days leading up to the UN meeting. Whether you take up that challenge or not, you could encourage your church to join thousands of others worldwide that are holding a Micah Sunday event on October 19th.

The words of Isaiah certainly don't tell us not to fast. They rather remind us that fasting is pointless if it is not accompanied by action and a genuine concern and love for our neighbour. Similarly, Shahid Malik, MP, writing in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, observed that Ramadan is supposed to be a time of remembering the suffering of the poor and doing something about it, not just fasting for the sake of it. It would seem, then, that we have a ready point of contact with our Muslim colleagues and neighbours in the days ahead. Perhaps, we can build on this to talk with them about our shared understanding of what a true fast really is, and in the process point them to the God who does not demand fasting for salvation, but does invite us to join with him in serving and loving the poor.

Susannah Clark, Public Theology